2015 Year in Review

Photo credit: grand Yann on Flickr

So last year I started this year in review thing, which I thought was really fun and I’d like to make it an annual thing here. So! 2015 in review, here we go.

January and February was a sub-zero blur where I walked outside around my campus more than I care to think about with blistering winds and a wind chill of -20 to -30 degrees (and that’s not an exaggeration). I also took 18 credits that semester and the work load was…um…fun…sure.

February I also officially declared my major (English!) so that was a cool thing.

March through June was pretty uneventful. I worked hard on revisions for other WIPs, finished my semester at school, and started getting glimpses of Beyond the Red's cover, which was pretty cool. May also marked the beginning of my last summer break, which was kind of bittersweet. 

In July I was able to finally reveal Beyond the Red's cover to the world, on YA Books Central! It was so amazing, and fun, and exciting and the whole author thing slowly started feeling more real. 

August I had my author photos taken, which was simultaneously nerve-wracking, surreal, and exciting. And in the same month I also went to Chicago for the first time and attended Chapter One Young Writer's Conference as an author/speaker and had my first (swag) signing and hung out with Kat Zhang, Karen Bao, Kaye M and a bunch of young writers and wow. I wrote about that day here. It was absolutely incredible.

That same month I also met two of my CPs in person, which was so fun! August was an unusually social month for me. It was awesome. 

September and October was back to school time and I started my second to last semester of college. It was busy and really tiring at times but I powered through school, Beyond the Red edits and revisions on my YA Fantasy WIP. 

Then November came around and I really wanted to do NaNo, but decided I needed a break. And good thing too, because I had a major fatigue flare for basically the first half of November and had little to no energy for two weeks. But then a really cool thing happened, namely Beyond the Red became a book-shaped (ARC) thing and I held my book in my hands for the first time. :D

December I finished up this semester and dropped most of my dietary restrictions on a trial basis except for sugar, to see if all those foods I'd been restricting affected my health as much as everyone said they would. Results have been inconclusive so far, which means probably not, but we'll see. Now I'm trying to relax a little before starting over again in January. Because 2016 is nearly here, which means a ton of author awesomeness, and also graduation, and also hopefully other book things. 

2015 has been a year of transition. 2016 will be the start of a whole new chapter in my life, and as scary as it sometimes is, I'm here to welcome it. 

How did 2015 treat you?

Twitter-sized bite:

.@Ava_Jae shares her 2015 year in review. Did you make any big changes in 2015? (Click to tweet)