Here Come the Countdown

Alright, it's done.

Provided all goes well, I will be spending tonight in the company of friends (and, just maybe, family); and, together, we will be celebrating the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010.

I've said before I'm big on rituals; this is no exception. While I try to avoid the insane laundry-lists of New Year's resolutions that plague so many people, I do think that the New Year's holiday is a fun and useful way to hit the Reset button and try to get things together.

Normally, I have a long reflection on the previous year, but this year, it's pretty simple: 2009 was rough. I know I said 2008 was rough, but you must understand, 2009 was rough in comparison to 2008. I dealt with feeling like a failure and some pretty hefty bouts of depression, and in my social circle, that felt like getting off lucky. Near the end, it was hard to believe that some of the things that happened in January and February happened this past January and February—hadn't some of this happened somewhere else, some other time, earlier in my long life?

But then again, not all of that was because of misery. The year has felt full because the year has been, well, full. I've done more writing this year than I think I have any year previous, and met more ideas about new experiences and revisited adventures with a profound "Yes". It's been rough for me, and often the new adventures were the kind with the screaming and the resonant cello music; but in the end, life is about adventure; and as I've always said, I'd rather live on a rollercoaster than a merry-go-round.

So this year is about more of that. This year is about picking up the skills I've been wanting to pick up; about getting to the state of health that I have desired; about writing and fighting for success in same; and about making the changes in work, love, and play that I can see waiting for me on the horizon. And that is all about New Year's I have left to say.

So by way of farewell: 2009. You were a thuggish prick; but one that made me really think about how I live my life—I think I'll call you the year of Tyler Durden. And like Tyler Durden, you were useful and entertaining for a while...but I'm very, very glad you're gone.

Goodbye, 2009. You were difficult, but you were full.

Hello, 2010. I'll be watching you.

And to everybody else: Happy New Year.

2008, In Review and Memoriam

Right. Today is going to be, as is tradition, insane; so I'd best get this done right now.

2008. What to say about 2008? Not a whole lot that's polite, really.

If I had to pick a single word for this year, I'd say it was Change. If I had to pretend I knew something about the Tarot, I'd say this year's card was Death.

You can see it in the American Presidential election and the polarized reactions to Obama's victory; the idea that while we're still in stormy waters, we've got the rudder pointed in the right directions, and the opposing idea that Obama is just going to sail us in deeper. We're mewling and squalling right now as a people, but we're on something like a track to real change.

Everyone I know had their life change this year, in a major way. Relationships ended and others begun; jobs applied for; apartments rented; hobbies shifted and renewed and left by the wayside. I heard a lot of revelations come out of my friends' mouths, a lot of decisions that we've all known were a long time in coming; and I've seen a lot of friends who are still struggling with what they should do. My own life is synecdochal: new house, new town, new routine, new friend. I dealt with some awful things, and some great things, and I shed a lot of tears over both.

Major, tough decisions were made this year, and plenty of questions are left for when we all open our throbbing, underslept eyes on the first. It's been a year of sadness, and pain, and (to go back to that Death card) rebirth; it's been a year of shaky first steps and horrifying first falls.

But as much as it hurt or is hurting, I know that these are steps that needed to be taken. Call them birth pangs, if the first steps metaphor doesn't stir your coffee; but I know that the world that is coming to be, both immediately and globally, is going to be a better one.

I plan to focus a great deal more on my writing in the New Year; I've been bad about letting some things flounder and soften. This blog is a place to shine the spotlight on the weird, but it's also a chronicle of a dream; and frankly, I don't think it will have done its job if it those first few commenters don't get to say "I knew him before...". Even if the ending winds up being "he owned that many guns".

So, prepare for more story submissions, and hopefully a few more story publications; prepare for more complaining about the travails of writer's block; prepare for more shouting and more heavy-handed prose. Also prepare, in the grand tradition of Cherie Priest, for progress notes--because you folks deserve/have been punished with a little more insight into my creative process. But don't think this means the link salad will end.

Goodbye, 2008. You've been a bastard of a year. Tonight, I'm going to drown you in Guinness, and make a crown out of a Page-A-Day calendar, and go out on a balcony in Milpitas and tell you you got what you deserved. You slapped me around when I needed it, and for that you deserve a proper wake.

And for all of you who aren't a unit of time, I leave you with two thoughts: first, that my current long project, Eyes of Stone, sits at 49,700 out of 90,000 words. Second, a bit of positivity to end the year--the knowledge that wit and eloquence can get you somewhere in this world: everyone, I give you Sir Terry Pratchett.

Happy New Year, folks. Have a drink for me.