It’s been an odd sort of year, and one in which I have tended to forget to stop and count my successes. I planned for many things in my writing career, few of which came to fruition, and I ended up with a bunch of words written, but nothing (major) new and finished, for the first time in several years.

On the other hand, some massive personal achievements surely help to balance that out. In particular I have seen Raeli grow from being very timid and panicky child into a far more relaxed, confident and brave young person. She has conquered her terror (and I don’t use the word lightly) of cats, managed her even more extreme fear of dogs, as well as getting over the hurdles of learning to swim and to turn somersaults. It’s been a big year!

Jem meanwhile has stopped being the baby (she is a BIG GIRL), and it’s quite extraordinary to see our three-year-old become herself, taking on an at times stroppy but quite original personality. (she can be a thug but she’s cute with it) And boy, can she talk. You may all pause your reading to faint from surprise.

They’re really good at being sisters, which makes me very happy. And we’re only a year away from Jem starting school now which feels… exciting and terrible, all at once. But by gods, it’s going to be cheaper. And those tiny windows of writing time are shrinking and shrinking between then and now. Somehow, she manages to fill every available space, which is what children are best at.

What other milestones did I/we manage to clear this year? Well, there’s that little thing of Galactic Suburbia getting its first Hugo nomination, which was extraordinary, and means that we will always look upon the Best Fancast category with great fondness. Galactic Suburbia also received the Peter McNamara Convenor’s Award for Excellence at the Aurealis Awards this year which was an amazing honour and really made us feel like we have made a mark in the Australian SF community. And of course we produced 23 new episodes, bringing us up to 73. We’ll be soooo close to 100 by the end of next year!

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Trying something a bit different for my reading round up this year – I found this Annual End Of Year Book survey and decided to try out the questions for myself. Note I’ve already done a Pleasures of Reading etc. post over at Ambling Along the Aqueduct, and covered my experience with the AWW reading challenge. I talk about books a lot, all right?

At 175 titles, including graphic novels, audio books, ebooks etc, I’ve come the closest to my pre-motherhood reading levels than ever before! If nothing else, my ‘don’t buy without shifting books from To Read Shelf’ system seems to be guilting me into finding more reading time, which I am happy about.

Best In Books 2012

1. Best Book You Read In 2012? (You can break it down by genre if you want)

Best Fantasy Novel: Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth
Best Science Fiction Novel: Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold
Best Collection: Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan
Best Anthology: Under My Hat, edited by Jonathan Strahan
Best Young Adult Novel: Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein, only just edging out The Diviners by Libba Bray and Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan.
Best General Fiction: Last Chance Cafe by Liz Byrski
Best Comic: Hawkeye & Captain Marvel
Best Graphic Novels: Astonishing X-Men #1-5 by Joss Whedon & John Cassaday
Best Doctor Who Book: Chicks Unravel Time! Yes, I’m in it. I still love it BEST!

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As I mentioned in my Graphic Novels edition of the 2011 Year in Reading posts, I read 143 books this year, 60 or so of which had a lot of pictures in them.

Others were mostly made up of words, hoorah! I don’t want this to be the neglected younger sister of the graphic novels post, but I’m really not going to write reviews of these at length. Consider it a list of the best, absolute bestiest prose novels I consumed this year. Chances are, if you want to hear more about why I liked them, you can find me raving on a Galactic Suburbia podcast. Or you could just ask in the comments! I have been rather lazy about written reviews this year, but you can’t do everything.

Here we go…

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It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m curled up with my family watching the animated adventures of Batman. As you do. It seems oddly appropriate considering how my year in reading ended up!

In September, it looked unlikely that I’d even hit 100 books read this year, let alone equal the 120 books I read in 2010. But then I took an interest in the DC Reboot, and one of my best friends rediscovered comics and started raving about the Ultimate Spiderman, and one thing led to another, and my house spontaneously filled with graphic novels.

So, yes. My total books read for the year is 143. Of which 61 are graphic novels/manga, all but one of which were consumed in the last three months. YEAH BABY.

Let’s talk about those first. I’ll do a separate post about the actual prose books, for those people (cough, Alisa) who aren’t interested in comic books.

My stand out graphic novels/trade paperbacks for the year were:

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Wow, I’ve been all gung ho and planningy in previous years, haven’t I! Maybe I’ve mellowed. Last year I made a stab at what the shape of 2011 would look like. Presented here with comments as to how it actually was.

1. Page proofs and copy edits to be done for Shattered City and Reign of Beasts
Done and done! Quite early, really, because the date was pushed back for scheduling reasons and yet the book itself was pretty much ready months ago.

2. Write a first draft of Fury, before ROR in September.
We moved ROR to January 2012, but I finished the draft of Fury before Nanowrimo, so that was on schedule.

3. Send in proposal for Fury to my agent to sell before it’s finished.
I did this, but we (my agent & publisher) agreed it would be best to take it back and only formally submit when there was a full manuscript, because let’s face it, it wasn’t a happy year for book sales in Australia.

