The Best Year of My Life - An Epic Adventure in 12 Parts: September

For the final 12 days of the year, I thought I'd look back at my 2012 and determine why it was the best year of my life. Every month brought new adventures, achievements, bits of awesome that worked to make my world a happier, more fulfilling, more exciting place. Come along with me, won't you?

September

My third draft and polish complete, I turned in I’m On Fire in early September. Added incentive? My man Shawn painted the cover of the book for me – our first major creative collaboration. I wanted my main character, Laurie, running into the woods, terror in her eyes, staring back over her shoulder in her trademark red hoodie. Shawn had me stand in that pose for minutes on end, wearing my trademark red hoodie, while he sketched me. You don’t know exhilaration until your life partner pulls an image out of your brain and puts it on paper.

I was asked to contribute an original essay to this year’s Stephen King Desk Calendar, which sounds weird unless you’re in the Stephen King community. It’s one of those prestige projects you don’t get invited into unless you’re considered one of the good writers. It was one of those incremental moments when I realized that I was one of the good writers, and that people were starting to recognize that.

Speaking of which: midway through the month, my signature sheets for Stephen King

Limited, Books 1 and 2, arrived on my doorstep. Here’s the thing with signature sheets: when I was a tiny young Stephen King book collector, one of the things I always treasured was a book with Stephen King’s signature. Objectively, I knew it didn’t really mean anything. King just scribbled a name in a book and passed it on. But emotionally, there was always that tenebrous connection I had with my favorite writer, that knowledge that he had held the book I now owned. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I have a deeper insight. He may not have held the book I now own. He may have just signed a sheet, like I do, that would later be bound in with the book. But I also know that it’s not just scribbling your name in. I had to sign 1,000 sig sheets over the period of a few days, and let me tell you: it’s work. If I wasn’t already convinced that I was earning my flat rate for these chapterbooks with my research and actual writing, I was earning it here.

My show idea, World of Hurt, went out into the ether of ImprovBoston, and came back with fervent approval. I found writers. I cast actors. It was my first time being conscious of myself as a director, and I was some kind of nervous. My month got truncated, too: I wouldn’t have four weeks to do my show, but only three. Immediately, I scrapped my plans to do a scripted “improv” show and focused instead on my three other shows: Vaudeville, Variety, and Saturday Night Live. I knew it was ambitious to do three distinct shows in three distinct styles, but that’s part of why I called it World of Hurt. Part of the other reason, of course, is the song’s refrain: it’s great to be alive. If I can do it, why not do it? My actors and writers were on my side. I knew from the very first pitch meeting that this was going to work.

Midway through the month, my temp boss told me that I'd be at this position at least until December. No more worries on that front for a couple of months, then. Hooray!

I wrote one article for FEARnet – my first actual assignment (it wasn’t King related), and late in the month, I got a surprise. The Overlook Connection (a publisher specializing in horror and fantasy) sent me the latest copy of Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished, by Rocky Wood. Which was weird, because I already had the hardcover and I hadn’t ordered it. That’s when I turned the book over and saw my name: I was a blurb on the back cover. Overlook used my review on FEARnet to hype their book. Never in life did I think I would ever be blurbed. On my way.

Near the end of the month, I did something I hadn’t done in nearly a year. I sat down at my laptop and put a new title at the top of the first page: My Agent of Chaos. And for the first time in forever, I started a brand new novel.