2010: The Year In Review

mood: uncomfortably reflective
pandora/ipod: "let the river run" by carly simon

2010 was a helluva year.


Okay, so there weren't any homicidal computers controlling my destiny, but the year did feel, at times, like someone or something else was pulling my strings.

In some ways, that was true.

I'm anti-reflective by nature, which isn't to say I try to avoid shiny surfaces (oooo, shiny things!) but more that I avoid introspection like the bloody plague. For someone so adept at deciphering other people's motivations, I'm woefully inadequate with my own. So doing a retrospective blog post at the end of the year is...a bit daunting.

But 2010 was a helluva year. A dynamic year. A year of dichotomy. A year of high highs, and low lows. And a year that deserves to be wrapped up.

I think two momentous though personal events really defined my 2010: my divorce and my book deal. I realize that most of you didn't even know I was married, and there's a reason for that. I like to keep my most personal of personal information...personal. And private. I will only say that it was a long, painful, and at last liberating experience to finally take the step toward divorce. It has changed me in many ways, most (I hope) for the better. And as I move into 2011 I see a bright future for myself, no matter what the hell happens.

My book deal was decidedly not a private matter. I screamed that news from the rooftops until my vocal cords begged for mercy. I paraded through Los Angeles with a sparkly TEAM POSSESS t-shirt. I chronicled submissions and revisions and everything in between.

I must have sounded pretty confident through all of it, yes? WRONG! Holy crap on a cracker, every stop on this bus ride through publication gets more and more stressful. You think, "I'm on submission!" Stress. Then, "I'm going to Acquisitions!" Stress squared. Then, "I have a 10-page edit letter and three weeks to execute it!" Stress cubed.

You get the picture. And though it's exciting and vindicating and validating and all that, a book deal is also really, really stressful. It makes you doubt yourself in ways you never imagined, and worry about things totally out of your control. It's very possible I've lost years off my life in 2010... but I wouldn't give it up for the world.

Of course, I had two amazing pillars of support through all of it - my Rockstar agent Ginger Clark, and my Kick-ass editor Kristin Daly Rens. These brilliant, dynamic, ridiculously talented women inspired me through the entire process. I don't know what I'd do without them.

And now for my Oscars speech...

There are some people I'd really like to thank for their love, support and spirit lifting awesomeness in 2010. Mentally and emotionally I was all over the freaking place, and a lot of people put up with some super cray-cray behavior from me over everything from dating to revisions to weight loss to finances to copyedits to doom-and-gloom to borderline-bliss. So, in no particular order...

Roy Firestone, Yadi Taylor, Jake Gilchrist, Mark Uhlemann, Jessica Morgan, Tara Campomenosi, Rachanee Srisavasdi, Amy Romero, Eileen Tsai, Amie (heh) Dachtler, Amy McKenzie, Cathy Morris, Jen Hayley, Amy Bai, Jill Myles, Bryn Greenwood, Sue Laybourn, Cindy Pon, Suzanne Bernel, Antonia Bath, Denise Burch, Carrie Policella, Rachel Hunter, Jen Lorigo, Cameron Russell, Justina Lee, Jan O'Hara, Deborah Gray, Alice Loweecy, Ellen Files, Leah Clifford, Scott Tracey, Victoria Schwab, Brian Seidman, Christine Fonseca, Nadine Semerau, ChristaCarol Jones, Lara Herndon, Rebecca Burrell, Courtney Allison Moulton, Emily Kokie, Lisa Fredsti, Tavi Stutz, Kirsten Roeters, Suzanne Keilly and Roy Firestone, whose friendship has been so instrumental in preserving my sanity this year that he gets to bookend the list.

Without you - all of you - I'd be curled up in the fetal position in a corner, rocking back and forth muttering something about my brain melting. Each one of you took the time to listen, the advise, to hug, to console and sometimes just to pat me on the head and call me pretty.

So there it is. 2010 is a wrap. I hope all of you have a bright and shiny (oooo, shiny things!) 2011 on the horizon.

I know I do.