Someday never comes: Gearing up for the launch of my own business

This is one of those weeks when I wish I could go back over my time sheets and change "VACATION" to "SICK DAYS".  I want a do-over on this vacation.

Anyhow, despite the F4 migraine over the last three days, I did manage to get some things accomplished.  Writing wasn't one of them, unfortunately - not on any kind of a novel, at least.  Interviews - also neglected, though I intend on fixing that in an hour or so.

But:  I did write my first flash fiction (a story under 600 words), I've slept about 50 hours in the last 4 days, I won an eBook (from Ed Kurtz, horror writer), I'm attempting to volunteer at the YMCA / YWCA for literacy programs, I've edited something for the Crime Writers of Canada, I did a story consultation with Mike, and I've started setting up my own business.

Yes indeedy:  my own business.  My own workshop, my own livelihood, my own hours and office...

...No one responsible for my success or failure but me, no internal office politics...

...new and unusual bills, complicated taxes, screwy retirement contribution policies, uncertain future, uncertain and unsteady incomes...

...long periods without any income at all...Feast and famine workloads...

...supplementary health and dental insurance that I have to pay out of pocket...

And that's why I won't be quitting my day job any time soon.  Before I make the jump, there are certain milestones to achieve first, including "find and advertise niche, collect $x in savings, gain x number of regularly paying contacts, spend x time in the business, collect x number of recommendations," etc.

But, once it's all legal, I'll be actively working my way toward full-time self-employment.  And I think I'm making some good strides already, including work on a business plan (really rough draft), researching the market, scouting prospective clients, and securing business cards.  I should have the cards in about two weeks or so.

Grand plans?  I have none beyond "don't starve and don't let the power go out."

So why bother?  Two reasons:  one is rational, and the other, not so much.

From a pragmatic position, it comes down to "I want to be a full-time writer and I want to keep eating." 

Let's say I manage to land a book contract and/or self-publish.  Chances are slim that I'm going to be able to earn enough from royalties and advances to uphold the standard of living to which I have become accustomed.  Additional money has to come from somewhere, meaning:  day job. 

My existing day job has a structured schedule and lots of perks - like a steady and predictable income, for example.  But, if I'm asked to do a book-signing on a Tuesday afternoon at a library in Montreal, I have to move around my existing work and my vacations around.  Heaven help me if I'm invited off island.  My schedule revolves around the quota of hours, the workload and when it's due.

Fortunately, my existing day job is quite flexible in terms of hours and location.  I can work virtually from anywhere in Canada.  If my passport was up to date, I'm sure I could work anywhere in the world, so long as I have access to the internet.  But what is less flexible is the amount of work, when it's due, and what meetings I need to attend.

So what's the problem?  Fulfillment.  I don't have that sense of fulfillment I once had, and it's not because of the work itself.  It's because every morning, when I log in and start updating my databases, or building new ones, or sending off my routine reports, it feels like I've betrayed myself.

And worse, I've been finding more and more that writing is distracting me during the day - the harder I try to focus on building a database, the more I think up awesome modus operandi for murder.  That can not be a good thing.

I work hard, I deliver accurate and easy-to-read reports on time every time, but I have to confess, my heart's not in it, and lately, my brain isn't either.  I've been spending more and more time going over the reports making sure they're accurate, because I don't know when a wild car chase in my head has distracted me from a critical decimal point.  That's not an efficient way to work.

And then, when I do sit down to write, all I can think about is queries, layouts, internal politics and the seeming futility of it all.

My two worlds have become mutually invasive.

I'm not doing what I set out to do.  In fact, in recent years, I feel like I've been getting farther and farther away from where I wanted to be, and that I've been settling for the easy way out.  I could quite easily work for the next thirty years at this company, have evenings and weekends off, take the odd vacation, and retire to a life of easy living.

And I would hate myself for it.  That's the irrational reason for starting up my own business.

