aamcnamara

...good gods, this year. In some ways it's been a hard one, and in other ways it's been an amazing one. It's pummeled me with exhausting research work, bad professors, and difficult classes. I did learn things from all those experiences, but there are some aspects I could definitely have done without.

What I didn't have was much time to breathe. Summer's usually my relaxing time, my time to work on big projects like novels, but this summer I had only snatched moments while on the bus. And yet I still managed to revise A Returning Power and I think it's better than it was. (Not going to risk "much better" quite yet.) Lesson: I might be able to keep writing after I graduate and get a real job?

At any rate, things I did this year:
- Acted in a full-length play (for the first time since, er, eighth grade when I was Oliver Twist in a community production of Oliver!)
- Applied and received offers for summer science research
- Did materials science research for ten weeks at Harvard University
- Figured out that I do not have the necessary commitment to do scientific research
- Did battle with the bureaucracy and fail that was Harvard University's attempt to feed me (and lost)(but, thanks to Kate's family, neither starved nor went to the emergency room)
- Explored Boston and the surrounding area
- Went to WisCon and Readercon
- Applied for, was accepted to, made necessary plans for, and attended Viable Paradise XV (independently enough that I forgot to tell at least one parent about it until the weekend before I left for Martha's Vineyard)
- And hence accumulated a new and excellent group of writer-friends
- Survived my hardest semester of college so far
- Had an awesome and close-knit group of friends (The Mob, Kate, and acm28 particularly)
- Baked one million things (no, really, one million) in celebration of having an oven
- Waltzed around a church in the middle of a freak October snowstorm while dressed as a centurion
- Continued to be in a relationship that continues to be awesome (hi, Kate!)
- Stood up for my principles
- Wrote three new short stories and some flash fiction pieces
- Collected more rejection letters
- Revised a novel

...well, when you put it like that...

I continue to believe that the best things in life aren't planned. I do have a few goals for early next year--viz., begin querying agents on A Returning Power and also apply for funding to do history of science research in London next summer--and also next year overall--viz., get my license finally dear god--but they aren't really New Year Resolutions or anything like that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm still reeling slightly from the notion that I actually revised a novel. Revising A Novel has been such a Big Thing for me for so long that it's weird to think that I, well, just did it. I will probably post more about the whole thing someday.

For now, though, happy New Year's Eve (in this calendrical system)!

These two posts say something of what I was trying to say about my solstice stories, a couple of days ago. Really they are flash fiction, I just call them something different. (And it is like a keystone, and all of those other things.)

Via the Odfellowdiscussion group: Atlas of the Universe. We are very small, the universe is very large. Happy new year (Earth-relative).

Doubtless leaving out many important and/or generally noteworthy events, here are some things that happened since I last switched out my calendar:
- got into college, decided where to go
- took five International Baccalaureate exams
- started reading slush for Ideomancer
- graduated high school
- received the IB Diploma
- turned eighteen
- wrote the rough draft of a novel and started another
- wrote some short stories
- acted in a theater piece for the first time in years
- survived my first semester of college (moving away from my parents and halfway across the country in the process)
- between two short stories and a poem, acquired 15 rejection letters (and sold nothing, but that's life)
- made a bunch of new friends, realized how many old friends I still have; the answer is "a lot"

...well. That'll do for twelve months, I think.

I, for one, welcome our new 2010 calendar pages.