It’s the first day of 2013, and I’ve already written the wrong date on four different things. I wonder how long it’ll take me to adjust this year. Usually, I’m good by May. Although every once in a while I’ll spit out a random date from the ’90’s, and wonder how exactly my brain manages to function at all. Usually, these random retro dates make their appearance on something completely unimportant, like a water bill (note: water companies do not like ten-year-old checks).

2012 was a quick year for me–my first full year of writing stuff. To celebrate the completion of my latest MS, I spent much of December reading great YA and writing very little. In fact, the only thing I wrote the entire month were notes, in my journals, on the beach, in Jamaica (go ahead and hate me, I can take it).

I just dug the sandy, wrinkled notebooks out of my beach bag, which I sadly have little use for now in the frozen, snowy tundra of New Jersey. I’m looking at these notes and feeling that feeling–you know, the one where you feel pukey and impatient and shy all at once? Yeah. That’s right. Pre-REVISION nerves.

This week, I’m diving back in to the middle grade project that my wonderful betas read during December. I filled up my notebooks armed with their notes. Now I just have to translate all of this mess into a revised novel. No biggie.

And in two weeks, I’m meeting some of these uh-maaaaazing CPs for the very first time in the flesh. I’m super excited. I hope we click as well in person as we do over the wires. I hope my freakishly loud laugh doesn’t scare them away. And I hope we all keep moving forward, creating new things, putting them into the world, and making the most of our time in it. Happy New Year, everyone!