It’s New Year’s Eve. Time to do the Ten Best Books List or the Ten Best Movies List or . . . except I don’t think I had the chance to read ten books this year and I know I didn’t see ten movies. It was, as usual, an insane year, so I and everybody I love and work with have resolved to be calm and steady in 2008, For writers, that a big deal. In keeping with that thought, here’s my ten worst and best of 2007. Listing the ten worst didn’t do a thing for me except depress me, but the ten best was just lovely, so I’m focusing on that in the future. If I were you, I’d do that, too.

Ten Lousy Things about 2007:
(in no particular order)
I still didn’t finish You Again.
Bernie died. A fine, fine dog and a credit to his species. And I wasn’t even here.
My knees went wonky on me.
I didn’t lose thirty pounds. I didn’t lose three pounds, either.
Joss Whedon isn’t going to do Wonder Woman.
I lost my agent.
I cleaned my office and two weeks later it was a pit again.
Everything my government did.
Uhhh . . . okay eight lousy things. After that, I got nothin’.

Ten Good Things About 2007

(Note: Do not expect these to be deep. I don’t do deep.)
(Again, no particular order.)

The Agnes and the Hitman Cover

Pushing Daisies

Collaborating with Lani and Krissie on Dogs and Goddessess

Veronica and Milton

Scrivener and Curio

Amy and Jodi (my new agents)

Music and Lyrics (movie and soundtrack)

Cherry Con

The new They Might Be Giants album, especially “The Mesopotamians.”

My beach skirt

Books. All of them.

Chocolate from England.

Actually, I have so many good things. I’m sitting here looking at the river with four happy dogs on my bed (the cat is in the bathroom because the floor is heated in there and she’s wallowing), I’m almost finished with the first full draft of a great collab book, and I’ve got three great books to work on after that. The sun is shining FOR ONCE, and I have a meeting and then I’m going to the fancy grocery store which means lunch will be really fun (the deli is Satan’s playground). And then I’m coming home to write while puppies chew my shoes, thereby alleviating that nasty I-have-too-many-shoes-for-my-closet problem. And Milton, while refusing paper training, is now bubble-wrap trained. Milton takes his own path, which is as good a plan as any for the new year.

Happy New Year! May your path for 2008 be new, may your ten worst list come up short, and may your ten best list spilleth over into the triple digits. Nothing but good times ahead.