Year-in-Review

Before we completely say goodbye to 2012, let's take a look back. What were some of your favorite writing moments this year? Favorite accomplishments? New books discovered?

Here's my top five:

1. Bransforumfest - I got to hang out with a bunch of amazing writing buddies in Las Vegas for a week and meet the author/former agent extraordinaire Nathan Bransford for the inaugural Bransforumfest. It was a blast! And kinda crazy, since we completely made this conference up on the forums and then brought it to life (Kudos, Sommer!). I learned so much and am crossing my fingers for a Bransforumfest 2013.
2. Meeting Brandon Sanderson - Um, yeah, I may have been a little excited for this one, seeing as he's one of the current authors I admire most in the industry and he's finishing my most beloved series of all time!! It was fantastic to hear his advice in the workshops, and yes, I did get his autograph, and yes, I did act like a fan girl.
3. Finishing the draft of Rain Reader, which I LOVE! - I'd had the story rolling around in my head for a couple years and I knew it was a good one, but I wasn't prepared for how much I fell in love with these characters. All marketing, queries and blogging aside, for me, my actual writing time is what means the most, and this story flowed like buttah. There were several stretches where I was writing 1,000-plus words a night, and that's a lot for me. (For those of you who now want to throw things at me, don't worry. There were A LOT of nights where I wrote a big fat zero, too).
4. Launching an e-short - This was one of the things I really wanted to try this year, and I was pretty happy with how the process went for Running in the Dark. I knew I wanted to experiment with e-publishing for my short stuff, before I even remotely thought about it for novels, and I'm so glad I did.
5. Hanging out with all you lovely folks! - Seriously. This year was great fun in the blogging world. I did the A-to-Z challenge for the first time, hosted a blogfest and did so many other wacky, amazing fests and hops too. Thanks for sticking around!

Most Improved
I was also thinking about my "most improved" -- the writing aspect I feel I've made the most progress on in the last year. I'd have to say for me it's dialogue.

I've always been decent at writing the actual words for dialogue, but I typically used it as only secondary to description and action to move the plot along. Some of the fantastic authors I'd been reading could advance the story almost solely on dialogue, and I wanted to try that more.

I think I did it...guess we'll have to see what the judges (ahem, readers and agents, ahem) say.

Do you have a most improved?

Best of 2012
As I did last year, here's my round-up of favorite things from 2012.

Fave Newly-discovered Book: The Way of Shadows, Brent Weeks
Fave Movie: The Avengers
Fave New-to-Me TV Series: Firefly, which I finally saw and loved!! Runners-up: Nikita and Beauty & the Beast.
Fave TV Episode: How I Met Your Mother - The Final Page, Part Two
Fave New Pandora Artists: Fun, Ramin Karimloo, Kip Moore, Of Monsters and Men, Hey Rosetta, St. Leonards, Fort Atlantic.

Happy New Year! Wherever you're reading this on the globe, I hope you usher in a wonderful 2013!