Unexpected stuff from 2007

New Year's is a time to set new goals while reflecting upon how well we did at last year's goals. But that's so predictable. Today I will talk about stuff I did and stuff that happened to me in 2007 that I didn't see coming.

I went to an actual exmo gathering!!!

I'd met exmo Internauts before, but this time I got to go to my first real exmo gathering to meet the lovely lady exmos of Europe and Montana!!! Yay!!!

So any of you who were thinking I'm not a real person just because I'm never at any of the live events, Sister Mary Lisa can vouch for me -- and she knows everybody!!! :D

Blogging Awards:

I won a Stermy!!! I'd just like to thank Bill O'Reilly and all of the people who were waging war on Christmas who made this award possible for me.

On the other hand I also got farked, which is kind of the opposite of getting an award. The take-home lesson on that one? I'm not sure, but it looks like it's that you can write as many positive or mixed feminist critiques as you want, but if you write a negative one, then someone out there is going to see you as living proof that feminists are bitter, humorless, and hate everything. It's a little like being an exmo or an atheist, now that I think about it. The only annoying part is that I'm actually not bitter and angry. Maybe it would be simpler if I were, but I like to keep people guessing. ;^)

Nobody complained about the controversial part of my story

Maybe it was because I was careful to post a disclaimer? I've got the stats here, so I know it wasn't just that people didn't notice it. But seriously I was expecting at least one incensed Mormon to write me an irate letter about how blasphemous it was to have them, y'know, do it in the baptismal font. I had my explanation all prepared about how it was a question of logistics (it had to be in the building where the rehearsal was taking place, and there aren't so many choices) not a question of deliberate blasphemy (unlike an ex-Catholic who once told me she had a fantasy of doing it on the altar of a church, just to desecrate it). After all, Mormons can baptize people in lakes, rivers, swimming pools, etc., so logically the font shouldn't require special consecration (according to Mormon theology), hence it shouldn't be possible to desecrate it, right?

But as it turned out, the whole font thing didn't bother anyone. The take-home lesson? Teenagers having sex in a baptismal font is not all that scandalous. Now that I think about it, it probably happens all the time. Mormon kids are pretty resourceful -- I should give them some credit.

On a related note, I finished the illustrations for BYU plus the interlude. Hence I might be willing to move the start date up to February 5 if there's enough interest.

On a related related note, I'm pretty excited about my new story which I didn't imagine I'd write until I had written it. Unfortunately, industry pros tell me it is way too short to be published. It turns out that's a good thing, though, since I'd only wrapped up a few of the threads of the story, leaving plenty of others wide open, and I really like this imaginary country I've invented. So I'm going to keep going. I now have it mostly outlined, and I'm re-writing the weakest dialog in the original piece to make the political situation in the imaginary countries make more sense and to tie in better with the new stuff that's coming. :D

So, for anyone who's test reading and hasn't started yet, you're off the hook. Unless you want the new version so you can tell me whether this much of the novel tempts you to want to read more. ;^)

Big changes in real life!!!

I left my job of three years near the beginning of 2007 and set out to write a new Java book, and succeeded!!! That's the part I predicted. As soon as I was done, I found a new job with a company that was small enough that when they made me "director of client development" it meant that I was the one and only engineer writing the part of the program that runs on the user's cell phone. I saw the first product through to completion, and it was quite an exciting adventure! But as we were planning how the next project would go, negotiations broke down and I quit. Then I wrote an exciting story about the whole adventure, which I will probably post or something ten years from now. For the moment, of course, it's not appropriate -- I can't post any kind of professional details about existing companies. I've probably already written too much in this paragraph since it makes me look like a hot-head, which I'm not. Essentially they didn't give me the authority to make certain key tech decisions, and without it I couldn't accept the responsibility to guarantee the product would be done correctly and on time.

Meanwhile, my husband found himself a fantastic new job in Switzerland, so not having a job here wasn't such a bad thing after all. And now I've found myself a job in Switzerland too, so we're ready to go! The only problem is that moving an entire household to a foreign country is a humongous pain in the butt. That and I'm going to have to change the masthead of my blog. Oh, well.

Hope you had an exciting year too -- and Happy 2008!!! :D