Start as You Mean to Go On

I hope that thing about "New Year's Day is a sign of what your year will be like" thing isn't true for me, because early on the 31st I started getting that throat-tickle thing that  presages a cold, and sure enough I spent the next two days in bed trying to sleep off the germs. I can't control that aspect of how my year started, so here's something I can control. I made an off-hand commitment on Twitter the other day to balance out my self-pitying "what have I done all year" posts with a positivity post about nice writing-related things that have happened this year. In no particular order:

1. The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast has been given a shout-out in several places online (by people who aren't personal friends of mine). And I've seen a good handful of twitter mentions go past along the lines of "OMG where has this been all my life?"

2. The LHMP blog has achieved one of its tongue-in-cheek bucket list goals by being linked on a "term papers for sale" website. They do say that plagiarism is one of the most sincere forms of flattery!

3. Several people have produced lovely pieces of Alpennia fan art and shared them with me. And I've become aware of at least one piece of Alpennia fan fiction in existence though of course I will pretend I don't know anything about it.

4. The author interview series for the podcast has emboldened me to do some moderately ambitious cold-contacts. In this case, success isn't measured by nailing down an interview, but only by having the nerve to ask for one.

5. For all that I sometimes mope about feeling like my publishing context creates a bar between me and SFF professional spaces, I continue to be regularly invited/accepted to be on programming at SFF conventions and to be given feedback that my contributions are considered interesting and valuable.

6. Keyword monitoring on twitter has indicated that people who aren't personal friends of mine are recommending the LHMP to other people who aren't personal friends of mine as a resource.

7. A rather surprising number of people signed up for my monthly author newsletter.

Well, that's surely a positive way to start the year?