So, it's another year

I had a better 2009 than many it seems.

Granted, father first dealt with prostate cancer and then had a bad fall and broke his hip and gave the family the scare of its life, but that seems like a nightmare half-forgotten. Now, he is fine and cannot believe half of the things he muttered while on morphine (there are stories there if I could find the right way to tell them).

My day job proved to be ample enough to survive off of and stress-free. Hundreds of thousands do not have this luxury. I am lucky.

So, I had no dates in 2009. That's just one less than 2008 and really just par for the course. The meds help me forget about being lonely and/or alone while I am on them. Unless I see films like A Single Man or want to watch a television show Like How I Met Your Mother and I have no one to talk to. At night is the worst, when the phone is silent. See, only now when I dwell on it does it ache me. A dull ache. But, at my age, I feel resigned to my fate. It's not like I have the skills to change it. Never did. When I hear people using the Internet to find love and sex (my sex life was what, 3 instances, I think, which is 3 times more than the prior), I'm always perplexed.... it's like how I see gambling these days. Yes, once I was a gambling addict, but now it always seems like so much effort and in the end you always lose.

Daulton is well. And he makes me laugh and smile and such. I adore every whisker, every hair, every murmur from my kitty.

The press had its best year ever - ebooks... oh, why did I wait so long? And print sales were high despite some gay bookstores folding. I know some small presses have low discounts because they rely almost entirely on Amazon. I fear one day that may happen to us, but not yet, not yet. And InsightOut Bookclub took several books from Lethe.

As far as my own writing, well that was less successful. I'm not as broken as I was following Clarion, but I'm not the same writer, either. I finished 2.5 stories. Can I count editing 2 anthologies and 3 magazine issues? Maybe, but only completing 2.5 stories (the .5 is a short short that was done in a day, is a bit of whimsy). Yes, both sold. But is it where I wanted to be in a "writing career"? No.

Lots of bad starts and failed stories. So many. While visiting Wayne and Brent thus New Year's I read two unfinished stories aloud and the writer inside of me was cringing. Moments of just plain confusing, complicated mess, and bad prose. A step back or two. I wanted to just burn the stories, like Mr. Ludwigsen is wont to do.

And I remain without a sophomore novel. It's becoming a bit embarrassing now when people invite me to talk about the YA field based on a book that's now 3 yrs old. And my friends are looking at me and wondering why I can't do this again...

I don't believe that base 10 is anything so special that I should look back at 2000 and talk about an arbitrary number of years.

I do hope 2010 is a bit better for me and for my friends and loved ones.