I’m not doing anything to commemorate the end of the decade because I can barely contemplate the concept and short of a meme to tell me how to organise said thoughts, I’m ignoring it for now (cough okay while I was putting this together people came up with a meme, I’ll get to it eventually). The year is another matter.

Here with commentary is the wishlist I set out for 2009 a year ago:

*get my driver’s licence
Achieved in March, after great suffering and stress (and failing in January and February). My honey was a rock through this utterly torturous process and I broke at least one more driving instructor in the process. I am particularly grateful to  godiyeva who helped me bridge the gap between Raeli starting school & me finally getting my license by “carpooling” with me for the school run, and letting me practice at the same time. Nine months on, I still love my car and the independence of driving, and still do not take it for granted. Driving out last week to pick  girliejones from the airport made me feel ridiculously grown up.

*go to my first Aurealis Awards ceremony
This was just the most fun ever. I was nearly three months pregnant when I left and I knew that this (and ROR, two months later) would be one of my only chances to do the pro writer abroad thing without consideration of baby baby baby. I got to play the grown up again, picking myself up from the airport, catching a train to the city to meet my Pulp Fiction Press editor Diane and go to high tea, and then again catching a taxi out to the apartments where  girliejones and I were staying. It was a lovely weekend of talking and thinking like a writer, meeting new friends and connecting with old ones.

*start logging the books I read in a spreadsheet again
It might not seem like much, but while the time I took off from logging my reading worked to take some of the Must Read pressure off, I did miss the record. I read 115 books this year, and I doubt that’s going to change between now and midnight. I really wanted to make 120 but – not a bad tally, considering.

*see my daughter start kindergarten
This was a big one. Watching Raeli blossom at school has completely justified all the work it took to get her through the early entry process. She has enjoyed her two days of school a week so much that she became quite snobbish about going to daycare on the other days. She particularly loves music class. Seeing her become more confident on the play equipment, make friends, and advance from knowing her alphabet to being able to read has been beyond awesome.

*revise and submit French Vanilla to Pulp Fiction Press
Done in January and February, submitted on time.

*complete two novels of the Creature Court trilogy.
The first one was done a while ago; the deadline for the second has been extended until Feb 19 because of that pesky baby thing. I should be working on it Right Now, oh yes I should.

*workshop a wheelbarrowful of novels for ROR before March.
Done, and ROR itself was an amazing time, my last hurrah to be an independent body for a long time. Getting to have long talks with my RoRette peeps was marvellous, and it really helped to get my head together about revising the first book of the Creature Court.

*do Nanowrimo (cos I LOVES it)
This one was touch and go for a while, as I flitted back and forth between thinking this was the most indulgent thing I could possibly do in the middle of major publishing deadlines, and justifying it creatively. Ultimately I do think it was the right choice to do it, as I managed to get down 50K of book 3 which gives me a huge head start next year, and gives me more confidence about what book2 has to look like. I also got to bond with some great writers during that month, and it looks like it will segue into a real writing group. The downside is that I promptly collapsed at the end of NaNo, and wasn’t able to do much productive between that and the Christmas-end-of-year madness. I have a lot of catching up to do between here and Feb 19. Ask me then if it really was worth it.

*read regularly & blog regularly for Last Short Story
I feel like this was one of my big successes for the year – taking the attitude that I would only read the material I really felt I would like, rather than the material I thought I should read, I managed to actually read more stories than any other member of the group (admittedly I started the year less burned out than  girliejones or  benpayne, and  random_alex spent several months on a bike) and I am really proud of my list as well as our group list of the best stories of the year. Reading and assessing the best short fiction of the year is one of my great pleasures and I have a sense of satisfaction from being able to read so widely. I do love reviewing, when it complements my other work rather than being a timesink or source of guilt for not doing enough. I think I got the balance right this year.

*write some actual reviews for ASif
As with Last Short Story, I think I got the balance right this year. As you can see, I published six reviews at ASif, though I wrote many more on my blog. I found that the secret was to stop accepting review copies (of the six only the Jones was one I received a complimentary copy of) and just write reviews of work that I liked enough to justify it.  girliejones has rather firmly eyed the last few guilt-inducing tomes on my to-read shelf that I fear I may never get to, and reminded me that actually I don’t have to review them – I can just give the books back. Oh the relief! It also means I can concentrate more on reviewing books that I really feel should be reviewed (especially by a female reviewer in some cases) and ignore the rest. After being snooty about people who only write positive reviews for so many years, I have become one of those people – largely because I simply am not willing to finish a book that I don’t like any more.

*[item embargoed]
I stared at this one for a while, wondering what it actually was. Heh. I was just on the two month mark of my pregnancy when I made the list, and it wasn’t public knowledge. Everything I could possibly have put on a wishlist about my baby came to pass. Jem is a very cool addition to our family, and now that the hardest part is over, I look forward to all the awesomeness that is to come. I particularly love the fact that, after lamenting how many of my favourite names I have wasted on mere fictional characters (and RPing did for a LOT of my favourites), and after largely controlling the list that eventually produced Raeli’s full name – it wasn’t me who named this one at all.  aifin came up with Jemima, and Raeli chose Violet. Both are perfect.

*cook many delicious things out of my cherry cake and ginger beer book
Ha, this would be the book I read immediately before making the list? I think I made two things, if that. But I still love it, and will be cooking from it for many years to come. Also I am totally instituting the ‘nursery tea’ tradition next year, to deal with our bedtime timing struggles, my inability to actually put a cooked meal on the table by 6pm, and Raeli’s irritating food preferences which means she shares so few meals with us. She wants simple food arranged simply? That doesn’t have to be a problem. That is, after all, why nursery tea was invented in the first place (I imagine).

*have a quilt made for the quilt show
Yes, I managed this one! My beloved kite charm quilt, which I worked on, on and off, for three years. It currently lives in our ‘guest room’.

*create a ‘to read’ list of classic children’s literature and make good inroads on it
Eh, I started this one but apart from discovering a deep abiding love for the Chalet School books (sure to be an expensive addiction as the library does not have more than 3 or so!) I lost interest pretty fast.

Overall, I’m pleased with the results, which goes to show I did well at constructing the list as well as managing the items. There were a few lovely surprises along the way, not least the fact that I ended up having a book out this year thanks to the powerhouse that is  girliejones and Twelfth Planet Press, and I managed to score two shortlistednesses (apparently we can’t say nominations) in the Aurealis Awards, which is a big step forward from last year’s one nomination and all the other years’ no nominations. I finished watching Battlestar Galactica with friends, I discovered podcasts, I took a baby to the cinema and lived…

All things considered, I don’t have anything to complain about this year. Apart from the fact that Jem has recently developed a new happy noise that makes her sound like either a banshee or a Drashig, and cuts through my heart exactly like the sad noises.

Roll on 2010! I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one.

Tags: 2009, goals, year in review