2012 in Review: It’s Been a Pretty Eventful Year

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for me and it gave me the idea to do a bit of a retrospective. First, here is the stats report for my writing blog. I was surprised to see which post was the most popular–the one about my brother, Roger, His Smiling Eyes. Rather than talking about writing, this post is an example of my writing and has a compelling title. I suppose those are the reasons it was the most popular post of the year. Something for me to remember.

Here is the WordPress report for those who are into stats. I think it’s pretty interesting to see what stats they have chosen to report and which of my posts were most popular.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 11,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 18 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Some of the other benchmarks of my year include learning a lot about writing through two excellent critiquers and excellent writing techniques through Author Salon. I started book 2 of my trilogy, tentatively titled The Loyalist’s Luck, and went to historical fiction writer, Barbara Kyle’s workshop where we presented our first 30 pages for discussion. I got a lot of excellent feedback and can hardly wait to pick up that project and finish the first draft.

In late summer, after much deliberation, I decided to leave Author Salon and forge ahead on The Loyalist’s Wife on my own. A final work through the manuscript was invigorating and fruitful. In late October, I finished. Then I immediately began sending out a flurry of querries to agents with the hopes of snagging one, a quest I am still on. Self-publishing has also been looming on my horizons and loads of related articles have caught my attention both on the Internet and through LinkedIn author groups.

A marketing course caught my attention in August and I signed up for fellow Canadian, Danny Iny’s course. I learned a lot about blogging, writing for a purpose, and just what I needed to write to attract the audience I’m writing for. I read several books for writers and commented in various places, but the one I read for Joe Bunting at The Write Practice really made sense for me. His book was about writing short stories. I got really excited about going over my 20 or so stories and submitting them. It was energizing. I’ve sent a couple out but need to do more. One I got published in Quick Brown Fox in November.

Just this moment I’m in Victoria with family, chomping at the bit to get writing again, after 2 weeks of very little ass-in-chair time. I am back on my path, know where I’m going, and want to move ahead every day. That elusive book cover is moving closer and  closer. 2013, here I come!

Wishing you all a very productive and energizing New Year!

Consider leaving a comment with your successes for 2012 and wishes for 2013. 

Download a free copy of 10 Ways to Improve Your Writing Booklet from the link in the side column.

 

A Sad Anniversary

My brother many years ago.

December 12th is the 4th anniversary of my brother, Roger’s, death. I wrote this memory piece for him some time ago but am publishing it here as a remembrance of my wonderful brother. While this is personal, I have discovered on LinkedIn and other social media sites that writers are nothing if not a mix of people with thousands of very personal, very thought-provoking stories. And from the personal we draw the life-blood of our stories. If Roger were still here, he would be cheering me on with my writing.  This, then, is for him.

His Smiling Eyes

by Elaine Cougler

Roger died. At only fifty-four his heart gave out, his smiling eyes closed, and he left us. Left us all. His children and grandchildren, his wife, his brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters-in-law, his many friends and many more acquaintances—he just up and died away, from us all.

He died on December 12, 2008 in the evening, at the hospital, after an ambulance ride during which he infuriated the paramedics with his humorous quips. They wanted straight answers from him to assess his situation but he just made jokes and they didn’t know if that was normal or not. Well, Roger was never in his life ‘normal’.

When he was born I was almost eight but he soon caught up to us older children. He mastered adding and subtracting before ever going to school and so quickly that Mom moved on to multiplication and division. Yes, he could do all that before he made his school debut. And he could read just about anything. I seem to remember him with the local newspaper, reading out stories to us at our large family dinner table.

He was a bit of a problem in school because he was

 

Paths of History Lead us to Today

Drumming in circle

I remember very clearly memorizing my speech about Joseph Brant and presenting it to my fellow Grade 8 students. Of course this was before the Internet was even thought of let alone used for research. I did mine in the school library by finding books about this illustrious man so involved in moving his people to, and opening up, present-day Southern Ontario.

That was the first speech I ever gave but the thing I remember most about it was my amazement that this native man had lived so very close to where I lived. Brantford, named for Brant, was about 40 miles from my home and my father often went there on business. For a child, putting a concrete connection to history is vital. This was mine to a man who had walked the trails of many places I knew.

At 13, I am sure my speech covered only the main, easily found points about Brant, but for my historical novel I have dug deeper. His native name, Thayendanagea, means