You Tell Me: What Did You Discover in 2009?

Oh, dear. I seem to have fallen down almost completely on blogging last month (not to mention on my self-assigned monthly-photo journal "a picture speaks a thousand words" game). I blame the two nearly back-to-back sinus infections that arrived as part of my December joys, not to mention general holiday chaos. But ah, well. The New Year is about starting fresh with good intentions, not fretting about the past, right? Right! And, purely by coincidence, it turns out that this is my 50th blog post, which feels like exactly the right place to start the new year!

Speaking of the New Year, lots of people have been doing great, detailed year-end round-ups about 2009. In the interest of actually getting this posted sooner rather than never, I'm gonna skip most of the deep introspection, because one of my, deep, dark secrets is that I love making ponderous lists and if I let myself, I'll spend way, way, too much time thinking and rambling on about them. But suffice it to say that, for me, 2009 included both some "best of times and worst of times," as I'm sure it did for most folks. One thing that's solidly in the "best" category from the past year, though, is this evolution of this blog, its readers, and the outlet it offers me (and I hope others, too!) for "thinking out loud" about publishing, about the creative life, and about all the places art and life intersect and converge. So, if you're reading this, thanks for a being a part of all that. If you've contributed to the conversation at one point or another, or in many spots, thanks all the more. And if you're a reader who hasn't spoken up yet, please do! (Unless you're a spammer. In which case, please head out the door marked "2009" and don't come back, ever.)

One thing I do like to ponder at year's-end, though, is the question of how--and via what mediums--my life has totally altered in ways I wouldn't have even guessed it could. What things have become a part of the fiber of my daily life that I couldn't have imagined, even a year or two before, would become a part of my life at all?

Over the last few years, I must say, there have been an increasing number of tech-type things falling into this category. I'm not the earliest of early adopters, but I'm increasingly surrounded by early-adopter types, and I am opinionated, so usually* once I've heard about something a few times, I tend to want to try it out so I can have my own thoughts about it. And if I like it, I then tend to crow about from the rafters to anyone who will listen. A few examples from the past handful of years? Google Reader, which lets me to consume blogs in a completely different, and far, far more productive way that I'd ever have conceived was possible back when I first started paying attention to blogs. RSS feeds = brilliant. Etsy, the craft website that started taking all my spare pennies back around 2006, but has kinda made up for it by leading me to wonderfully talented illustrators. And, yeah, Facebook, which shook up my world in all kinds of interesting ways, too, just as its done for pretty much all of us. And on the decidedly non-tech side, I'll go with a few more luxurious discoveries, including tea-as-a-genuinely-pleasing-alternate-form-of-caffeine-to-coffee, the joys of knitting, and the knowledge that many museums in New York have recommended donation amounts, not carved-in-stone, exorbitantly-expensive fees.

Leaping to the more recent past, though...so what were my best discoveries of 2009? Four spring to mind:

1. My e-reader. E-readers have certainly complicated publishing over the past year (to put it mildly), but from a totally different perspective, i.e., the quality of life for your average publishing employee, wow. They've changed everything. I use mine primarily for manuscript-reading, and as such, it's no exaggeration that it's changed my life. I joke that it's even changed my fashion--I kinda feel like I'm suddenly inside an infomercial now, but the truth is, just a little over a year ago, I used to carry a separate bag to and from work, every single day, in which I would carry hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of paper. Often, I was too worn from simply lugging all that paper around to even want to read any of it on the subway or when I got home! And truth be told, I'm not sure how I would have survived this year's uptick of less editors/more books to edit, hurry, faster/more agents/more agented submissions to read, and hurry, faster, there, too, without the e-reader. Also, someday, I'll tell my own assistant how once upon a time, I used to read all my manuscripts on paper, and she will look at me like I am SO FREAKING OLD. (And then I'll cry.)

2. Twitter. I admit it, I held out on Twitter for quite awhile, but I ultimately caved and joined just around this time last year, because I wanted to see what it was like to follow the ALA Newbery/Caldecott Announcements in real-time. A year and 2,000+ tweets later, I have to say that the day-to-day dialogues, conversations, and connections formed via Twitter prove to be more valuable everyday. Twitter's constant steam of engaging conversation among smart, savvy people helps me to constantly THINK about new, interesting things in new, interesting ways, which I think is utterly essential in a time of change like our industry is facing. But there's a simpler side to it, too. The truth is, the world's full of fascinating/creative/thought-provoking/ hilarious people, and I love how many new ones I've found or gotten to know better via Twitter.

3. My $20 crockpot from Target. Yeah, I know, it's decidedly non-tech, and I'm several decades behind the curve on this one, but seriously? You throw in bunch of raw ingredients--pretty much ANY random raw ingredients you can think of--and then turn it on and go away/go to sleep/go to work and come back to, like, a week's worth of delicious-smelling meals? MAGIC.

4. Ireland. My trip to Dublin this summer, though brief, was a glorious checkmark on my life's to-do list, and a definite highlight of 2009. It's a whole land of storytellers--what's not to love? And seeing a new place and then coming back with new eyes to my own life anew (to paraphrase Marcel Proust a bit)? Priceless.

Okay! Enough nattering from me. (See, I warned you. List-making makes me ramble!) What were some of YOUR best discoveries in 2009? From places to tools to objects to books to tech-type stuff to...well, you tell me!


* ahem. Disclaimer: Most of the time. Or at least sometimes. And Occasionally I stubbornly swear-up-and-down that I'll never-ever try something, only to eat my words later. See also: Facebook and Twitter, and probably lots of other things I've conveniently forgotten about once protesting against.