Writing is in my blood.  It's what I do.  It's all I want to do.  Achieving a particular goal - writing as livelihood - is what I've been striving for since I was seven years old.  I can't turn my back on it without betraying who I am.

But I also like to eat, I like to go out for coffee, and I absolutely adore the fact that when it's been snowing and freezing rain for eight solid days, I can go downstairs and drive my car out without chipping, shoveling or swearing.  I also know that an optimistic advance will provide me enough for bookmarks, a website and maybe a week's vacation in Cuba.  Not enough to live by, not for a sustained period of time.

So, I want to set up a business that's "writing-like".  Editing, proofreading, ghostwriting - things I'm already good at.  Things I'm already doing for free.

And, I would much rather have an established sideline business to fall back on, rather than trying to establish a business at the same time as building up my reputation as a writer. 

Yes, for the first little while it's going to hurt, working full-time and running a business and writing and and and...but in the long-run, it'll be worth it.  I don't expect a flood of contracts the minute I open the door; I don't expect a flood of contracts even after the first 5 or 10 successful projects.

But it's the experience I'm looking forward to, as much as the cash:  editing, proofreading and ghostwriting.  I know, that sounds about as fun as building databases, but it's something I'm good at.  It's something I enjoy.  It allows me to read more, it allows me to see more of the market, and it teaches me how to be a good self-employed professional - in the event that I can write fiction full-time.

And I know the old adage: the grass is always greener on the other side.  But you know what?  I'd like to have my own lawn and make it green.  It's been a twenty-year dream of mine to own and operate my own business.  I almost had one going for a while there, too, but I was lousy at it, and I let too many other things get in my way.  I've grown up a lot in the last ten years, and I've learned a lot from people with entrepreneurial expertise (Mady, here's looking at you, kid).

I figure, if I try to set up my own business and if I fail, I might lose some money and maybe get discouraged.  Okay.  That's the risk.  And that's why I'm not quitting my day job.

But if I don't try, I'm going to regret it, because I would have assumed I couldn't do something I put my mind to, and because I didn't make an effort to try.  I would have let fear hold me back.

So, I want to try.

That leaves me too options:  start today, or start someday. 

And as Credence Clearwater Revival has told us over the years:  Someday never comes.

Marketing your Blog: It's more than "Blarfing".

As part of my "get out of my head and into someone else's" campaign for 2012, I'm following more blogs than ever, and I read more one-off posts now, too.

In order to know who's updated what and when, Blogger gives me a nice snapshot of all the blogs I'm following, even if the post is written through WordPress or a private website.  Partially because Michael Lorenson and Lee Lofland are writing their blogs daily, I'm reading daily.  So I check my reader summary daily.  Sometimes two or three times daily.  Sometimes I check it like a maniac, because data is taking forever to run, or because I can't figure out how to fill a plot hole and it's killing me.

That got me thinking about how we market our blogs.  How do we get more readers?  And why bother, if you're an unpublished author?
 
I know Facebook has a "Networked Blogs by Ninua".  Here, you can search blogs by category, twenty blogs at a time.  I'm registered there, too, under "Writing."

But under the "Writing" category, blogs are ordered by number of existing followers.  And I tried to find out how many blogs under "writing" there were.  Apparently Ninua can't count that high, but it's probably more than 5000.  (And for the love of all good things, don't put "Muse", "Musings" or any variant thereof in your frigging blog post title.  It's.Over.Done.)

And as for the count of how many are "following", that's Ninua's count, not Blogger's count.  I gave up scrolling through blogs in the "writing" category, because after almost 3000 registered blogs, I still hadn't found myself.  I'm at the very bottom of Ninua's list, because according to Ninua, I have only two followers, and I'm one of them.  Only the most already-popular posts are going to float to the top and attract new readers.

So basically, I would have greater success handing out business cards to strangers on the street than I would if I relied on Ninua's listings.  That means I can't leave anything to chance.  I have to work to get more exposure, if I want more readers.

