Which one are you?

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. (Edith Lovejoy Pierce, English poet)

Or...

New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. (Mark Twain)

Ahh, my friends. Everyone has written such glorious posts on personal, professional, and blogging goals, and I could pretty much blend all of them into what I want, too, since they are all perfect. I want to read more, achieve my professional goals in my day job, and while I'd love to increase my readership here at the blog, I'm really more interested in just having a whole heck of a lot of fun in these areas of my life and be content.

But, to get to some nitty-gritty things? I plan to...

• Be more creative in 2012: scrapbooking, learning to knit, journaling more, finally learn Italian and not just the hodge-podge of words and sentences I know. Maybe I'll take part in something similar to the #Reverb11 project? Is there something you're familiar with that you can suggest to me?
• Read more: Young Adult books, science fiction, fantasy
• Consistency: I want to either post a little more frequently, or post consistently for weekly events (Saturday Snapshot, The Sunday Salon)
• A Walk About Town: I really want to keep my weekly feature going. I love how it motivates me to traipse about town and record its originality for my own future nostalgia. While everyone can join, it doesn't have a lot of participation, but I enjoy it. The idea, though, of doing it on a weekly basis, for 52 Thursdays in 2012, is frightening in its massive scope of being consistent to that extent! I may eventually switch it to a monthly installment, but for now, I'll extend it in its weekly form for a little while longer.
• Challenges, challenges: I do better with short challenges, but I'm thinking of hosting a year long one. It will start late because I just thought of it, but hopefully details are coming soon...
• Drama in the Blogging World: I've read a lot about the drama throughout the year and how blogging has changed for veteran bloggers. For my part, I'm thankful that I'd like to stay far away from the controversy, but I hope veteran bloggers stay around, and continue to participate. I've benefited from their expertise and knowledge, and I know that the new bloggers who will start in 2012 will also benefit. Honestly, I blog because I love to write, read books and record my thoughts, and try new things within this electronic universe. I love seeing the changes that everyone goes through within their lives, reading, and blogging, and it makes me enthusiastic for each day I press the power button on my Mac.
• Professional Reviewing: I don't think I'm interested in professional reviewing anymore. Halfway through 2011, I was accepted with a fabulous group of other reviewers to actually get paid to provide reviews for Shelf Awareness! How exciting! But, I never wrote one single review for them. Reviews are only published if they are positive, and it made me just a wee bit uncomfortable. The main reason, however, is that I was simply overwhelmed with managing the number of books I was inundated with and my regular day job! While I read several books sent to me, trying to maintain a consistent read/reviewing schedule while my "real" job requires a lot of travel from city to city for meetings that I had to prepare PowerPoints, spreadsheets, and the like.... oh, my, it was challenging to balance it all!
• Vlogs: I have done a few over the past year and a half, and I'd really like to do more. My husband purchased the Sony Bloggie Touch video camera for me for Christmas and I love it! (It's sort of like a Flip video. The name "Bloggie" doesn't have to do with anything related to blogging, I don't think. It's just a flippin' awesome video mini-camera, I love it).

So those are the things I'm planning to achieve this 2012. For the most part, I just want to see what I can do to extend my creativity a bit more within the blogosphere, and ultimately, to have much, much more fun!

In an effort to rid my shelves (and to give you all a gift), I'm planning to do a round of giveaways this month (and maybe next month, too). The winner of this Holiday Giveaway # 1 will receive all of the books in this picture.

Each of these five books were discussed or reviewed here on the blog. You do not need to have a blog or be a follower of this blog to win these books. Entries must be posted in the Google docs form by Sunday, December 11, 2011.

1. The Ruins, by Scott Smith
2. The Life You've Imagined, by Kristina Riggle
3. Raven Stole the Moon, by Garth Stein
4. The Oracle of Stamboul, by Michael David Lukas
5. Exit the Actress, by Priya Parmar

Fill out the Google Form below (bear with me, it's my first time using this form!):

Come on, I told myself. You knew it was going to be overwhelming. It's New York.

Look at this line to get into BEA...

Picture from BEA Site

Wednesday:
I aimlessly wandered around. I wish I had taken a picture of the massive size of the location and the number of people, but I think you can get a sense of it from the above picture from the BEA press page - look how long the line is! It was so different from the SIBA event in Daytona Beach. At that event, books were stacked on tables and publicists were readily available to chat about what they felt were *the* books to keep an eye out on. BEA was tougher for me to randomly introduce myself at the booths, although there were a handful of fantastic publicists who were ready to chat it up (you know who you are - thank you)!

APA Audiobook & Author Tea: One of my favorite events! Unlike other prepared bloggers, I didn't dive into the details on each event, so imagine my surprise when I walked in and Star Jones was the host and moderator for a panel of authors discussing audiobooks including:

• Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic (non-fiction), and is also the husband of Geraldine Brooks
• Karin Slaughter, author of newest release Fallen (crime fiction)
• Brad Meltzer, author of newest release The Inner Circle (suspense/thriller fiction) and host of the History Channel's Decoded
• Star Jones is also the author of new release Satan's Sisters and recorded the audio for the book as well

Do I wish I had taken a plethora of pictures? Yes. The few I did take were grainy and hard to see, but I do have this picture of when Brad Meltzer brought up the incomparable Scott Brick to read a segment of Meltzer's upcoming book. Book, Line, and Sinker is a huge fan of Scott Brick, so I had to tweet it out to her that I was *thisclose* to him!

Scott Brick, fabulous audiobook narrator

Karin Slaughter and Brad Meltzer had engaging personalities and immediately shared stories regaling their disappointments on initial audio narrators and the eventual success once they found narrators who captured the essence of their stories perfectly.

Wednesday Night:
Dinner at Bice Restaurant with bloggers!

From Left to Right: Ann from Books on the Nightstand, Stacy from A Novel Source and me and my husband, Jason

Thanks to Heather for the above two pictures from the dinner - click here go to her site to see close up pics as well. From Left to Right around the table: Reagan from Miss Remmer's Review, Heather from Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books, Megan from Leafing through Life, Sheila from Book Journey, Florinda from The 3 R's, Michelle from Red Headed Book Child, Allie from Alison's Book Marks, then back on around to Ann from Books on the Nightstand, Stacy from A Novel Source, and me.

Thursday:
Pseudo-attended BEA, ended up leaving early and going with my husband to the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum since Michelle Moran's book just came out. The museum was expensive, but it was fun.

Madame Tussaud was tiny, right?

Friday:
Book Blogger Convention! The best of BEA with blogger discussion panels on ethics, ask a publicist, author meetings, etc. I met more bloggers, including the blogger who motivated me last year to start my own blog - Jenn aka The Picky Girl! Love her blog, you must check it out!

With Jenn from The Picky Girl

Saturday:
Ellis Island. Loved.

Ellis Island

Sunday:
St. Patrick's Cathedral, beautiful.
New York Public Library, incredible.
And we saw the show WICKED later that afternoon at the Gershwin Theater! LOVED!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

New York Public Library

Monday:
Home sweet home.

Okay, so Rome with the Vatican as the background isn't home, but whatever. A girl can dream...!

Fabulous time had by all, and cannot wait for next year!

Things for me to remember next year:

• Seriously, wear comfortable shoes. Seriously.
• Do more research on which event to attend.
• Take more pictures.

And now it's time to get ready for SIBA in Charleston, SC!