Let me start out by saying that 2011 was definitely a good year. Yeah, stuff happens. But unlike some of the previous years, this year was about consolidation and building upon what I already have. There have been a couple of new things and one major triumph of course, but there have been some sad moments as well. A mixed bag, the previous year… but a good one. Unlike last year, I am not dreading to write out the year. Here it comes… and then onwards to 2012 I’d say.
Winter
We started off the new year in Aurélie’s livingroom, toasting to the fact that Kat and Tijs just got engaged. It was a good party to kick off the year, with a pretty legendary moment. Nothing beats watching one of your best mates going on his knees for the girl he got to meet in the first place because you started chatting with her in early 2004. Good times!
And then later that month I got my shit together to finally start doing something about the notes I’d received from Pure Fantasy on my submission. It was good, but it needed some work. No kidding! So I sat down and started editing. I scratched a lot of words, trimmed down on the bullshit, and wrote a completely different ending. Olli helped me with the grammar and punctuation, and then I sent it out. To my utter delight (and astonishment, I might add) the story got accepted! It still needed some work of course, but together with the editor assigned to me (love you Cocky!) we made the story all pretty and ready for publication. It got edited about six or seven times I think, after the story was submitted. The final edit was sent in around March or so, so it took quite a while to get my shit together. But it was all worth it.
After my contract got extended, work was going really well as I was hitting my stride. It was (and still is) a huge boost to my confidence as a trainer that my trainees loved me, stayed in touch with me, complimented me and came back later for more. I hit some rough spots with my manager P every now and then and sometimes I want to smack her over the head, but I’m sure that feeling is kind of mutual. She’s quite the personality and I don’t always have the energy to walk on eggshells, so we explode every once in a while. So far we’ve always patched up, though – and I think I’ve kind of made myself invaluable over there at C. Nothing lasts forever in the job market though, you never know… but things are looking positive for me.
Then there was of course the music. I jammed with the boys in the jamstudio, and I managed to get myself a black eye because I thought it would be a good idea to approach a mosh pit during Paganfest. That was not a good idea, especially not with the cheerful moshpit going on (Eluveitie was playing) and the amount of alcohol I had in my belly. I wore the traces of that black eye on my face until June or something. It sucked very much.
Spring
…came really early this year. Olli and I were actually BBQing in the garden as early as 29 March – it was insane. Out of nowhere, it just really heated up in March. Every free moment I would be in the garden, reading or chilling out, lying in my hammock. By the time the Fantasy Fair came around I was sporting the prettiest of tans already. I also went to the BOF Boekenbal for Geekstijl as a reporter and talked to Alex about whether he’d be interested in the short story that I sent in to the PF as a longer, novel-length book. He was interested, because he really liked the world. That’s one of the things that strengthened my resolve to keep going with the Crystal world. I have something there, I just need to get my ass in gear and make it awesome.
In May I was mostly very busy with work, as far as I can recall. We were organising workshops and I had a lot of trainings on location, so I was always on the road. But the weather was pretty, so who cared. I did catch up with Thomas around that time somewhere, which was brilliant and pleasant as always. And then Lie hooked up with Bart and she had that great birthday party on the beach in Scheveningen, and all was peachy. By then it was June already and work geared up even more, because I was going on vacation and had to do a month’s worth of training in two weeks. Yeah, that was fun.
The uber gorgeous weather we had all spring was starting to disappear by now, though, when summer arrived.
Summer
Vacation time! Olli and I had a brilliant time with Johanna. First in Helsinki, where I got way too drunk on cider, and then in Seinajoki for Provinssirock. A beautiful location for a festival and thankfully the weather held up well. We stayed over in the house of Johanna’s friend Satu, who graciously let us stay over in her attic. We had a barbecue, sat in the sauna in the middle of the night, had fun on the festival terrain and OMG did System of a Down rock our socks off! That alone was nearly worth the tickets to Finland and the festival, ha! Naw, we just had a great time and I’m super glad that we went and also got to see Johanna in her natural habitat 
Back home we had two days to catch our breath before we were off again, this time to Graspop. And that was a blast as well, but in a very different way. We were with the same crowd as the past few years and we felt so good to be back on our yearly stomping grounds. If you ask me for the best shows, I have to admit that I didn’t really see that much that blew my fucking mind. Parkway Drive was one of the only bands I went for that completely utterly delivered, but Slipknot was dissapointing and I’ve seen better Soilwork shows as well. Avenged Sevenfold was a nice surprise, though. And there were a couple of other really cool shows, too. But that second day when it rained and we got smashed on Leffe will be etched in my heart as one of the better days of the year (of my life). I hardly saw any shows. It was just friendship and Leffe, and it was great. There was some badly needed reconnection with Derek, but I think I got to share “I love you maaaan”‘s with pretty much all of the friends that were present, so that was awesome.
