I did a lot of scary things this year. Like most of us, I make a lot of promises to myself, usually right about this time of year. Lose the baby weight (my kid is 10, by the way), learn to deal with stress, learn to better deal with stress, slow down and live in the moment--I've actually managed to keep most of these promises, though some are works in progress.

But there was this one thing that I wrote down every year and carried with me on scraps of paper in the depths of my wallet: Finish my book. I know this is one of those "scary things" that a lot of people carry around, but for some reason, my personal note got heavier every year I wrote it. It wasn't the writing that scared me. I'd done that. I'd done that a lot, my byline showing up in magazines, blogs, newspaper front pages. There's nothing filled with more pressure than a deadline breaking news story set to hit print in a few hours on the front page for a million-plus subscribers.

No, the writing was the easy part. For me it was the rejection. From those amazing people I read and admire and from the reading public in general. Every year I tackled my promise to myself to the ground with "it's impossible to get published" and "why go through all of that just to write something for your family and friends?" I smothered my promise--my dream, really--until it seemed so damned impossible that I almost quit writing it on scrap paper every year.

Almost.

You see, I have one of those kick-ass husbands who is one hell of an optimist. Don't get that confused with being delusional--he's very much a realist. He read the blogs with me, read the success stories of some of my favorite authors, and we talked about the odds. We talked about the odds A LOT! And when we were done, we decided that putting something personal, my book, out there for the public wasn't hard to do, and it might even get a few looks from strangers, but probably not anything crazy. And at the very least, nothing would be lost.

So, I talked an extremely savvy PR friend into joining my crazy cause, picking her brain over lunch, over text, over email, late at night, during the drive into work--all to make sure I wasn't aiming for impossible. And, of course, because she's such a super savvy PR person, she tried to talk me into moving my bar a little higher.

But I kept it where it was--I kept it comfortable, attainable and real. It's become a joke between the two of us, and I'm a little embarrassed to even write it now, but I started this whole thing a year ago with the hope that 17 people (they had to be complete strangers) would read my book. My friend's goal was much higher, and my husband's was somewhere in the middle.

We all missed the mark. And we missed it by a landslide.

It happened slowly at first, but over those first few weeks, I watched my number come and go, and my husband's next. My friend's took a little longer, but we've left that one in the dust, too. And it's because of you--amazing readers. I underestimated you, and I'm sorry. I was scared. Afraid you wouldn't notice, afraid you wouldn't care. But you did, and you do. I read your passion about books in your blogs, on your Goodreads posts, on Twitter and Facebook. And I pay attention.

And I read the stuff that's hard to take, too. The lumps. Ooooph, sometimes those are really tough. But I soak it all in. I read tips from fellow authors, and I read their reviews--especially critical ones of the books I truly love. Because I can learn from it--the good and the bad.

It won't change me. And I won't change what I write, or how I write. My tone, the emotion, the character depth, the detail--that's important to me, and if I messed around with my recipe, I would be disappointed in myself. And then I'd lose the whole reason I ever wrote my dream down on the scrap of paper in the first place.

But I will learn from it all. I already have. And I'll finesse, adding a dash here, taking away a dash there, doing my damnedest to deliver something that I'm proud of and you enjoy. Because I owe you so very much--more than you could ever know. You made something scary a whole lot less intimidating.

And it was the best resolution of my life.

Happy new year, to each and every one of you! I promise less quixotic sappiness with my next post, and instead a teaser for my next book--Blindness.