2014 in Review

What a year it was! Mark and I feel like we completed the Seven Impossible Tasks, and now we’re sort of looking around, wondering what “normal life” looks like. Hahahhaa.

The year began with us in the middle of our three-month stint as replacement innkeepers at a lovely bed and breakfast on Orcas Island, and newly engaged. Orcas Island was amazing. We will totally live there some day. Even though it was the dead of winter, it was gorgeous, at any time of day, from any angle. And peaceful (it’s probably not like that in the height of tourist season…), and warm and friendly. We loved it. A number of friends came to see us at the inn; we never felt isolated or far away.

Mid-February, we returned to Portland (and started dieting). 🙂 I was already deep into the rewrite of Our Lady of the Islands, and the project just kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger… Mark, meanwhile, began working on the deck demolition-and-rebuild. Which coincided with some of the rainiest, most miserable weather of the winter.

But then it was May and the deck was done! The novel, alas, wasn’t. That remained a huge project, and Mark gave me lots of input. Which was totally helpful. No, really, it was.

Sadly, the rewrite did not get done in time for Jay to read it. He died June 1. Sick as he was, we had not talked for some months before that, though he knew I was doing a deep rewrite, and was glad for it. I remain deeply sad that he never got to see it, or the positive critical acclaim it’s gotten.

The novel finally got turned in in later June, in time for us to have a nice deckwarming party. Fifty people came, which gave us a taste of what to expect for our wedding with several hundred guests…yikes!

Speaking of the wedding! That was the next huge project. To save money (money we didn’t have, even before we spent more than a new car’s worth on the deck), we planned it all ourselves, cutting corners everywhere we could. We went to California again and again, meeting with the caterer, the florist (a friend), the owners of the ranch (also friends), tasting wine and beer and champagne (how we suffered!), trying to get all the parts and pieces put together.

Meanwhile, it was an incredible summer here in Portland–some of the best weather I’ve ever seen, in my five years here. We gardened like crazy, and really enjoyed that new deck. It was warm and pleasant all the time–okay, sometimes hot and pleasant. Well, I loved it. 🙂 We rode our bikes all the time, including long rides out to Boring and Gresham; did all ten bridges on the Providence Bridge Pedal, and were surprised at how easy it was.

And the wedding. The planning. Things got busier and more frenzied and more crazy leading up to it…we went to California a month before, with a carfull of liquor to store at the ranch; we went to California again a week before the wedding, to make all the final preparations. There was WAY too much to do, and not nearly enough time; a jillion little things went wrong; several major things appeared to go wrong and didn’t; several other very bad things happened to close members of our wedding party (one of which I only learned about last night); and the weather was cold and gloomy and drippy all week.

And then. The morning of the wedding dawned…bright and sunny. All the troubles fell away. Well, except for Mark’s awful chest cold. But he took Day-Quil, and soldiered on. The wedding was spectacular, gorgeous, amazing. Perfect. I married my best friend. What a journey we both took to get here–all our lives, not just this year, not just the last five years since we met. I smile every time I see that ring on his finger. My husband. 🙂

My poor husband was SO SICK for several days after the wedding…he only started feeling better once I started getting sick. We gave up on trying to go see his dad in the board-and-care, not wanting to bring sickness there, and headed for home. On our way, I learned that Our Lady, not to be published for two more months yet, had already gotten a FABULOUS starred review from Publishers Weekly! Amazing! But even that was not enough to keep the flu at bay. Oh, sick, sick.

Fortunately, having been married before, I had known enough to schedule our honeymoon for several weeks after the wedding–not right away. So by the time we went to Orcas Island at the end of October, we were both feeling quite recovered.

And such a lovely honeymoon it was! Seeing so many people we’d met the winter before; being hosted in the bed & breakfast we had been “keepers” of; and my birthday. AND, on the morning of my birthday, in the middle of our honeymoon, in the most beautiful spot on earth: that’s when I got Publishers Weekly‘s even better news–that they had named Our Lady one of their Best Books of 2014.

I am still not quite believing that. 🙂 🙂

We got home from the honeymoon, scrambled to get ready to run a dealer’s table at OryCon (and didn’t quite get everything together we’d wanted to), sold a lot of early copies of Our Lady, and saw a lot of good folks. Before we knew it, it was time to head to California for Thanksgiving…where we got the news that my brother and sister-out-law are going to have a baby boy next May!!!! They already knew at our wedding, but weren’t announcing it yet–wanting to get all the tests done to make sure it was a go, and not wanting to steal our thunder.

I am SO EXCITED and happy!! I’ve always wanted to be an aunt. They will be amazing parents. We are all THRILLED.

Mark and I stuck around California, secretly, after Thanksgiving, to attend a surprise 70th birthday party for my dad a week later. He was very, very surprised! It was great.

Alas, on this trip was when we got the news that our good friend Kate had a malignant brain tumor. She’s had surgery, and is recovering well from that; she’s now undergoing chemo and radiation. Once we got home, I began writing several times a week with her husband David; Mark goes to sit with Kate while we do that. They are still reeling from this, as are we all.

Then on December 9, Our Lady officially published; I had several readings (and more are coming); my Amazon numbers got really low for a while (which is good!); I got a starred Library Journal review, and lots of people told me they read/are reading the book and liked/are liking it. Go, little book, go!

We had a tree-decorating party, and then hosted my mom and stepdad for Christmas, which was lovely. Then we had a reasonably quiet New Year’s Eve, with my friend H., who gave us the happy/sad news that her financial and career situation had changed so that she can leave Portland and move back to California to be near her parents. Which she’s wanted to do, but…I will miss her! Though, as she points out, we go to California often enough. It’s not like we’ll be strangers.

So it was a pretty darn good year, for us, with some notable dark spots. There appears to be rather too much cancer in this world of ours. I’ve only mentioned the people I know closely; too many others in our extended circle have much sadder stories to tell than my year of publishing success, marriage, and a new generation underway.

And for 2015? Onward, onward. I’m months late on my rewrite of The Queen and The Tower; working on it (during those writing dates with David), but I’ve got quite a ways to go. We have some interesting projects planned, both Mark and I, which I will tell you about if/when they come to fruition. We’re thinking about our travel–if we can afford to travel–WorldCon for sure, probably World Fantasy, and then some smaller cons. California in May or early June, of course, to meet the new Page boy! Oh and California in a few weeks, for more bookstore readings. 🙂 Tomorrow the diet starts again. Neither of us have been on our bikes in months (in our defense, it’s COLD outside!). I hope to hang onto all the freelance proofreading/copy editing clients I have; if this keeps up, it may actually be a sustainable career for me. Getting paid to read books: wow. If you had told me, when I was a kid, that this could be a career, I would not have believed you. I still don’t quite believe it.

And getting paid not just to read but to WRITE books? Yeah. Pretty much ideal. 🙂

Happy New Year, everyone! May 2015 be full of wonder and challenge and love and wine and growth and laughter.

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