It's not been a bad year, but it didn't live up to the rush that was 2002, the Year of the Book. The year 2003 was the Year of the Book Tour, as Erin did have Ghost Maps published, and we embarked on our tour of the Maritimes, but we scrambled far more than I would have liked. We lost Freddy and had some struggles with jobs. Rosemary and Time was rejected, again, and while I know that this was the likely outcome and not indicative of the quality of the work, it was still a blow to my ego.
But this year, we met with old friends and new. We got to see the Gillespies again (you're looking good, Paul), and we met Maria and Noelle and Jeanette. We stayed in touch with Cameron, Therese, Wayne, Marguerite, Chris, Martin, and, of course, Dan. For Erin, her work on Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight and Seal Up the Thunder took off, and I myself managed to finish the first draft of The Young City and start on The Night Girl. I also landed a job as circulation manager for Alternatives Journal, finally giving me an income in a writing-related area; something other than databases and administrative support.
So, while 2002 gave us an incredible taste of what it could be like to actually make a living as writers, 2003 pulled back from that, but laid more foundations for the possibilities of having writing careers in the future (this corresponds pretty closely to what I predicted at the beginning of the year). Erin's poetry is rounding out, I feel that I've grown as a writer, and the first steps have been taken towards a career in freelancing. I hope that this develops. I hope that my changes to Rosemary and Time will make the story stronger. I hope to keep working on The Night Girl. And I think maybe all this will happen. I feel like something good is building up, and I hope that it is.
No predictions, this year. I have no idea what's to come. I enter 2004 with a lot of hope and excitement, but also a little trepedation.
...And I suspect that's normal...
The 10 Dumbest Quotes of 2003
Grrrl Meets World points our way to the 10 Dumbest Quotes of 2003. It's well worth reading; I especially enjoyed #2:
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Erin: Rumsfeld?
Me: Oh, yeah!