Something old, something new

Highlights of the Year 2012:

• I simultaneously landed my dream job and escaped the grueling 7-day workweek that is having two jobs. On September 20, I became the new Assistant Director of The Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College and I haven't looked back. 
• I got up the guts and hosted my first-ever type-in and letter-writing social with my good, good friend Annie of Scribbling Glue on December 7. It was a blast! And we are already receiving offers for hosting future type-ins. I love creative collaboration!
• I saw my second tiny batch of poems published in the wide world of lit mags. Read them here in the Fall 2012 issue of The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review!
• I successfully completed my poetry version of NaNoWriMo in November: writing a poem a day for 30 days. A beautiful project emerged about a week into it and I love what I ended up with. I have just submitted select parts of this project to Muzzle Magazine, decomP magazinE, and Paper Darts. Cross your fingers!
• I got my Chandler & Price Pilot printing press up and running! I even took on a couple printing commissions and printed some things of my own.
• My typewriter cozies got a blog feature on UPPERCASE magazine, by the fabulous Janine Vangool.
• I paid off the credit card debt that I consolidated in January, a year-long goal that I set for myself, in which I used all of the "extra" money (babysitting wages, Etsy sales, cat/dogsitting wages, bakery tips, other freelancing earnings, etc.) brought in each month to pay toward it. Granted, I racked up a few hundred dollars in new debt this past month for Christmas gifts, but that doesn't count! The old burden is gone.
• My pets are all still here and happy and healthy. Kione, my little black cat, gave me a good scare when she got inexplicably sick just before Halloween. She is doing much better now, although she still needs to gain some of her former weight back. Karma, my troublemaking dog, is on a diet after putting on a bit too much weight. But we're all here and doing fine. Kevin, my Siamese-tabby cat, seems to be in perfect health (knock wood).

 Hopes for the Year 2013:

• I want to try out a new poetry-writing schedule this year. My plan is something like this: one month will be spent with the focus of generating new material, and the following month with the focus of submitting work to literary magazines, and then back again. I'm hoping this alternating system will prove a more productive method for staying on top of both writing and submitting goals.
• On a related note, I would like to set a goal of having my poems accepted at a minimum of three literary magazines in the next year. More is certainly better, but we'll see how it goes. 
• I hope that Annie and I will have at least one, if not two or three more successful type-ins in the next year.
• More printing projects.
• Healthy and happy pets.
• Time with friends.

We'll see what else comes this way in the near future. Some of the best things, I've found, we don't even know to hope for until they have already arrived. Happy New Year!