2011 year in review

I am shocked that it has been almost a year since I wrote a blog post for The "Write Approach". Time certainly has a way of getting away from me. It wasn't because I haven't been working on other areas of my life, however. It has been a busy year for me. I started working on my bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts in January, and have already started my sophomore year. The fact that I have been in an accelerated degree program has definitely taken a large chunk of my time this past year.

Not only that, but I also have started a part time job. I work Friday nights at an artsy kind of restaurant in West Plains, Missouri called the A La Carte Cafe. Susan and Jon Lumsden are the proprietors of the establishment. The food served is, as much as possible, from locally procured sources. Much of what they serve is also organic. As you might realize from my other blog Simply Living, I support local foods and organic foods. Not only does this establishment have the foods I like, it displays creative outlets. Susan spent many years creating artistic quilts. She has a number of them hanging in the restaurant. Jon is a singer/songwriter. The reason I have the opportunity to work here on Friday nights is because on these nights local musicians from all different music styles come into the restaurant and entertain the patrons. From time to time the restaurant also has special events, some of which I have able to be a part. I have also been busy trying to network on the Internet through Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. During the first part of the year I built my twitter account from around 300-1000 people I was following. During the last three months I have increased my following to nearly 2000 and my followers to over 1500. I hope that by the end of the year I will be able to increase my followers to just over 2000. In March I had a major writing setback which has caused me to play catch up ever since. My husband decided to wipe the computer where I had all my documents. I had recently bought a new computer so I told him that I wanted all my documents stored on a flash drive so that I could transfer them to the new computer. Rather than making sure that I had everything off of the computer, he went ahead and wiped the computer. Later, when it was too late, I discovered that he deleted all of my Microsoft Word files and just saved "my documents" files that had been on the computer. My published book had been deleted from the computer as well as the three rough drafts I had of my upcoming novels. I had to start all over again. Fortunately I was able to find an old copy a draft of Soldiers Don't Cry on an old computer that was here in the house. I have since taken that draft and expanded the manuscript to almost 300 pages. I have been working on editing the book since March, and I plan to publish Soldiers Don't Cry on June 30th of next year.