End of a year

December 31st 2006 at 5:00 pm

It’s been a pretty wild year for me. In summary:

My grandfather passed away February 1st after a long couple months.

On February 3rd, not long after coming back from the memorial, my contract at my dayjob was cancelled. I was expected to work until late August and train a co-worker to replace me.

Saw my first novel appear in print in February, on the 7th.

In March, I decided I was going to become a full time writer and blogger.

Finished writing my second novel, revised it, revised it.

I started to suspect I could walk out of the last months of my day job in April, but I held out until May before packing it up. I’d replaced most of my income from the dayjob with blogging and non-fiction work, and I was beginning to hope that I might even make somewhat more.

May, June, July, August were a whirlwind of traveling to conventions while editing that second novel and learning how to balance freelancing with everything else.

In October I got to announce that Crystal Rain was becoming a graphic novel.

I saw 3 short stories come out: Shoah Sry (with Ilsa J. Bick) in Subterranean Magazine, The Last Twilight in Golden Age SF: Tales of a Bygone Future, and The Duel in Electric Velocipede.

Sold 3 more books to Tor!

What a crazy year. It began with the most horrible 3 winter months which completely stole away most of the joy of having my first book in print. The stress of taking the leap to become a freelance writer was wild.

Working on my self confidence and trust in myself after having worked in a job where I had received little in affirmation or positive environment for a couple years was a long road. But I’m glad I made this leap.

Financially, it has completely turned my life around. From living month to month with very careful daily budgeting and falling behind due to the insulting wage I used to make before, to something more in the average category for someone with my background and knowledge of technology, blogging, code, and how to wrangle words.

Two, making my own schedule has had a huge positive impact on my creativity and productivity. Leaving the previous work environment was like stepping out into sunshine, my desire to write and be creative is stronger now, and friends and family have commented on how cheerful I’ve seemed over the last 6-7 months.

I still have a lot of personal work ahead of me for the next year, which I’ll talk about tomorrow, but I feel like 2006 turned around quite well, and I’m really excited about 2007.

How was your year?

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