Maligayang Bagong Taon!

I have it on good authority that means "Happy New Year!" I don't celebrate New Year's myself. I'm an early bird, not a night owl. I am grateful the extremely cold weather kept the firecracker crowd inside last night. I slept uninterrupted until cat breakfast.

(I never mention the dog waking me up because she's better behaved than the cats. Bless her.)

Many people use the the New Year to make resolutions they later break. I do not. If I'm going to resolve something, I do it when the idea occurs to me. No sense waiting.

This year our Bible study group will read the entire Bible in chronological order. I've never done that before and I am looking forward to it. I will, naturally, start today. This can only help me in my writing journey as a Christian author. I continually seek inspiration for my characters in the Scriptures (guiding verses, issues to overcome, that sort of thing). I suspect God will use this discipline to reward me in ways I cannot now see.

I will continue to seek publication, both for Star of Justice and Elementals. For the moment, Star of Justice will stay with Jeff the Publisher until I receive a "send me more" or a "not yet, thank you." But I can work on Elementals. This means more research, more marketing-skill polishing, perhaps more contests. I will keep self-publishing as an option, but MLS has shown me the value of having at least one other author review something (my growing thanks to the Lioness!).

Those are two goals, and that's enough for this turtle. That was the "looking forward" part of the blog evaluation.

Now, a brief look back to get that out of the way.

I think I've added two new followers to the blog, both of whom were in the premise contest.

Welcome to The Wordcrafter/ Keven Newsome who wrote Winter, and to Diane Graham, who wrote I Am Ocilla, one of the winning premises! Congratulations, Diane! And Wordcrafter, I am shocked yours didn't advance. It is safe to say, any future publication I enjoy will be God's doing, because I can't read a crowd's preferences to save my life.

I have added more scriptures to my blog, finished labeling posts (the hard part is remembering to label in the first place), and added several more "blogs I follow" as I find writers at MLS I like. Diane, that's an invitation to send me your blog info.

As for my website, I've been having all kinds of fun! I added a full page for Star of Justice, and even have my first "reader comment." I will add another page of links for "authors to watch" from MLS. Several authors have websites but no blogs. I hope to change something on the website once a month to keep it interesting.

Good-bye, 2009. I will hopefully remember only the good things. Hello, 2010. May God have mercy on us all.