Do You Regret It?

Today is the anniversary of the release of Star Trek: First Contact and, as I have very vivid memories of the first time I saw it and have been really looking forward to watching it again, I'd hoped to watch and write about the film. But, a lot of stuff happened instead:

#1- My Year Of Star Trek was nominated for a some blog awards! If you've been reading and enjoying the blog and you're so inclined, you can go vote for it at A Peek At Karen's World.

#2- A book that I illustrated was just released on Amazon and tonight was the launch and reading which I attended.

#3- Because my first novel is set to come out in early 2014 and I don't have a real author photo, I had to go take some. I know you're expecting a link to something here but I don't have any digital copies yet. When I do I'll post some! Until then, here's a picture of Janeway and Seven:

At the end of this crazy day, Scott and I went out to dinner with some of my closest friends--all writers. They, for the most part, aren't Star Trek fans. While they were very interested in my writing and illustration work, they are somewhat baffled by the Star Trek project. One friend asked me, when I mentioned how many hours I spend on the blog every day, whether I felt like this project had hurt my writing life.

"Do you regret it?" he asked.

"Never," I answered.

I told him that Star Trek has meant more to me than any other single story, novel, or show and that without it I wouldn't be doing everything I'm doing now. It helped make me into the person I am now. I explained that this blog has helped me grow as a fan, a writer, and a person. It's getting (way too) close to December and, as the end of the year approaches, I've come to realize that this blog is as much about my life as it is about Trek. I've always wanted to write personal essays but was too afraid of getting too deep into my life, my history, my feelings. This project has acted as a gateway to the elements of my life I always hedged away from in my writing. It allowed me to write every day without fear of rejection or anxiety about publication. It allowed me to reach like-minded readers who appreciate my efforts. It taught me that sometimes you have bad writing days and that's alright, that sometimes the piece a writer least expects to be effective is the piece that reaches people on the deepest level, that honesty and genuine feeling are worth the heartache and struggle it often takes to pull one's emotion into a cohesive post.

I went on for a while.

I finished by saying that I would do My Year Of Star Trek again in a heartbeat. That I have loved every bit of it and that I can't wait to continue the project, on some level, in 2014.