The year that was

The Ups:

This year was the year that I finally got serious about my writing and had a real creative breakthough. I took off the blinders and was finally able to take notice of all the inspiration that's out there.

I had my first story published in September, which was a positive sign that I'm headed in the right direction.

I decided to get organized and went through all the half-written, false starts I had and catalogued them. Doing this one simple thing helped me to generate ideas for other projects I'd like to work on.

I finally got the idea fleshed out for the novel I want to write and I'm getting started on the research.

I started a writing blog, which will hopefully continue to be a motivator for me in the new year.

The Downs:

I didn't write as much as I wanted to, or as often as I wanted to, mostly due to my own laziness. This is an issue I hope to address in 2006

I didn't submit my work as frequently as I would have liked, again, mostly due to my own laziness. I let several writing deadlines pass, purely because I procrastinated.

I abandoned the novel I was working on, despite the fact that I liked the general idea of the story. It just seemed too cliched and overdone so I put it aside, although I may bring it out again sometime in the future.

I didn't finish NaNoWriMo but that's not really a down because I didn't finish it last year either.

I didn't dedicate as much time as I would have liked to poetry, both reading and writing it.

And now.......