A hearty halfyear

July has rolled around, and 2012 has really hit its stride. Here in NJ, it's hit it with a sweaty, humid, coma-inducing heatwave, but it's hit it all the same.

Though I tend to blog here about specific writing- and book-related thoughts, the halfway point of the year seems as good a time as any to break with tradition.

So I'm going to look back -  at what this year has been to me, and what I hope it's yet to bring.

This has been doing the rounds online, and deservedly so. Books are changing my life in so many fantastic ways.

2012 started with my first New Year as a husband, and a sense of some grand, great adventure lying before us - paths to be followed, roads to be explored, and a wonderfully undefined and unknowable future. My wife had left her home in Japan, and I'd left mine in Japan and England, to start life in the States. New family, new friends, and new places all made life bright and brilliant.

By February we'd found a flat to rent, and both found jobs - not something to take lightly at the moment,  I know. The fact that they're jobs that allow us to write (more or less) is a particular joy.

Of course, my biggest moment, writing-wise, was signing with a literary agency in April. Within a two month period - a hectic, thrilling, nervous time - I went from slushpile query-er to agented author. It was a huge thing for me (and my wife, I hope), and felt like it set me firmly on the road to getting somewhere with the books.

Off the back off EREN's moderate success in that aspect, I started two more books. In part to keep me busy, and in part to have something more to show prospective editors, they're two very different books, but both ones I'm enjoying. As one creeps towards the 30,000 words mark, and the other fills with scenes and images that are dark and meaningful in just the right way for me, I dream on - that I could do this for a living, and not in my spare moments.

June was quieter, like the calm after the storm, or the deep breath before the plunge. I'm hoping for much, and scribbling away, and living life and enjoying it all. The weather's gone crazy across the U.S., and in England as well, and it looks like it might be a difficult summer for many. E-books and self-published books and fan fiction-turned-record breakers have a lot of people worried about The Future of Publishing, but that seems to be a pretty standard thing to worry about. I'll write on.

I'm hopeful. I think the second half of this year is going to be good. It'll still be good if EREN doesn't find a home, because I still finished it - I made art - and I'm writing more. I'm writing for myself, in the hope that others can love it, too.

So, here's to 2012, and all it might bring, for better, for worse, for the next six months. Cheers.