4. Volunteer regularly at Raeli’s school
Fell down completely on this one, at least as far as helping her class goes! I felt bad about it, but I had so little Jem-free time to work, and it didn’t happen at all. Still, I felt I had a much better relationship to her teacher this year after the calamity of the previous year, and I did sign up to join the School Association, so have been volunteering in that way. It feels like cheating because it’s half a dozen evening meetings a year rather than regularly turning up in Little Miss’s classroom to practice reading with them, but it’s a job that has to be done and being the nosy person that I am, I do rather like being in on some of the school’s admin decisions.

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Well, obviously it’s going to be a brilliant year!

Our January is packed already, and I’m determined to make the most of my last long summer with my daughters (Tasmania is going to 4 terms next year, so the summer holiday will be more of a punctuation point and less of a long, lazy sprawl). Raeli turns seven (SEVEN) and my godson Felix turns four (SERIOUSLY, FOUR?) before the end of the month. There will be parties.

Then there is ROR, a week of critiquing and industry chatter with some of my favourite writing people, right at the end of January, culminating in The Very Much Launch of Reign of Beasts Book Three of the Creature Court on the 2nd February.

The book I’m taking to ROR is Fury, book one of a proposed Nancy Napoleon series. I’m allowing myself 1-2 months afterwards to knock the book into post-ROR extra shiny shape, and then sending it off to my publisher to see if they’re interested in taking another twirl around the dance floor with me.

And then… well, then I wait. Because after a year of grants and publishing deadlines, I’m fancy free for the rest of the year. It’s… exciting and alarming. Given that I’m not going to start work on Nancy #2 until I have a publisher secured for her, I can write anything I want.

So there are plans, but they are nebulous, and multiple-layered, so I can bend to the wind. Anything I work on has to be dropped like a hot potato if Nancy comes up trumps, and if she doesn’t… well, I need to have the next thing up and running, and if that doesn’t work, the next thing…

I’d like to produce at least one publishable full length manuscript (not counting Fury) and one publishable children’s chapter book this year. That’s my plan. But I’m not 100% sure which books those will be.

And I have to do it without exterior deadlines. So deep breaths and inspiration at the ready. GO!

In the rest of my life… well, I still have a few more months to serve on the Tiptree jury, and we’re getting to the crunchy end of that, so more reading for me. I am planning to have a good go at the Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge 2012. And Last Short Story, of course.

But apart from those things (heh, I KNOW) I want my reading to be fairly loose and unstructured, and my main reading goal for the year is to focus on reducing my criminally enormous To Read Shelf to something a little less likely to collapse on visitors. Which probably means reading & seeking out a lot less in the way of the New Cool. So don’t publish any awesome books this year, okay, guys?

Travel-wise my honey and I are keen to make it to the Natcon in Melbourne, because my Mum thinks she is up to taking BOTH GIRLS for a long weekend (or that she will be by the middle of June) which means we could be out on our own for the first time in, well, seven years, basically. We haven’t broken it to Raeli yet, though, who had a lovely time at Worldcon and has mythologised Melbourne in her head to an alarming degree.

And apart from that our important job for the year is to keep to a budget, something we’ve been shocking about in previous years. But if we’re going to make it to World Fantasy in Brighton 2013, that means being sensible about money now. Especially if I want to keep my second daycare day for the next two years, before Jem starts kinder. Eek.

So… I don’t really know what the majority of this year will bring. But I’m hoping for shiny wonders and domestic calmness.

I read a book today! A whole book, from beginning to end. It was so luxurious, I can’t tell you.

I also proofed more than 70 pages of my own book, bathed the baby, played a towering blocks game with Raeli, was fed delicious fishy things by my honey, wrote several blog entries, and decorated a pavlova.

If how you spend New Year’s Day sets a pattern for the year ahead, I’m doing well!

(apart from the fact that both my girls are currently sobbing, one because she didn’t want to go to bed and the other because of some elaborate Thing involving a Christmas decoration, pleasedon’task)

Never mind all that. BOOKS. I read 120 books in 2010 – and overall tackled much longer, harder and more challenging books than I have since… well, probably since before I was pregnant with Raeli. This is not to say I didn’t also read my share of YA, graphic novels and children’s books, cos I did, but I also read like a grown up. Hooray!

Here is my tiptop list of favourite books I read in 2010:

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So this loosely was my plan for 2010, presented with comments:

