I had a lot of fun with Listing Beyond Forty this year. I experimented with Fiction Fridays. I spent a second October Listing Toward Halloween. I wrote personal stories, satire, poetry, opinion, fiction, and, yes, there were some lists. I even wrote 20 two-sentence horror stories, inspired by a reddit thread that inspired a bunch of viral posts.
I don’t know what I’ll write in 2015, but if there is something you’d like to see more of let me know in a comment. I will definitely take it into consideration.
Below are 10 of my favorite posts from 2014. I hate choosing favorites as I find that my favorites change with my mood, but these are definitely posts of which I’m quite fond. Did your favorite make the list?
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
This piece about my wonderful neighbors and their beautiful wedding is by far my favorite of the year. In case you are wondering, neighborly relations continue to be good. We all had a delightful Christmas Eve dinner together.
Social media makes me feel like a mother again
My mother doesn’t consider herself a writer, but she wrote this lovely guest post, which resonated with a lot of people. I was proud to be able to share it.
Video: “A working mom’s confession” from Listen to Your Mother
Being a part of the 2014 Chicago cast of Listen to Your Mother was an incredible experience. I was happy that the videos were made available so that the experience could be shared with people who did not see the one-time-only live performance. Does this count as my first vlog?
I believe in butter: A baker’s manifesto
This one was a lot of fun to write, but I’m also serious about my beliefs about baking. Keep your milk chocolate chip cookies to yourself.
Not engineers or executives: The other women in tech
This post describes a frustration I’ve felt for a while. It has particularly resonated lately as I’ve been trying to find a permanent position and am frustrated by job postings that are often either too techie or not techie enough given my background.
‘Twas the Night Before Halloween
I enjoyed writing this, but it was a lot of work. “A Visit from St. Nicholas (a.k.a. “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”) is a long poem. The effort was worth it though, as I was quite pleased with the result.
On Thanksgiving a lady ate lots of pie (perhaps she’ll die)
Unlike the Halloween poem above, this holiday post was a spur of the moment idea inspired by reading my daughter a book version of “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” Less than a week before Thanksgiving, when I anticipated swallowing a lot of food, the parallel seemed obvious.
What would the Internet be like without net neutrality?
I was proud of my creative demonstration of the importance of net neutrality, but a few weeks later John Oliver brilliantly explained the net neutrality issue on his show. I still like my approach, but I have to admit that John Oliver did it best.
Groundhog Day 2: Christmas Again
It was fun doing my Fiction Friday series. My fiction and creative writing pieces were all so different that I have many favorites. This was the last post in the series, so I may have an affection for it in part because it is so new.
And this was the first of the Fiction Friday posts. You may notice that it doesn’t include a declaration that I would be posting fiction and creative writing every week for the rest of the year. That’s because at the time I had no idea that I would end up doing that.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed these and other posts from 2014 and will stick around for whatever I come up with in 2015. The best way to make sure you don’t miss any posts is to subscribe to email alerts by following the instructions below.
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Kim Z. Dale 