I looked at where I was ten years ago (that's what 10+ years of journaling will do for you) and I was surprised, pleased and appalled. I was surprised because, reading my journal from December 1999 and January 2000, I was relatively happy. I had just become debt free, I enjoyed my job and my friends and I had just come out of a multi-year depression. That honestly surprised me. I forgot about that. It pleases me to know that I wasn't as unhappy as I remember all the time. Things really turned around for me in 1999 and 2000.

I was appalled at my writing, my (lack of) writing goals and what I considered success back then. Boy, times have changed. Then again, writing was not my main focus. Being a SQA engineer and gaming with my friends was. Though, it was in 2000 when I got angry/motivated to stop dreaming and to become the author I wanted to be.

When I look at where I was and where I am right now, I have to say, despite the hard parts, the Naughties were really good to me. Best and most important was finding Jeff, falling in love with him and getting married. That supersedes everything else. Even my writing career. Though, creating my writing career out of nothing is a close second. I started with RPG book reviews and look at me now – I'm writing novels, RPG books, and short fiction while editing semiprozines, reading slush and creating/editing anthologies. It really has been an amazing decade for me.

Looking forward, I have nothing but goodness coming along with a lot of hard work that is well worth the pain I am going to go through. Sometimes, it boggles the mind that I have six books scheduled to come out in 2010 and that's not including any of the private discussions I've had with publishers about other projects.

Yes, there were some very low points during the last decade, but overall, I'm going to call it a win because of Jeff and my writing career. Everything else didn't kill me and just made me stronger. The next decade will be just as good or better.