Next to the promise that Ol and I would go visit Derek in London in the fall, we also came up with the idea of Connus Minimus – a roleplay convention at the end of July in my own livingroom & kitchen, which turned out to be a complete and utter blast. So yeah, fertile grounds, Graspop. The rest of the summer it pretty much constantly rained, which sucked. But I managed to enjoy myself muchly anyway, by way of my Kindle (one of the best birthday presents ever). I read a lot in those first weeks when I got my Kindle – notably “The Way of Kings” by Brandon Sanderson and “A Dance With Dragons” by George R R Martin. I also spent a stupid amount of time playing Portal and Portal 2 during two rainy weekends. On my own birthday Olli and I spent the day playing the Portal 2 co-op, which was a ridiculous amount of fun. Then it was time for the yearly joint birthday party, which mostly felt like an afterparty of Connus Minimus, but it’s not like that’s a bad thing. Parties usually come clustered, in our group of friends. I don’t know why, either. It kind of felt like the summers of yore, where we would have parties for weekends on end.
In August I was really busy with work and Brenda got the key to her apartment, so I was over at her place a couple of times to help her decorate. And in the beginning of September I got back to trying to get into the habit of writing again. I’m not setting any records where it comes to output this year, but at least it’s better than the previous year. I’m at 85K all in all, I think? Could very well be worse. And then late September the weather suddenly cleared up and we got three weeks of glorious, beautiful Indian Summer. I grabbed my hammock back from the garage and spent a few blissful weekends lounging in that thing while listening to the last hours of Kink FM radio. 30 September found Ol and me BBQing in the garden and listening to Kink FM’s swan song. Hearing “Black” by Pearl Jam that final time was more emotional than I thought it would be. I still miss Kink. *sighs*
Autumn
Fall started with one last weekend of glorious sunlight. I lounged in the Westerpark in Amsterdam while the boys were jamming. First with company (the boys, Kat and Puck), and later just me and my Kindle. It was beautiful. The golden sunlight was so wonderful that I felt all emotional with happiness around 6pm. I wish the whole summer could have been like this – but on the other hand, I’m not failing to be grateful for those lovely three weeks at the beginning of the fall, either. Soon enough the weather turned, and then it was autumn.
I didn’t have much time to mourn that, though. Pure Fantasy 25 was released, and with it came my story. I held my published story in my hands and l can tell you, it’s a fucking thrill to see your name on the printed page. Seeing the illustration made me all emo, as well. To look upon your character in a beautiful drawing – that’s some seriously cool shit right there. If there’s anything that kicked me into gear where it comes to writing, it was that. I resolved to re-write Through Crystal in dutch for Nanowrimo and did so in 16 days in November, despite the fact that I spent five days in the UK (having a blast) at Indiecon. Once home, I kept writing on and off on the story, until I finished it at 65K. And then it became time to start tinkering, and unfortunately around that time very bad news arrived about my mom’s boyfriend as well, and I kind of hit an inspirational wall. Combined with the fact that I hate editing, that kind of fucked me over.
In the meantime, Olli and I also went to London at the end of November to hang out with Derek and had a great time.
It was a great distraction for the shite that was happening on the home front. I spent a lot of time going to Hoorn/Ermelo to hang out with and to support my mom. Cancer is such bullshit. 
There was also the news that Ol’s contract at TS won’t be extended, but it seems now that some other department within TS might be interested in him, so maybe he gets to stay in February after all. And all around us stuff is happening - Bart is moving in with Lie (who is looking for a new job), Brenda is living on her own, Wendy and Arno are open at the job market, Derek is dating again apparently, and stuff and things…?
Conclusion
I think next year is going to be all about transition again, after this year was one of happy consolidation.
All in all, 2011 has been a good year. We’re now counting the hours to 2012, and then the new year wil kick off.
So what’s the plan for next year? Same as it is every year, sweet people: having fun, loving, writing, rocking out, and having an AWESOME time. No seriously.
What else is there to life?