Once a new post has gone live, ordinarily I send out a notification through Facebook and Twitter.  Facebook is still my biggest referral URL (shouldering that spambot domar.ru out of top spot), so I know that FB is a good way to notify folks of a blog post update.

Some blogs I follow now because I've been perusing author websites or being referred to certain blogs by other readers.  That's why I started following Annie Off Leash by Annie Boreson.  So, yes to old-fashioned word of mouth. But I've found the majority of my new reading material through a post recommendation on Facebook.  That's how I found Graveyard Shift. So, yes to Facebook, too.

But I also found that readership through FB has everything to do with the timing of your post, and with the popularity of your readers.  If you have a family member with few friends (and assuming they like you enough to check up on you daily), the message will get through to them easily enough. But if someone has a gazillion friends and professional contacts, your FB status update and/or link are going to get buried quickly under that reader's slushpile of status updates.

I still haven't found the timing sweet spot for FB links.  Post in the morning, when everyone's checking their FB news?  Lunchtime?  In the evening?  Post repeatedly until people de-friend you?  I dunno.

And most importantly, unless someone else re-tweets your post or shares the link on their own FB profile, your tweets and FB status updates never reach beyond your own established circle of contacts.

Or does Twitter or Facebook even matter, if people tend to use things like RSS Feeds, Google Reader, and Reading Lists, which allow us to check out the posts we want to view, when we want to view them?

It does matter, if you want to attract new readers.  You need to get yourself on to new RSS Feeds, or they won't ever read your work.

I look to how Tobin was "pimping" our interview from late last week.  I posted the interview just once on Facebook, around my lunchtime.  That's my normal activity.

But Tobin posted the interview several times to Twitter, he posted it on five different spots in Facebook (his fan page, his personal profile, and at least three different Writer's Group discussion group pages); it was referred on from there by his friends and family - and some my friends too!  I wouldn't be at all surprised if he got on the phone and called people to tell them to read it. 

The results were fantastic:  within a week, his was the most popular post in the history of the blog - and not just a bit, but by an additional 25% more views than the next most popular post.

Compare that against other recent interviews and blog posts.  On average (including some recent interviews), I've had only 1/5th of the views as Tobin's interview - over the same period of time.

So there's the answer to the how:  increased readership = social media + word of mouth.  You can only reach so far.  Your reach doubles the moment one other person reposts or retweets your link.  Your reach expands geometrically every time someone else passes on the word.  You need to meet people who are willing to believe in you and point people in your direction.  And you need to return in kind.

But that begs the next big question:  why would someone like me (prefamous) want to increase my readership now - months, maybe years before an actual paying publication contract.

Tobin and I had a good discussion about it.  After all - Tobin needs students for his class, and he needs readers to buy his work; this is one more means of advertising.  Increased exposure makes sense for him.  What benefit is there to me, if I should a) blog at all, or b) make a point of increasing readership?

Tobin would argue that I do have something to sell, and that I need to get off my bum and go direct to Kindle.  I'm old-fashioned and I'm still holding out for the classic print (but more on that in later posts).

But there is an argument to be made about posting regularly and actively marketing my blog, even if I'm a "nobody" in established circles.

Let's say a publisher has received my work, and they want to know more about me.  They can Google me and my blog.  Here's what they're going to see.

Potential:  They can see what other writing styles I'm capable of.  They can see the extent to which I research, what my passions are, and how seriously I take my writing craft.  (Typo spotted post-publication?  Kill it kill it kill it!  Then update the post and pretend like it never happened.)  They can see how much writing experience I have, and what I intend on pursuing.  They're going to see what else I'm working on, or have worked on in the past.  And they're going to see that I'm not afraid to post things that are uncomfortable to talk about.

Thought: Let me never publish a post that hasn't taken more than 4 hours to write and refine (usually spread out over two more more sittings).  And may these posts do more than express my own thoughts; I won't ever be satisfied unless they make the reader think, too.

