2012--Year In Review

Every year, I try to write a "Year in Review" in order to look back at my life for the last 365 days and to begin to look forward to the next 365 days.  Here's my year in review for 2012:

In Summary

2012 marked the 15th anniversary of my writing journey.  It was a busy year and an overall good year.  I did have a setback in May/June with my health (and a few other family health issues this year) but everything turned out well.  The translation of Hippocampus marked a very big and important step in my career as an author.  2012 was the year of Hippocampus.  But I'm predicting that 2013 will be bigger for Hippocampus and The Atlantis Revolution.  I'll have a peek into 2013 posted early in the new year. 

January 2012

2012 started off right with the completion of the illustrated cover for Hippocampus (The First Book of the Atlantis Revolution).  January was also an important month in the negotiations in regards to translation rights with the Indonesian publisher.

February 2012

 The second month of the year was all about promotion for Hippocampus.  I even spent a weekend in North Carolina for the Book 'Em NC event. 

March 2012

 The major event in March was the signing of the contract to with Mizan to translate Hippocampus into the Bahasa Indonesian language.  March was also the month when numerous positive reviews started to gather for Hippocampus. 

April 2012

April was probably the most anticipated month of the year because that was when Hippocampus went on sale in the United States.  More reviews came in, I took part in some interviews, and provided some goodies for giveaways. 

May/June 2012

May and June put a bump in the road.  As I was in the middle of promoting Hippocampus (and completing the school year), I became seriously ill.  I was admitted into the hospital--the doctors thought I had a heart attack.  It turned out that I had a severely infected gall bladder and small intestine.  Two surgeries, four nights in the hospital, and numerous weeks of rest later, I was back to work at summer school and I returned to promoting Hippocampus as well. 

July 2012

I spent some of July vacationing in Florida.  The vacation included celebration of my first book deal with a major (international) publisher.  The rest of the month included lots of work on Echinodea (The Second Book of the Atlantis Revolution)

August 2012

August was important because it was when I finished Echinodea (The Second Book of the Atlantis Revolution).  It was also the month that the special seahorse edition of Hippocampus was released.  It turned out that the cover of the special edition was well liked so the rest of the series will feature covers in the same format. 

September 2012

I started September by moving into a new house.  September was also the month that Hippocampus was released in Indonesia.  Not much book progress was made beyond that because I spent the month getting the new school year started and getting situated in the new house.  

October/November 2012

October and November involved lots of work at school and on the new house.  I used The Atlantis Revolution as inspiration for decorating.  Look at those seahorse lamps for the bedroom.

December 2012

The year ended with a potential offer from another publisher (hopefully more details will be forthcoming).  Hippocampus and Echinodea (as well as yours truly) made it onto a few lists over at thebookshelfreview.blogspot.com.  And I ended the month/year by working on formatting Echinodea for release in paperback, nook, and kindle--as well as writing Medousa (The Final Book of the Atlantis Revolution)

 

Posted in: