Personal and Professional 2010

As we bid goodbye to 2010, I wish all my blog readers, well-wishers and others, a very happy and prosperous New year 2011.

The year 2010 was with lots of ups and downs. On the personal front, I lost both my mother-in-law and father-in-law in early 2010.  It was a very hectic year of my husband too with his project on the peak and spending majority of his time at work.

I took a long break between February and April, following my in-law’s passing away as it was tough even to concentrate on writing. I haven’t yet taken stock of the number of new publications I wrote for in 2010. Roughly, I would estimate it to be 8 or 10, with the latest being published in a travel trade journal in December 2010. At the same time, I lost my regular market of two years – Delhi Press’s LiveIT as they bid goodbye to the publication in December 2010. I sold seven stories six or seven stories for various titles of Chicken Soup for the Soul and for the first time, my husband and I wrote stories for a single title – College Soul, that’s yet to hit the stands. It was an exciting time to see my husband write his first story and later, I wrote a story about us for the Chicken Soup for the Indian Couple’s Soul too.

I planned to make a solid ground in book writing in late 2010 but for various reasons, have put back that on hold for the time being. Instead, I would be concentrating on other works, about which I’ll post in the coming days. I haven’t made a definite plan as yet and after all, I haven’t spent my last 8 years with proper plan or working full-time. I have been in the scene of writing on and off, taking breaks whenever personal commitments demanded and yet I have been able to get a good hold in the world of freelance writing. Thanks to all my editors who gave me sufficient space whenever I needed one. Without their support, I would not have come this far.

2010 was the year when my brother, Roop Shaji and I worked together for multiple projects during October and he got his first break in writing in October  (for a website) and had two articles published in LiveIT (December 2010). We also worked on content writing projects. In the previous years, his photographs have appeared in national magazines, an international magazine published from U.S and websites.

As for this blog, it was the best year so far. Surprisingly, the number of visitors went up from around 30-50 a month to 400-800 per month. Since April, over 400 people have visited / read my blog every month. I also got my first income from this blog in 2010.

Let me log off for now. Will reach you all soon in the next year and I hope 2011 will be a memorable year for you and your family, as it would be for mine too.