The turning of the year is always a time for intro­spec­tion and plan­ning. Of course, now that I’m blog­ging, such actions are done in plain view of the public.

So, yeah, it’s egoboo, but as I turn the year over in my head, I can’t avoid coming to the ver­dict that 2011 has been pretty suc­cessful for me. A quick review shows that I:

- Got a 3 book deal with a major pub­lishing house, left my job and finally real­ized my dream of becoming a full time fantasy/science fic­tion writer.

- Suc­cess­fully sold pretty much every­thing I owned, down­sized my life to the point where I am living on a quarter of the money I did when I had a day job. Stuck reli­giously to a careful budget that has me living like a col­lege stu­dent, and that I am beating (coming in under budget) every week.

- Moved to New York City, recon­nected with my family and my friends here.

- Sold sub-rights for Czech Republic, UK, audio books and SF Book club, as well as having a Hol­ly­wood agency pick up my novel for representation.

- Was acti­vated for two months during which I responded to Hur­ri­cane Irene.

- Earned two Letter of Com­men­da­tion (LOC) ribbons.

- Was selected for pro­mo­tion to Lieu­tenant (O3) and trans­ferred to the unit I really wanted, much closer to home, doing one of the coolest jobs in the guard.

-  Spoke at New York City Comic Con to a packed room and signed ARCs for fans, a dream I’ve had since I first started going to that event as a fan.

So, yeah. 2011 has been very good to me. So good, that I am having the typ­ical ner­vous reac­tion of waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some­thing to descend out of the ether and take it all away from me. The honest truth is that, in the final analysis, 2011 has been one of the best years of my life, and I am incred­ibly hopeful that the tra­jec­tory I am on can con­tinue into the new year.

I don’t make new year’s res­o­lu­tions, but there are some things I am hopeful for/looking for­ward to in 2012:

- Seeing CONTROL POINT, the debut novel in my mil­i­tary fan­tasy SHADOW OPS series, finally hit shelves.

- Selling addi­tional sub rights to the series.

- Selling another orig­inal series or addi­tional books in SHADOW OPS beyond the 3 cur­rently under contract.

- Diver­si­fying my writing career by branching into media tie-in work, comic books, video games or teaching.

- Selling more sub­rights and seeing my work trans­lated into other lan­guages (cur­rently only going to be avail­able in Eng­lish and Czech).

- Putting on my new rank and becoming prop­erly qual­i­fied in my cur­rent billet.

- Earning my oper­a­tional qual­i­fi­ca­tion pin.

- Finally spending a com­plete year of major hol­i­days with my family (because I finally live close enough), being there with my niece as she expe­ri­ences each one. Seeing all my brother’s shows, all of my niece’s plays and sports events, my father’s con­certs, etc …

- Get­ting finan­cially stable to the point where I can stop living like a col­lege stu­dent and move to a neigh­bor­hood where the hall­ways don’t reek of mar­i­juana and my neigh­bors don’t think it’s a good idea to blast reggae in the wee hours.

And that’s just a short list. My friends know that my view of life has, for the past few years, been rather jaun­diced. The amazing string of suc­cesses I’ve enjoyed in 2011 have left me feeling uplifted, opti­mistic. It’s got me spec­u­lating that maybe the tremen­dous risk I’ve taken with my life’s course might actu­ally pay off.

Things might pan out. I might, after years of dreaming and plan­ning and finally taking that jump off the cliff’s edge, get to live the life I’ve wanted ever since I was old enough to plan for the future.

There’ll be strug­gles, I know. There’s be pit­falls and set­backs and ago­nized phone calls to my friends. There’ll be days where I’ll kick myself for ever thinking I could make this happen.

But right now?

Looks like 2012 is going to be a very good year, indeed.