Audience:  I'm attempting to build up a readership now, well in advance of publication.  Networking is one thing, learning from other people another; but building up a readership, getting people interested in the stories I intend to publish - that's all one great big teaser campaign.  And it shows that I'm ready, willing and somewhat capable of marketing, even when I have "nothing to sell" yet.

Dedication:  I'm not just blarfing whatever comes into my head.  I'm researching.  I'm learning, and processing new information, and putting it into practice.  I'm audaciously contacting new and established authors, publicists, agents, publishers and editors, and I'm putting them through the interview wringer - even though I'm neither an online magazine, nor writer's group, nor a publisher, nor even an established author.  I'm not doing it just for myself, either - though I do learn something new every time I interview someone.  I'm doing it so I can share best practices with others in my position, and so I can advertise great new Canadian writing to audiences here and abroad. And they're going to see that I'm actively writing - more so than ever, with or without their publication contracts.

So do I have something to sell?  Yes - best practices, advertising, and one very prolific writer.  There's no price tag, but I'm still "selling" something.

Do I have something to gain?  Absolutely.

Does everyone benefit, if I continue expanding readership?  Beyond doubt.  I benefit, so do my guests, and so do the readers.

So how, fellow writer, how do you market your blog? And for a bonus question:  how important is it to you that you increase your readership, if you're not getting paid to blog?  Leave your comments below!

Also, if you're new to this blog, can you do me a favour?  Follow me.  I promise, I won't let you down.

You say you want a Resolution...

Like I said in my previous post, resolutions are no fun unless you can make fun of 'em.

But they are more fun when you go out for a "Resolution Forging Coffee Klatch" with Mady Virgona and Mike Lorenson!  Thanks to them both for some good planning and loads of laughs!

Below is an abbreviated but public record of my resolutions for 2012, so that this time next year, we can all sit back and chuckle uproariously at them.

Health resolutions
-  The inevitable "lose weight" resolution goes here.  For modesty's sake, I won't say how much I plan to lose, but it is an accomplishable goal.  I know, because I accomplished it a couple of times last year.  I just kept putting the weight back on.  And then Christmas happened and I discovered the joys of cooking foods with yeast in it.  Mmm...bread...
- Go to the gym 2x a week (or more).
- During the spring/summer months, go play tennis at least one week with Mike and Mady.

Creativity resolutions
- Write 500 words daily.  While it doesn't seem like a challenge to someone who can write 60,000 words in a weekend, it is more of a challenge than you'd think.  It's the "daily" part that will be the problem.  I'm like the whippet of the writing world:  a 50-mph couch potato.  Once I actually get off my butt and do something, I do it fast and relatively well; but the problem is that I spend more time goofing off than creating something.  Which brings me to the next two resolutions.
- Zero Facebook games in 2012.  I'm well on my way, actually - I haven't played any in the last three weeks.  YAY ME.
- As with last year, no more than 1 hour of TV or movies daily.  Hours can be banked, though, which means I can watch a whole movie in one sitting, if I haven't watched any TV the day before.  Because nothing says LOSER like leaving the theatre after an hour.
- Read two books a month, and post a *brief* review after.  I'm going to try and split my reading into 50% fiction, and 50% non-fiction, because I have such a backlog of research to do...If I do more than that, I can read more fiction!  Especially the classics.  I love the classics.  But reading is a real challenge for me, because I do have a short attention sp - ooh!  Squirrel!
- Bake more.  Buy no store-bought bread.  My bread's better anyhow, and comes free with a sense of self-satisfaction.  Self-satisfaction burns calories.
- Paint one picture.  I used to do that all the time, back when I had no floor space and nothing but carpets.  Now that I have space and hard wood floors, I should be painting more!

