Now that the holiday rush has come to a close, the time has come to dive into 2012. I am approaching this year with eager anticipation of great things to come. Much of the ground work laid last year has sprouted up and should be in full bloom very soon.
I have started posting more on my “Hike for Play” website (http://www.hikeforplay.com) and have a ton of content coming up that will have you going even more stir crazy this winter. “Raising Our Humans” (http://www.raisingourhumans.com) continues to explode in readership; it has seen a 40% increase in traffic since October. More is expected to come as I will begin a partnership with two other cat lover websites this spring.
Remember the sports player/profile site I mentioned in the past? The site is now up and rolling, with the first profile expected to be up by the end of next week. It is called “Sports Profiles” and can be found at http://sportprofiles.wordpress.com/. I will also be hosting the “Brewer Nation Podcast” here in the near future. For now, you can find the podcast at http://www.hikeforplay.com/partner-podcasts.html.
Speaking of the “Brewer Nation”, we are close to announcing a featured artist to provide podcast music clips, intros and outros for the 2012 season. We are looking to have everything finalized in time for our 2012 season preview podcast.
The book has been coming along pretty well although sometimes at a maddeningly slow pace. A number of changes to the first two chapters needed to be made in order to ensure accuracy, and a handful of minor edits were needed in the first chapter.
Query letters will continue to fly in 2012 to open up new avenues for my writing. I have a couple of articles coming out this spring and summer in “Wisconsin Natural Resources” magazine which were very exciting and thought provoking to write. It is funny at how deep the rabbit hole can go when researching for articles within the topics of these two. What are the topics? Hmm, I’ll let you know when the issue is out so you can pick one up at the newsstand.
Ok, so you may be wondering what the two big announcements I mentioned last month were? Well, I can tell you one of them now. I will be working for a startup called “Smart Thinking Communications”. The founder, Sadiqua Hamdan, is a great writer with an incredible pulse on the meshing of Arab-U.S. cultures (and was also kind enough to edit the first chapter of my book). I am very excited to be a part of this venture, as not only do I know the amount of determination and time she has put into this, but can see the passion and strength of her vision. The website is being developed, but you can follow STC on Twitter (@SharpThinkingCo) for the latest and greatest that is going on.
I hope all of you out there had a great holiday season. Feel free to drop me a message or comment. You can also follow me on Twitter (@carykostka), or look me up on LinkedIn.
Until next time…
