Happy New Year!

Hello 2013!

To kick off the year, I joined a cool group of YA & MG authors debuting in 2014, One Four Kidlit. Yay! Feels like the perfect way to start today. Want to check out the blog-in-progress? Go here. :) There are so many awesome books coming out in 2014 from new authors, and I'm honored to be part of this group!

Ok, now for the promised 2012 wrap-up.

These kinds of summaries are hard for me; it's why I don't have a "family letter" inside our Christmas card (not that I sent cards this year...ran out of time LOL). But 2012 was amazing. Full of quiet moments and many highlights, writing-wise. Here's a few:

I found my agent, Jennifer Unter, who is made of awesome. Truly. I couldn't ask for a more perfect champion for NIL, for me, or for my writing. Thanks Jennifer, for EVERYTHING.

Jennifer sold my book, NIL, to Macmillan/Henry Holt, for publication Winter 2014. Just--WOW. Talk about a culmination of years of work . . . of a dream come true. Again, thank you Jennifer. :) And thank you Kate, for falling in love with NIL too. :)

I met my awesome crit partner from Omaha, Tonya Kuper, in person--not once, but twice. (Which also meant I got to see Snow Patrol live twice as well--both times with Tonya. Woot!) I'm so grateful to my friend and CP, Laura Stanford, for introducing us through Backspace (a killer conference if you ever have the chance to go). Hugs, Laura! Tonya landed an agent in 2012 too and that made me HAPPY. Like over-the-moon happy. To watch a friend succeed when you have been there for the ride is pure sweetness and a highlight all its own. :)

I made more writing friends on-line than I ever dreamed possible. Like the amazing Lindsay Currie and Trisha Leaver (through Tonya!), who gave me the opportunity to read one of their blow-your-mind awesome manuscripts and who are as nice as they are talented . . . like Jay Spencer, a talented artist-writer-music fan (alert: Jay writes kick-butt MG) who kick-started a music blog for writers and gave me the chance to be a part of it . . . like Eliza Tilton and Laura Stanford, both writers from Backspace, who each celebrated personal/career successes this year (publication! dream job!) which make me happy too . . . like Jessie Harrell, who is an amazing writer and CP (ok, Jessie is local and I love her and I can lunch with her when the stars align and neither of our kids are sick, but this wrap-up cannot NOT include Jessie, who has been with me every step of my writing journey.:D) . . . like Natalie Whipple, whose blog I stumbled across when I first began pursuing publication and who I'm honored to count as a friend (Natalie is honest and smart and Talented and kind and I want to read EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HER BOOKS -- and possibly her grocery list, because her writing is just that awesome)  . . . and like dozens of other writers who make me smile when I read their Tweets. The writing community is tight on Twitter, but not in an exclusive way, and I feel blessed to be a part of it.

I learned--again--that publication really is about patience, and perseverance. Patience while you wait to hear from your agent while on submission, patience while you wait on your book contract, patience while you wait to receive your edits . . . (see a trend here? The waiting in publishing never ends. I'd heard that before and it's so true!) But while you wait, you must still write. You still have to sit and push through the block when the words won't come, or the muse doesn't show, and you can't let the waiting kill your writing. It's hard, at least it was for me at times, because the emotional roller coaster of the WAITS (the flats in between the highs and the lows) are like mental quicksand. At times it's hard to keep going, but you can't stop, at least not for long, because you'll get stuck.

There were personal highlights too . . . I celebrated my 17th wedding anniversary, watched many gorgeous sunsets and sunrises over the ocean (sometimes on a paddle board), fell back in love with painting (oil, preferably, but acrylics are fun too), figured out I suck at yoga but like it anyway, watched all 4 of my boys do amazing things in sports and school, and read over 150 books. Lots of good books out there to be read, which makes me stoked for 2013. :)

So Happy New Year! Here's to a fresh start, a new year, many months of GREAT books and good times. :) *clinks glass*

Oh, one more thing: my resolution. Balance. I'm REALLY going to work hard on juggling the family/life/health/writing balance. It's hard for me, because when I'm into something, I do it 100%. But sometimes as much as I want to write for 14 hours straight, I can't--or shouldn't. So I'm working on balance, with a time management component.

What's your resolution for 2013?

To you! Cheers!