Other resolutions
- Learn sign language!  If I can find a good (and cheap) course, I can claim it as research for Mummer.  Barring that, I have ASL dictionaries at home, and I can always access that fabulous repository of all common experience:  YouTube!
- Volunteer 1-2 hours a week as a literacy and/or ESL tutor.  A) I have to get out of the apartment from time to time, and B) since I can't donate as much, financially, as I used to, I'll donate more time instead.  I'll see if I can volunteer through the YWCA.
- Submit more short stories and novels for publication.  That means a focus on critical editing, synopses and proposals.  This is more of a business and self-discipline thing, and less of a creative thing.


-----


Now, I've made resolutions pretty much every year, with varying degrees of success.  But I have discovered there are five keys to increasing your chance of success.

1.  Make them SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely).  "Be kinder," does not qualify as a SMART goal.  "Volunteer for 1-2 hours weekly at a YWCA literacy program starting the third week of January" is a SMART goal.  Lose weight does not count as a SMART goal.   "Lose 15 pounds by June 15th" is SMART, as is "go to the gym twice or more per week".
2.  Make them known.  Doesn't have to be public, but do discuss them with friends and/or family.  Don't just state your resolutions, but make it clear - to them and to yourself - why these resolutions are important and attainable.
3.  Have a resolution partner (or two) - preferably someone else who has also made resolutions and is determined to keep them for the whole year.  Be accountable to someone for your success, because if they ask you "Have you been writing 500 words a day like you wanted?" you're forced to account for why you haven't been upholding your resolutions.
4.  Review your resolutions and success with your resolution partners in a regular and structured way, throughout the entire year.  If you don't, by March you'll have forgotten all but one or two of your resolutions.  Besides, it helps you, it helps your partners, and it's a great excuse to get out for more coffee with friends.  More importantly, it helps you to stop, reflect and digest your year so far, and it allows you to re-track if you've been derailed.
5.  State your bad excuses out loud, then keep your resolutions anyhow.  I'll bet you buckets of money, if you were to make a list of excuses, "Too tired," "Too busy" and "Too broke" are going to hit the top of the list.  Structure your resolutions - and your year - accordingly.  If you know well in advance that you're going to counter your resolutions with one excuse or another, then you can either change the goal or ignore the excuses.

I already have two resolution partners, but if you're interested, drop me a line in the comments below, and I'll check up on you, too!  You don't have to list all your resolutions in the comments field, not unless you want to make your resolutions public.  But don't forget to make them SMART goals, first.

Thus concludes the 2011 series of blog posts, and I'll leave you with one simple New Year's Wish:

Your new year may not be an easy one, but here's hoping the laughs outnumber the tears.  You have control over that much, at least.

How resolute were you this year?

Resolutions are no fun, unless you can make fun of them.

Sure, a lot of people make resolutions, but how many keep tabs on them?  How many actually go back at the end of the year to see how well you've kept them?

Well, in this case, I actually kept a record of my resolutions for 2011 - and because of it, I can look back on my year to see how well I've kept them (or not).  And for the longest while, Mady Virgona and I were checking up on one another's resolutions every Monday night, until we fell out of the habit.  I think if we had kept it up, or at least, if I had continued to look at my resolutions through the year, I would have accomplished more.

So without further ado, here are the silly, and not-so-silly, resolutions I'd made in 2011.

Take 4 singing lessons.  Failed!  It's okay, though.  I think "singing solo in church, at a baptism and at a funeral, and leading songs at Easter and Christmas" outweighs "didn't take singing lessons".  Grade: C-.

Take 8 dance lessons.  Success!  Unfortunately, it was at one of these dance lessons that my wallet was stolen, so that puts a big black mark on the whole experience.  Fortunately, my dance instructor was cute and very funny.  I don't think I would go back to that studio, though.  Too upper crust for me.  I think if I was to go back to dance, I'd return to Cat's Corner on St-Laurent. There, dance was more than an artform.  It was FUN, man!  And excellent exercise.  Grade:  B+.  (I'd give myself a higher grade if I had taken the last two of the lessons I paid for.  But like I said, when your wallet is stolen from a place like that, as rich and hoity-toity as it is, you really don't want to risk it twice.)

