I started this off planning to only look back over the fall semester. One of the great things about being in school is that it cuts the year into manageable sections with long periods of time off. I’m off for a month over the winter and I can’t say how much I’ve needed it. This was a great semester and a deeply-lived year. I’ve been productive and very happy and more fully MYSELF than I’ve ever been before. It’s a different kind of tired by far than the beat-down bone-weary I used to feel working retail, living in Hemet, and treading water.
So, at the beginning of this year we were in Fremont. Our old house was called the Bridge. The name stuck at first because we had joked that it was so expensive to rent up here that we’d end up living under an actual bridge. It sticks now because it was our bridge, from where we were to where we are. We still live with the world’s best roommates, because seriously why would we give this up?
I was writing at Caliber Magazine at the beginning of the year, and although I no longer write there I still work for the publication. I was working for the Institute of Human Development, a job that I enjoyed thoroughly in transcription. Pretty sure my typing got faster and more accurate because of it. In the summer, and I applied for and got a column with the Daily Cal. I LOVE working for the DC, and it’s opened doors for me I never dreamed existed. I could happily do this job forever, and I hope to do some version of it for a living.
Over the summer, I did the Summer Creative Writing Workshop at Cal. I met some great people and talented writers, and learned more in six weeks about what I really want to do than I’ve gotten in the rest of my life combined. It was a transformative summer.
Spring semester was my first go at a rack of only English classes, and I liked it so much I did it again this fall. My grades are good. Thank you to everyone out there whose tax money pays for me to go to school. I appreciate it so much and I never forget what it’s worth.
This is not in order, because everything overlapped this year. #sorrynotsorry
I wrote a novel. Mostly over the summer, but it’s been refined through fall and winter through the tireless efforts of my husband and friends who have kindly read for me and with me. I may be able to get this thing into print.
So since it’s the time of year to get maudlin (read:drunk) and sing my way through RENT, the question is: how do you measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee?
No. I’m measuring this year in pieces in print. Because I know who I am and what I was meant to do.
In books: “Anaïs” 2013 (poetry)
Published in “From the Four-Chambered Heart: In Tribute to Anaïs Nin”
Sybaritic Press, Los Angeles
http://www.amazon.com/From-Four-Chambered-Heart-tribute/dp/1467581364
For Caliber: 19 stories http://calibermag.org/articles/author/megelison/
For The Daily Californian: 60 stories http://www.dailycal.org/author/melison/
For Promise of Berkeley: 1 piece, although technically this is an edited reprint of a piece I wrote for the DC, I was honored that they wanted to use it. http://issuu.com/shawnm/docs/2013_fall_promise/35?e=1339261/5976424
I submitted a ton of things for publication this year. Some said yes, some said no. I hope to have this good a number in 2014, and that my novel gets picked up. If so, 2014 will win in wordcount alone. I’ll also be interning at the SF Chronicle next year, so who knows what will happen?
In 2014, I’m going to graduate from college. I won’t dwell on what that all means just yet… but it’s coming.
My life has gotten exponentially better every year. There’s a lot of pressure on you, 2014. Let’s do this.
After watching struggle and hunt and try to stretch into places that where not a good fit I cant tell you just how happy I am to see you where you are today. I am proud and and so fortunate that I get to be a witness to it. Find your way my beautiful girl. Every time the sun warms your face know that is me in the air, shining on you and who you are.