December (and 2018) Wrap-Up
Writing Wrap-Up
Total Books Read This Month: 9
Total Books Read this Year: 105
Best Books of the Month: Can I say all of them? Becoming by Michelle Obama was a balm that I chewed through in two days, I adored Premee Mohamed’s ghost-ish novella The Apple-Tree Throne (check that out here). Also The Secret History ruined me for all other books in so many ways. I reread The Sympathizer because I needed to, and got angry when I had to put down the most recent Comoran Strike. Lots of genres, lots of good reads.
Best Books Read this Year: Educated, An American Marriage, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, The Belles, Circe, Less
Total pages read: 36,742 (give or take)
Unplanned themes for reading this year: Lots of mystery novels, lots of empowered women in my fic and nonfic, some fantastic fantasy YA, and
Goals for next year: Meet or beat my 105 books from this year, read more non-fic and romance
Writing Wrap-Up
For shorter works, I’ve had some awesome stuff published this year that I’m proud of. Just this month, I had a short story published in Literary Mama about the first weeks of parenthood. I’ve published about breastfeeding horror stories in Scary Mommy and posted a ridiculous list about politics in the humor site Little Old Lady Comedy. I wrote a few things for the fantastic journal, Cotton Xenomorph, including this little piece of flash fiction about fruit and relationships. Helpful as we jump into 2019, I also got to write about setting bookish new years resolutions in Women Writers, Women’s Books, a site I adore. I ended the year publishing for Data-Driven Investor, talking about the twentieth anniversary of the Furby. The most fun I’ve had this year was also in writing and performing a true story live, without notes, for the podcast Story Collider. Audio of that is available here.
For longer works, I’ve polished a novel and finished another, which I’m still in the process of beautifying. I’m looking forward to diving into another project soon.
Life Etc
The Year In Numbers
Classes taught: 5
Babies born: 1
Family trips: 4
Homegrown strawberries eaten: 60+
Real push-ups that I can do (for the first time in my life): 10
Hours I usually sleep at night now: 5
Hours I wish I could sleep at night: 8+
Hilarious stories written with my kindergartner: 12+
Number of those stories that are about pac-man: too many
Looking forward to the New Year, in all of its glories and challenges. 2018 was not the best in so many ways, but I’ve got hope for the year to come. Wishing the best to you and your crew.