The Zeroes in Prose, Part II

I promised youse the rest of my noughties, and here they are in all their prosaic glory. (God, I enjoyed writing that sentence.)

2005
My nephew Miles was born. I started sending out proposals for the novel I'd started writing as part of my graduate thesis. More of my friends started blogging, and I spent a lot of time on the internet looking for jobs on Craigslist, if my blog entries from that year are to be believed. I also started co-blogging with Tanita on what is now Finding Wonderland.

During the year, I tried to juggle temping with getting my own freelance business going. Meanwhile, Rob was awarded tenure at the end of the spring semester. I went to his summer color & design class for fun and a refresher, and also took a mixed media painting class. In the fall, Rob turned thirty. I established contact with my half-sister in Australia—or rather, she found me in the process of looking for her dad, that is, our dad. I participated in National Novel Writing Month for the first time. I got a lot of rejection letters, but on the more encouraging side, I got third place in a short story contest. I also was elected vice-president of the Cymdeithas Madog Board.

2006
Nice new kitchen linoleum was the latest step in our house renovation saga. I started some early forays into the heady world of being paid for my article writing, though I still had to juggle the writing with temping. I also got runner-up in another short story contest, started some (paid) freelance research work and became (unpaid) graphic designer for a local small theater.

Early in the year, I found myself in the awkward position of having to take over a bit earlier than anticipated as Board President. At the same time, I was the main local organizer for bringing a 75-person Welsh course to California in the summer. Unsurprisingly, I started getting hives again due to stress of epic proportions, which only ended after the course did.

In May, we took a trip to China with Rob's uncle and aunt. We got Tivo and celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary (not necessarily in that order). I met some Irish friends when I joined an online Flickr fiction writing group. In the fall, I joined a gym for my physical health and I started seeing Dr. Yoda (not his real name) for my mental health. I participated in the Cybils for the first time, and during National Novel Writing Month, I started writing The Latte Rebellion. I got to be on a local NPR program and talk about it, which was super cool—my first (and only, so far) radio appearance.

2007
I got Adobe Creative Suite. (Yes, this was a major event.) We went to Hawaii's Big Island to visit friends there and enjoy the 70-degree "winter weather." I started cartooning again, for the writing blog this time. I turned thirty, and felt every single one of those years when I enrolled in an indoor soccer class. My second nephew, Avery, was born, and we attended our second summer Pig Roast (which we'd helped organize this time). We started getting our CSA vegetable box. I was a bridesmaid in two different weddings. We got our second cat, Zelda. I got busy with a lot more freelance work, which was gratifying, and did a lot more blogging. I continued as President of the Cymdeithas Madog Board, and then stepped down in the summer. I visited New York for the first time, and Venice, Italy. Our massive household construction project commenced.

2008
Kicked the new year off with a Mars Volta concert in San Francisco. My dad ditched his Quizno's franchise (an ill-advised get-rich-quick-in-semi-retirement scheme), de-stressed considerably, and started coming to terms with my career choice. I took a Spanish class. I started doing a bit more painting again, and then slacked off...again. I did some more freelance work—graphic design, mostly—and got some more writing rejections, as well as a few actual article acceptances. My younger cousin graduated from college, which made me feel old.

Our local soccer team, the San Jose Earthquakes, was reinstated, and we became what my sister would call "soccer tragics." In the summer, we went on a lot of rafting float trips with the boat we'd purchased the prior year. Our college friend Beth got married, and we went to Seattle to attend the wedding. I played Rock Band for the first time, and signed up for Twitter. We drank an inhuman amount of sake in celebration of Obama's presidential victory. The quality of my blog posts improved, though their number drastically decreased. My final blog post of the year said, "I don't want to make any unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky resolutions, like resolving that 2009 is the year that I'm going to land a literary agent and/or a book contract."

2009
I landed a book contract, no thanks to my pessimistic soul. Prior to that, though, I did a huge revision of my novel, followed by my query, tentative interest, and another huge revision. Rob started teaching figure drawing, and I went to his spring semester class so I could get some drawing practice. I also participated in a ten-artist collaborative print project, and wrote my first poem in years. I fought my way out of some major emotional doldrums (a regularly recurring battle for me). Reviewing my blog tells me that I formulated a lot of good intentions which I later forgot about.

I spent most of the summer working my butt off on the post-publisher-interest, pre-novel-acceptance revision—rekindling my confidence that perhaps I was indeed in the right line of work—and on a new freelance article writing job. Rob started his sabbatical for the 09-10 school year. We saw the King Tut exhibition, and saw our friend Jess for the first time in a couple of years. I got the novel acceptance and a contract, and waited on tenterhooks to find out what would happen next. Our transmission in the Honda busted, costing us over 4 grand before we left for Italy and Spain for a month. The Euro also kicked our asses. We came back and had a very modest holiday season, during which I wrote a few more poems.

...And then it was 2010.

Potentially embarrassing photo retrospective to come in a later post.