Topic Tuesday- the best & worst of 2013 and what I'm looking forward to in 2014

Yes, I groaned when I saw this topic from Jeff. Sighs, it's been a year. :( Well admittedly, I'm mostly thinking about November and December- the large personal catastrophes have overshadowed what happened in the months before. Health issues with both mother and mother-in-law, change in job situation for my Master. Of course these all have huge attendant stresses and none is resolved yet. We even had the rare large disagreement- I hate to say "fight" because I doubt few people would look from the outside at the disagreement and label it a fight- voices were never raised, no swearing happened, no violent physical contact happened. Specifically looking at the "best/worst" part, I was led to thinking about my Saturday "joys/sorrows" post on Facebook. For non-Unitarian Universalists reading this, let me explain this basic ritual of community that UUs engage in in most if not all of our congregations. Whether it's lighting a candle at a specific point in a service, dropping a stone into water, or some other action, usually with words from our minister or another teacher, we share joys and sorrows in our lives. Because I'm a lifestyle submissive and while UUs tend to be rather open-minded about a lot of stuff, alt sex people (especially polyamorous and kinky people) find less to no welcome or support, depending on what part of the country and even from one congregation to another. I go to the online UU church, Church of the Larger Fellowship, and I struggled with what to call my Master when sharing a joy or sorrow that mentioned Him, so I stopped sharing as many joys/sorrows; now I do it in my status message so I can tag if I want, refer to Him as "Master" for my comfort.

It seems now that all the "best" I can think of is matched by a "worst." Like I competed in and won "Camp Nano" (like Nanowrimo but in your choice of April or July; I did July), but I failed to complete Nanowrimo- too much IRL stress. However, that is balanced by the excitement about my Nanowrimo WIP by the people who've read snippets of it on my blog- so I'm pushing to finish it ASAP and hoping that Blushing Books (who's my first choice to submit to as I mention them in it) accepts the submission and publishes it. I learned a bunch more about self-publishing, made friends with a guy who does great work, but my Master losing His job means there isn't the money to use those services at the moment- and I'm hoping on two book releases in the next month. I've had a great year with author blogging- the schedule has been a great help- but it seems I still worry about how many page views, how many comments, how to increase both, and what all the blogging is accomplishing- as I have only a free ebook, I don't have any "it's helping me sell books" to weigh the usefulness of blogging by that.

My 13 year old dog has lost a few teeth this year, but that fact that she's still alive, happy, and not having accidents inside the house balance out the teeth lose. However, it's at the point of "she's very old." Then there was Xion- the more recent rescue. We didn't have him very long because he was already old when we adopted him and yeah, it was very hard when we had to put him to sleep because his body was just failing. But he was a very loving dog. After the vet put him on a diet (3 cups of California blend veggies, 1 cup of boiled potatoes, and 2 cups of dog food) and Prozac, he was even more loving.

This isn't Annikka, but her cat Reidar enjoying a fuzzy blanket. I missed stories of what he was doing too :D

Then there's Annikka Woods. I'm not sure where friendship, beta reader, and writing friend all began, ended, overlapped etc. Nanowrimo was difficult in many ways for her too and when she was AFK for weeks, I started to get really anxious. But thankfully one day, she got onto Facebook, explained what had happened. So now my Master is again hearing "Well Annikka said..." lol

Now I'm going to move on to thinking of 2014- I can't handle too much more of 2013, too many bitter spots. I want changes to slow down. I'm talking major changes here- I'm looking at becoming caretaker of my mother-in-law (who had a stroke and now needs constant care.) I want my Master to find a good paying job that He also enjoys. I want at least two books published, if not more. I want to find another LGBT book hop to take part in so that my writing can get out to that audience (yeah, I write BDSM erotica, but rarely with straight people.) I want to see continued and improving success at the two gaming stores that make up a large portion of my Master's and our teen's social life. As I shared on Tymber Dalton's blog, where doing so could win a signed copy of her book "The Denim Dom," when I think of 2014 it's about "sharing." Often several times a day, author friends and acquaintances will say (especially on Facebook) something like "you're such a good sharer." Part of "writing in community"- I swear I remember Anastasia Vitsky using that phrase first and she probably even has an archived post about it on her blog- is that sharing and it's an important activity to me. Sure, in part, I hope if I share other's posts, when they see my promo posts that they'll then share. But it's larger than that. I don't see myself as in direct competition with these other authors so seeing them succeed too is only a good thing to me.