I'm back + New Year's Resolutions

I'm back after a record absence. It's been about a month and a half since I've last been on DeviantART, right around when my Premium Membership ended. I doubt I'll renew it any time soon; I'm not on DA anywhere near as often as I used to be, and I want to save my money. For the first time I can remember, I came back to DA to find that I was logged out of my account!
_{(on a side note, I guess anyone can now post images in their journals, not just Premium Members. When did that change?)}

After being absent from DeviantART for over a month, I realize I have mountains of messages in my inbox, and I'm making it a point to whittle those down over the next few days.

I really apologize for the inconveniece. I've had a LOT to keep me busy. For the past couple weeks, I've been down in Florida at my parents' new vacation house, which will eventually become their permanent house once they find jobs in the area. In a way, I feel like a child. Everything I do is on my parents' time rather than mine, and since I don't know the area well and I don't have a car down here, I have to rely on my parents to bring me places. Nonetheless, I'm enjoying Florida more than I ever expected to (I'm a cold weather New Hampshire girl), but I'm not sure I would want to move to Florida after graduation. Maybe if I find a great job down here...

Next semester is going to be extremely busy. Once I get back to college, I have to put together a graphic design portfolio of ten to fifteen of my best works. Luckily my professor will help me with that. For my Creative Writing major, I have to put together a "chapbook", a paperback staple-bound book that ranges from 20-50 pages long and contains work/s I have written during college. The best part is that the students get to have 100% control of the design aspects (within reason, of course. As the assignment instructions said, "Please do not make your chapbook sing like a greeting card when opened, shaped like a DNA helix or only readable with a decoder ring.") As a Graphic Design double major, I already have some fun plans for the chapbook!

On top of that, I've been focused on entering more writing and graphic design competitions. I made it into the semifinals of the international Adobe Design Achievement Awards in June, and since then I won two prizes from the American Graphic Design Association competition. Now I want to enter more competitions!

 I've entered my writing in competitions and magazines around my campus, but I realized I should branch out and enter my work in other literary magazines and online competitions. It'll only boost my chances of getting published.

Speaking of getting published, I have also made it a goal for 2016 to convert my novel Le Bonhomme du Minuit into a manuscript that I can send off for publication. So far I have two chapters formatted. Because of the story's enormous length, I'm going to split it into a trilogy. Ideally I'd like to be finished with formatting the first book's manuscript by May, when I graduate. The first book is probably going to end at where Chapter 21 is now , although depending on how the word count changes based on the edits I make, the first book may end earlier or later.

All this along with graduation in the spring (and especially the preparations beforehand) is going to make me very busy this year.