1. Finish Cabaret of Monsters (book 2) and Saturnalia (book 3) and submit them on deadline.
They’re now called Shattered City and Reign of Beasts, and the deadlines ended up being extended a time or two, but done and done.
2. Complete a first draft of one other novel
This I didn’t manage, thanks to more editing and a lot less writing time than I was hoping for.
3. Decide on what project I want to work on after Creature Court and put a proposal together.
I haven’t finished the proposal for my publishers yet, but I wrote early chapters and a synopsis for Fury when I applied for my grants, WHICH I GOT.
4. Get Raeli through her first year of full time school. To this end, institute earlier tea & earlier bedtime for Raeli (starting the bedtime process at 8pm results in a good night going to sleep at 9pm, it’s not good enough)
This worked out really well. While part of me thinks it’s a bad idea to dumb down Raeli’s food and getting into the habit of a kids meal and an adult meal… yeah. I can’t have a family meal on the table by 6pm, but I can manage a nursery tea. Also it’s nice to not be fighting with Raeli about food. She eats vegetables, even if only under certain circumstances, and she even went through a few adventurous phases with her food this year. It’s summer so we’ve let the bedtime blow out again but come school time, I’ll be going back to this habit.
5. Get Jem into her own room and reorganise study at other end of house.
Done marvellously. What I wasn’t expecting was that instead of a study I would build myself a library! Complete with queen sized bed… I love that I got the best of both worlds, a spare room for guests and a room that is MINE where my books live. Sure, I don’t have a desk, but this is me, let’s face it, a desk would just be somewhere to pile up papers and all kinds of crap. Not having a desk forces me to file things occasionally. I’ve finally got my armchair, and I continue to work from my laptop on the dining table. I may need a small desk in the library eventually but for right now, I’m happy, and get an extra thrill of happiness whenever I refer to my Library Bed. Which currently is covered with page proofs for Shattered City…
6. Complete two quilts (you know who you are)
I really have to be more specific! The first must have been the Felix Rupert Bear quilt, which I was being discreet about because I was keeping it secret from Isabel. I had to check back for the second which was of course Kaia’s Comfort Fruit quilt, for her 30th birthday.
7. Launch Power and Majesty in June, and do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.
Done! With publicity you always feel like you should have done more, but I think I managed my time effectively. Time to start gearing up for Book 2…
8. Aussiecon in September!
Done! It wasn’t easy taking the family to the convention, but my honey worked hard to free up as much time as possible for me to do my convention thing, and I loved getting to hang out with friends and sharing both my worlds. Also, live Boxcutters!
9. Launch Cabaret of Monsters in December (subject to publishing dates staying the same) and do my best to contribute to & support the publicity for the book.
Heh well the publishing dates didn’t stay the same, so this one can be rolled over to 2011.
10. Read 120 books throughout 2010.
Hooray, I scraped under the wire with this one! Separate reading overview to follow.

EDIT: A couple of projects/challenges I forgot about: to podcast Siren Beat, and to read all of Joanna Russ’s published books.
Heh well I completely didn’t podcast Siren Beat, but I did start the CreatureCourtCast to read some sample chapters of Power and Majesty, and should do something similar with Book 2. And I didn’t get to all of the Russ, but I read quite a few of them and consider myself a hell of a lot more educated in the ways of Joanna Russ than at this time last year. So I’ll count that as a win.

Of course the most interesting thing about looking back is what I didn’t expect or prepare for: like winning the WSFA small press award for Siren Beat, and getting to vicariously enjoy Alisa’s voyage to Washington and beyond. Also, when the year turned, I had no idea that we were going to start Galactic Suburbia this year, a podcast that has given me great pleasure and joy. I didn’t know that Raeli being at school would lead to a whole new social group for me, or that my biggest regret of the year was not the lack of working time, but not volunteering enough at Raeli’s school. It’s also been lovely seeing so many of my friends succeeding with their work, getting new books out into the world, more rungs on the publishing journey. In particular, seeing Trent finally get his debut novel out there after so many years of hard work towards that goal, and seeing Rowena get another series out there after a hiatus almost as long as my own, filled me with pride and gladness.

It’s been a year of hard work, rewarding feedback, loving friends and family. I really have very little to complain about. Here’s hoping 2011 is a good one, for all of us!

I was going to spend NYE footling around on the computer, as we never go out for it (hate crowds, hate expectation of having fun, all potential babysitters have more active social life than we do) but it was too damn hot (38 degrees, insane for Hobart let alone anywhere else, and it didn’t start coming down below 30 until an hour before midnight) and we had thunder and lightning which meant we unplugged all the computers and just watched TV. Dinner was icecream and dessert was champagne. The most entertaining part was watching Raeli trying to decide whether thunder and lightning was scary or AWESOME – she changed her mind several times. Dealing with Jem was less fun, as I spent most of the day and night anxious about her hydration levels, and breastfeeding is not fun when two bodies touching raises both temperatures.

Anyway, today is nicer, and tomorrow we are being invaded by Flintharts and welcoming GJ back for her last stay before she jets home. So time for a little summing up of my reading in 2009.

I read 115 books, which fell just shy of my target of 10 a month. I can live with it. I could possibly have squeezed in another 5 if I had talked to GJ less during her visit, but what would be the point of that?

I genuinely loved roughly half of what I read, which goes to show how well I’m doing at selecting for my current tastes and interests – I filter what I read pretty highly, and my limited reading time adds another filter which is my short attention span for books I’m not completely into. I’ve talked about most of the books I liked best throughout the year, but here they are again. I’m including spec fic YA under the SF and Fantasy categories, so the YA category itself is a general one.

As with the previous year, the majority of what I’m reading is YA, and the majority of the spec fic I read is fantasy. I read more non fic this year, largely chosen because of favourite blogs. I enjoyed it a lot and plan to read more in 2010. Other than that I have no particular reading goals for next year – but I would like to crack 120.

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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.
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