Sew one dress (with sleeves).  FAILED.  And "ha ha ha!" for thinking it up in the first place. Grade: F.

Pay off student debt.  Success!  Grade A+, for paying it off one month earlier than expected according to my budget, and for paying it off a full eight months before the regular payments finished.

Pay off the credit card.  Success, believe it or not!  And then I moved and went to IKEA to stock up on furniture. Grade: A, but a month's detention for racking it up again.  Darn you, IKEA!  Darn you all to heck!

Go to dentist.  No comment.  Grade: F.

Land a publishing contract (or, pay for self-pub by end of year 2011).  Nope, but close.  I still have high hopes for a certain short story, but as for a book...Well, if you were to read back through several blog posts of 2011, you'll see I went through a big BLAH that knocked me right off my feet.  Now, entering into 2012, I'm cautiously optimistic.  And I won't be self-publishing for a while yet.  Grade:  N/A.  The important thing is, I'm back in the game.

Be a better CWC RVP.  Unfortunately, the same BLAH that affected my writing hopes was the same BLAH that took over the rest of my life.  Fortunately, I've been doing a lot more volunteering.  Unfortunately, I didn't do half as much as I wanted to, and only a quarter of what this role deserves.  Grade:  D.

Complain less.  You know, I think I will actually give myself a passing grade on this one.  Any time I have complained, I'd like to think I did it sparingly, and with a lot of sarcasm.  But I have been exercising optimism.  Like a muscle, optimism needs to be exercised; without exercise, it atrophies and becomes a withered, dead thing in the bottom of your soul; but when exercised, it becomes more resilient against injury, and it becomes easier to hope for bigger and bigger things.  Grade: B.  (I'd give myself a higher mark if I hadn't substituted optimism with sulky silence so often.) 

Read twenty books (5 sf/f, 5 crime, 5 non-fiction, 5 whatever else I want to read).  Sadly, I lost track of the books I'd been reading through the year, but I do know I read about 22-25 books, so yay me!  Grade: A- (points lost for not keeping track and not ensuring I had a well-rounded reading list).

Lose ten pounds.  Well, if you get really technical, I lost about 40 pounds - 2 pounds here, 1 pound there, 3 pounds another week...But, if you balance that against the pounds I gained during other weeks, I lost a total of nothing.  I'm at the same weight I was at the beginning of 2011!  So, I'm going to have to give myself a "meh" Grade of C-.  Bonus points for actually going to the gym regularly during the months of July, August, and part of September.  A kick in the pants for not going more than five times total in the months of October, November and December combined.

Get a mentor from CWC.  Please refer to the "Great BLAH of 2011".  Failed! Grade: F.

Keep house clean.  Actually, in the end of the year, I've been doing pretty darned well, if I do say so myself.  Now that I have a much larger apartment, I have enough closets, shelves, cupboards and storage units to put stuff where it belongs.  Also, because I've become a neat freak when it comes to the floors, I'm sweeping and mopping like a maniac.  Still some work to be done, but A for effort.  Overall Grade:  B-.  Next step:  empty the storage room downstairs.  Heh heh heh.  (See, this is how I scare away writer's block.  I threaten it with chores.)

1 hour of TV daily, maximum.  Actually, yes!  If you average out the days I've watched 2 hours or more of TV against the weeks (yes, weeks) when the TV wasn't on at all, I come out at 1 hour of TV daily.  Grade:  A+.

Out of bed by 7:15 every day.  HAHAHAHAHA!  Okay, that was just a dumb thing to suggest in the first place.  7:15 a.m. on Sunday mornings, yes, giving myself exactly 45 minutes to shower, dress, take the dog outside, get coffee en route and be there by 8:00 a.m.  All other days...8:45 has been the norm.  Grade:  D-.

Sunday afternoons, zero internet / TV / computer games.  Reading only, four hours.  Well, I have to split this into two halves.  In the first half of the year, yes, actually, I was doing exactly that.  And then, for whatever reason, I fell apart.  Grade:  D-.

