My best of 2013

I hope you all had wonderful new year celebrations and disproportional hangovers! Before I breeze into 2014, allow me to look back on 2013 one more time with this list of things I really enjoyed in the past year.

Best book
I thoroughly enjoyed Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews because I ♥ spies and female heroines and impossible love stories and ex-CIA agents writing novels. On the lesbian fiction front, I couldn’t put down Lyn Gardner’s Ice and Nicola Griffith’s The Blue Place. Additionally, a must read (can’t stress it enough) non-fiction book for writers (indie or not) is Write. Publish. Repeat. by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant.

Best movie
Concussion (no competition). (Watch it!)

Best TV show
The Sons of Anarchy season finale will be etched in my memory forever (nightmare-wise), but the show I enjoyed most was the Danish political drama Borgen. I still think of Birgitte Nyborg (and Katrine and even Kasper) regularly and do wonder what she’s up to now. I also want to visit Copenhagen. And learn Danish. Tak.

Hottest actress
I really can’t decide between Gillian Anderson in The Fall and Robin Wright in House of Cards. So, in my imagination, after Claire Underwood finally kills Kevin Spacey (Gemma Teller style), Stella Gibson is miraculously transferred to Washington to interrogate her as the prime suspect and (obviously) hotness ensues.

Best TV lesbian
Nicky and her big mouth in Orange Is The New Black.

Best new app
Spotify! No more wires to transfer music from your computer to other devices. Endless hipster playlists. Cheap AND legal! Simply amazing.

Best song
Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey, because it got me through writing Summer’s End, and writing Summer’s End provided me with some very important personal insights. (Do not attempt to write a novella in 10 days ever again.)

Best advice received
Stop obsessing over Amazon rankings. Whether you check them ten times a day or not, it doesn’t change anything. It devours energy you could spend on much more useful tasks, like writing.

Best trip
Our US west coast trip this summer from Portland to L.A. and San Francisco. Such fun.

Hardest laugh provider
Miranda. She makes me feel so much better about myself, what with all the advice on social awkwardness and the spontaneously bursting out in song at inappropriate times.

Best wife
Mine 😉

Best news
I will be an aunty again in 2014!