Dear 2011, You Win at Life: My Year in Review

The “Year in Review” has been a theme across the blogosphere this week and though I’m a bit belated—having been busy cramming some lovely last-minute activities into 2011 like skiing and fireworks in an area of the country where a good internet connection is hard to find—I thought that it was a worthy effort to give a fond farewell to all the excellent highlights of the past year.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In the past twelve months, I got my very first publishing credit, followed by what was a welcome parade of several other acceptance letters (the only one currently available online is my academic paper, Lost in Translation: Retelling the Tale of Joan of Arc in the Honors Review), traveled to Boston, Massachusetts and to Savannah, Georgia for the first time, graduated with my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing and History, lived in NYC, got a Certificate in Publishing from New York University’s Summer Publishing Institute, met Meg Cabot, Jennifer Weiner, and Frank Warren of Postsecret fame (on separate occasions), commuted nearly 10,000 miles (and listened to 18 audiobooks) in my first five months working at my job as an Assistant Editor at Transaction Publishers, wrote an entire 50,000-word NaNoWriMo novel in the company of some great new local writer friends, won a few writing awards, and—we mustn’t forget!—since I started this blog in May, I’ve met lots of lovely new blogger friends, with a solid base of 32 lovely and loyal followers.*

‘tis been a good year indeed!

On a side note, over at Writer’s Relief, they’ve complied a round-up list of their best and most popular writing articles from 2011. I think it’s an excellent collection and they can help inspire some New Year’s resolutions for better writing and better submission habits. Another good resolution would be to sign up for the free Writer’s Digest newsletter! It’s chock-full of inspirational articles, writing prompts, and contest information. I know that since I graduated, I’ve been surrounded by less and less writing students, writing professors, and pressing due dates. Both of these newsletters do a good job of filling that hole by offering encouragement . . . or, when I’m more reluctant to compose something new, preferring to burrow under the covers and procrastinate with a book, the newsletters succeed at nagging me and reminding me of my writing goals.

Here’s wishing that 2012 is even better than the last!

*Waves at you through computer screen.