So overall, how was the year?  I give it a C-, maybe a D+.

When I stop and think back over it, it's actually been a pretty eventful, but up/down kind of year, where the downs zeroed out the ups, and vice versa.

In terms of work, I moved to a different role, and within three months of joining the new team, I had a commendation from not one but two TELUS Vice Presidents (and a lot of leftover pizza).  And things have been pretty good since then, though, I will admit, there have been days when I've cried real tears of boredom.  The good days more than make up for it, though.

In terms of life, I had my wallet stolen, I lost my apartment, I gouged both sides of the car, and I lost my grandmother, all within 8 weeks.  From the beginning of September to the end of October, it was like being slapped, punched, kicked in the groin and then eviscerated, in that order.  Then November came, and I was as low as I could get, exhausted, criticized and full of malaise.

But then again, I moved into a much bigger apartment, and I got my first dog!  And even when I was criticized and my work torn to shreds, I still managed to come out ahead.

In church, we've lost a lot of people, some of them who had been with us since the first founding days of our congregation; but then, we've gained some, too - people who are committed, engaged, and volunteering.

In terms of writing, I haven't been so close to publication before - short stories, and now two very solid mystery series, with Lady Butcher being a surprise new arrival in 2011.  And most importantly, I overcame two of the longest, bleakest struggles I've ever had, and came out stronger for it.  The revisions to Mummer's the Word I think are awesome - character development, plot twists, clarity of narration - all that came about because of the "crisis of the heart" I'd had at the beginning of the year, which led to me falling in love with the essentials of storytelling.

And on top of that, I was tickled pink (and humbled) to have received both the Most Prolific award and the award for Best Adult Fiction in the Muskoka Novel Marathon 2011.  Currently, the manuscript (Lady Butcher and the Accidental Saint) is sitting with Marc Cote of Cormorant Press, awaiting a full critique.  It may or may not lead to a publishing contract - but the important thing is, only good can come out of the critique.

And in terms of the world, look what's happened so far!  Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring, and the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong Il.  But then again, Greece is still in turmoil, the Euro is in a death spiral, and we've also lost Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Falk (Colombo), Andy Rooney, Harry Morgan (Col. Potter), Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Steve Jobs, and Jack Layton.  And there was also Amy Winehouse, but was anybody really surprised?

And think of the inventions!  Quantum levitation.  Flying carpets.  Jetpacks.  Glasses-Free 3D Television.  The sky is no longer the limit.  Human imagination is the limit - and I don't think human imagination has a limit.  I can only imagine what "science fiction" will become reality next year.  Wireless energy ready lamps, cell phones and televisions?  I've already seen solar powered backpack laptop chargers, so why not?  (And yes, I've actually met someone who owns one.)  On the other hand, Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, and that's just dumb, in my opinion, though I know the rationalizations behind it.
 
Overall, in 2011?  A few regrets, a few successes.  There's so much more I could have done.  I remember long, dull, ugly days when all I did was sit and play computer games, lacking the spiritual and mental energy to just get up and do something.  But I overcame it - I forcibly pulled myself out of it - and that, I think is going to be the big memory from 2011.

The year has balanced itself out.  It was like winning $10,000 in the lottery and using it to pay of $15,000 of debt.  I'd have been happier to win $100,000, but I think I would have wasted most of it.

If 2011 has taught me anything, it's this:  it's okay to be sad, but do not despair; the end of a chapter is not the end of the story.  And it's okay to be happy, but keep your feet on the ground, or something will sweep them out from under you.

All things zero out in the end, but at least you can keep the good memories and deliberately forget the rest.

It's been a good enough year.  A "meh" year.  But because I've learned how to avoid and overcome the "mehs", next year will be that much better.  I needed 2011 in order to prepare for 2012.

Now...please bring on 2012.  I want to see what I can make of it.