Back on the horse after a year of change

This is going to be one of my meandering posts.

That video up there

First, this is my latest favourite song, Free Will and Testmanent. I got a lovely version by The Unthanks for Christmas but this is the original by Robert Wyatt. He has a sort of high, unlovely voice but I've come to adore this version too. The words are amazing. A thoughtful musing on what free will is. Especially this:

I have my senses and my sense of having senses.
Do I guide them, or they me?

And this:

Had I been free I could have chosen not to be me.

And actually, this:

Be in the air, but not be air, be in the no air.

Which, I think, I might even understand.

The Year in Review

It's taken me a while to get round to writing this post, so 2011 isn't very topical now. I think I've said before that, for me, whatever I'm blogging about has to be really fresh. Blogging is quite an impulsive and current form of communication to me - which is why I often end up not blogging about books that are actually really significant to me. I'm just not in a blogging mood when I'm loving them.

So I'll do this quick like, without making a meal of it.

In a nutshell, 2011 was a year of Change for me:

- Writing-wise it was exciting - I published my first book.

- Reading-wise, it had two themes: it was the year of the Kindle and the year of M/M romance. And actually, those two things are very closely connected. My failure to read great authors writing M/M romance before 2011 had everything to do with not having an ereader.

- I discovered some amazing new (to me) writers this year: Josh Lanyon, Jordan Castillo Price, Alex Beecroft, Harper Fox, Marie Sexton, and JL Merrow to name but a few.

- I changed job. I think it's one of the most stressful things I've ever done. I only stopped regretting it with every fibre of my being this week. Not yet at the point of thinking it was a good thing to do but think I might get there.

- I stopped being the mother of an infant. My youngest son is almost 5 and starts school later this year. I don't need to make any special arrangements or carry any young child equipment around for him anymore and he is quickly becoming more independent. This is both wonderful and a little sad. There is something special about having very small children that is over now. I get to have other, equally special things about my older children but something has ended and it feels like a significant change in my life.

Writing

I turned in what I hope is going to be my second book to my editor this week. I hope she likes it. Fingers crossed. This book is a heavily gutted and revised version of my first WIP which I stuck in drawer a few years ago. When I say it's heavily revised, I reckon it's almost totally rewritten - about 80% new - but the same kernel of story is there, though much simplified.

Now I'm going back to a - I suppose it's a UF? - WIP that I started last year. I put it to one side after 25k when I had to start working on edits for The Lady's Secret. I really like certain things about this WIP but it's a very different genre and that has challenges.

Blogging

I've been reading very few blogs since before Chrismas but will be back to visiting all my usual haunts (and blogging here again) after this weekend.

I used to spend quite a lot of time wondering about whether or not to keep blogging and what I was getting out of it etc. etc. I don't worry about that anymore. I seem to have reached, for now anyway, a kind of contendedness with my blog. I don't get anxious about posting nothing for a while and I still feel excitement at the thought of posting about stuff that interests me, even though only about 30% of those excited thoughts turn into actual posts. I still far prefer blogging to Twitter and Facebook.

Right now, I have in mind a blog post about a particular romance novel staple feature I adore that I suspect I eventually will write. And I also want to wax lyrical about Strawberries for Dessert by Marie Sexton and the entire Psycop series by Jordan Castillo Price.

Just not today.