End-of-year accounting

How many of us in the writing biz have the guts to do a year-end assessment of our work as frank (and as useful) as this one by science fiction author David Levine?

Taking a deep breath and attempting to follow David's example...

Writer Way blog entries written in 2007: 100
Writer Way blog entries with illustrations: 5
Writer Way videocasts: 1
By-lined articles written for on-line publication: 4
By-lined articles (chapters) written for book publication: 1 (accepted, not yet published)
Articles, news releases, and blog entries written for clients' sites: 48
Book manuscripts (by other authors) edited: 1 (not yet published)
Presentations given: 1 (Ignite Seattle)
Panel participation: 1 (Macworld 2007)
Interviews: 1 (The Writing Show)
Professional meetings and conferences attended: 12 (Ignite Seattle, Macworld, WebTrends, Seattle Weblogger meetups, plus events hosted by Biznik members and Lunch 2.0.

New proposals sent out: 14
New projects resulting from new proposals: 2
New projects received from existing clients: 4
New projects received via professional organizations: 2 (National Book Critics Circle; Biznik)
Projects that collapsed (no payment): 1
Projects completed: 3
Projects ongoing or underway: 4

Professional writing goals for 2008
1. Make better use of illustrations and photos in the Writer Way blog.
2. Do more videocasting (when appropriate to the topic); it's the way of the future.
3. Send out more proposals for web content writing work; 14 are simply not enough to yield meaningful results.
4. Attend conferences that focus on writing; I've registered for Potlatch (speculative fiction) and the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop.

Lessons learned from 2007
Over and over again, I have been impressed by the work I've gotten from professional organizations and from former clients. My job at Apple came via a want ad posted with Women in Digital Journalism; my best blogging work comes from a fellow member of the Fremont Noodle House lunch group. This year the National Book Critics Circle had a particularly good gig available to interested members (more about that later). As Crosby, Stills & Nash observed, "love the ones you're with."