Tiffany Rambles

I'm a big supporter of author David N. Alderman and his communities/books. The Crossover Alliance Giveaway contest looks really awesome. I'm particularly hoping to get my hands on The Maze.

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Last year, I did a post summarizing what I did all year. Why not do the same thing for 2012? Unfortunately, I didn't write as many posts this year as I did last year. In 2011, I was able to read all my posts at Tiffany Rambles to jog my memory. I'll do the same for 2012, but I'll definitely have to fill in the blanks more often.

Keep in mind that this list is not in order of when they actually occurred.

• I discovered myself and learned to accept who I am and who I'm becoming: Many of my posts in February revolved around my battle with overcoming depression and how much I have changed since meeting Matthew. Discovering and accepting myself as well as learning to fully trust my love for Matthew were two of the most important things to happen to me last year, but I did spend a considerable time making sure I didn't regress.
• Indiegogo Campaign: Though I'm still working on Unconventional Methods due to having a lot to learn about self-publishing and unfortunately being distracted by a number of other assignments, last year I ran an Indiegogo campaign and made about 16% of my goal ($290 out of $2000). It wasn't enough to fully self-publish the book, but it's definitely a much better amount to start with than $0. I plan to have Unconventional Methods ready for publication and in the hands of formatters and artists sometime this month.
• Launched an author website: I mainly launched the site for the Indiegogo campaign, but, when the campaign ended, I dedicated a good amount of time and energy into making the site something I'd be proud of. I succeeded in that enough to get a great website critique from Author Media.
• Wrote Unconventional Methods: Sure, I still need to edit it again and get it ready for publication, but I did finish writing the book. It's the first nonfiction book I've written, the first book I plan on self-publishing. Because of that, writing this book means a lot to me. Unfortunately, I wrote little to no fiction, but I've pretty much accepted the fact that I won't be writing fiction for a while. EDIT: I'm currently working on a contemporary fiction book that I'm very excited about.
• Went back to college: In spite of my love/hate relationship with college, I enrolled myself in Purdue Calumet in time for the fall semester. I actually did very well. I got a 3.53 gpa, which was much better than my 2.7 gpa from the Fall 2011 semester at IUB, and I enjoyed college this time around much more than I did the first time.
• $1400 Month: Last year, I made more money in one month editing and reviewing novels than I made all 5 months working as a barista at IUB. It was a very busy, stressful month, but definitely well worth it. The $1400 gave me much more confidence about taking my freelance duties to the next level. Soon, when I can find a way to make $1400 months a more consistent thing, I will be going full-time.
• Stopped Being a Wallflower: By that, I mean I finally stopped despising myself for not hanging out with people, for feeling like my life revolves around Matthew too much, and actually hung out. Spending too much time with others does drain energy from me. If I start feeling like I'm obligated to be social, I very quickly get miserable. However, when I allow myself to be a social butterfly after spurts of being a loner, I genuinely feel a lot better about myself. I'm still trying to figure out when to switch between the two.
• Became a writer for Neatorama: Neatorama is my first paying gig, and it's an amazingly fun and flexible job. I love finding interesting content to share, sharing it, and then actually getting paid at the end of the month for doing something I'd do for fun anyway. I can't thank Adrienne Crezo enough for putting up a status on FB about a website hiring writers. Without her, I would have never had the opportunity to get this job.