2010, What a year.
On the writing front, another book released: The Map and The Stone, another NaNo won, a competition lost, Portal 3 progressing and still not finished, but a huge milestone covered in it. I'm pretty much done on the first draft now and just need to fill gaps and give it the first look over to get it ready for test reading – so, test readers, get your red pens out and check they still work please!
There was also a venture into the world of Amazon Kindle publishing, and ebooks in other formats too, which was a huge success, and has inspired am embryonic idea that may shape 2011 quite nicely.
I sent out loads of free ebooks to deployed troops and I hope all the men and women out there, wherever they may be, are safe and well and finding some relief from the horrors. I hope you all make it home to your families.
I took the first steps into the idea of carbon offsetting and planting trees to balance the paper used in my paperbacks. This is something I hope to see grow and expand during 2011.
On a personal front, I saw the end of an ongoing health issue and I now feel better than I have in years. My youngest child started school and I now have that time for writing and working, so, of course I spend it in the garden, doing housework, shopping…. anything but writing.
In real life I lost a friend, and I gained a friend. In writing I cried over a character death that I never thought I'd write, and over a character birth that was just as unexpected, and I felt empty once the scene was written but then there was a surge of satisfaction that, actually, it's a sort of very relaxed and comfortable ending. I found a new muse who drives cars laden with weird technology and who laughs a lot.
2010, thank you, you've been one heck of a year filled with growth, light and love along the way. I'm sure 2011 is going to be even better.
