I spent an hour or two yesterday looking back over the blog, refreshing my memory before I tackled any of the year in review tasks that await.\u00c2\u00a0 On a day when I had a lot of fun – the girls and I had a swim at Bayswater Waves, the family played golf and bowling on the Wii, we had dim sum and went shopping at Planet and JB Hi Fi – I found myself reading a lot about stress, ill-health and projects in various states of chassis.\u00c2\u00a0 Not fun.<\/p>\n
It got me to thinking – I should talk more about what’s going on in my life that’s good and talk a lot less about projects as they’re in progress.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 With that in mind, first, something positive about 2008.\u00c2\u00a0 It was easily my most successful year at pretty much any kind of stuff<\/em>. I got my first promotion at my day job in far too many years (in truth, the only one I’ve applied for in a decade or more so that’s my fault, but still…), I won (or books I worked on won) a Ditmar, a Tin Duck, a Locus Award (!), and was nominated for the Hugo Award (!!!!).\u00c2\u00a0 I traveled to Denver for WorldCon and Calgary for World Fantasy.\u00c2\u00a0 I had an almost idyllic time at Lancelin for my mother’s 70th birthday, and then spent a lovely week in Dunsborough with the my brother-in-law and his family.\u00c2\u00a0 To be crass about it, I’m earning more money than ever before and am still fortunate enough to have a good day job and be reasonably successful at my editing.<\/p>\n On the downside: in 2008 I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and then spent five months putting weight on<\/em>, I hurt my right shoulder (which still isn’t quite right), I cracked a rib which continues to bother me four months later, I got ridiculously overstressed about things like cover debates and so on, and generally handled stress and strain poorly. There were also health scares for both kids, which was pretty terrifying, but they’re both okay at the moment, which is good.<\/p>\n And yet…I’m optimistic about 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 Why? Well, firstly because my editing continues to work out.\u00c2\u00a0 While details have to be finalised, I’ve just sold a new book that I’m very happy about.\u00c2\u00a0 I have a wonderful family, who contribute to the craziness but are still the best part of everything I experience.\u00c2\u00a0 And I feel like I’ve had something of an epiphany when it comes to managing me and my stress etc.\u00c2\u00a0 If that proves true, if I can work on that, then 2009 will be much more enjoyable which is what I need.<\/p>\n With that in mind, I might<\/em> make New Year’s resolutions, but if I don’t, I do feel like I know what I need to do to make 2009 a good year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I spent an hour or two yesterday looking back over the blog, refreshing my memory before I tackled any of the year in review tasks that await.\u00c2\u00a0 On a day when I had a lot of fun – the girls and I had a swim at Bayswater Waves, the family played golf and bowling on … Continue reading Was that 2008?<\/span>