I don’t make a secret of the fact that 2010 was a difficult year for me, both on the personal level and a writing level. But with every difficulty something good came as well. And at the end of the old year and beginning of the new, it is natural to reflect on the year before to help set the course for the new year. This year, because of all of the negative in the last, my focus has been on the good that came to me.

For me the BEST of 2010 was the people I had the opportunity to meet in person. So these posts (I had to break them up, or they’d go on forever) will focus on the people I knew online, but had the opportunity to meet in person. Meetings which further cemented the friendships already formed.

I’m going to start with the most recently met and go from there. Last night, the wonderful Kimberly Kinrade and her man, Dmytry Karpov had a New Year’s Eve party for local Twitter friends. An intimate gathering of people, most of whom were meeting in person for the first time. And as I have found in the past, when the people who know each other from Twitter get together, there are no awkward silences, no wondering who this person is and what to say to them, you just jump right in and pick up the conversation.

At this gathering, I got to meet a few new people who I have now added to my followers list. Starting with Sean Vessey (@SeanOTD) who flew out from Virginia for the party. Well… all right… he flew out to visit relatives, and since he was here was able to attend the party, but I like the first version better. Sean is a quiet, teddy-bear kinda guy, who watches and enjoys (and as writers don’t we all do that from time to time?) A real sweetheart.

Another first time connection for me was Charles and the talented Lisette Brodey (@LisetteBrodey) who has a couple of books out on Amazon.com, Crooked Moon (general fiction) and Squalor, New Mexico (young adult fiction) which I will add to my reading list. We talked a little about books and more about Twitter and followers, and as always it is a pleasure meeting like-minded people.

Ranee Dillon (@RaneeDillon), whom I previously met online, is a hoot and a half. She chirpy-chats just like her twitter tweets and she has a delightful laugh. When I think of Ranee, I think of poetry, because she is one in my stream who tweets and retweets poetry, which when you catch as it flits pass is always a day brightener. She is tingly heart-goodness personified.

And of course, there were the hosts Kimberly Kinrade (@KimberlyKinrade) and Dmytry Karpov (@DmytryKarpov). I met Dmytry online first as he wandered through the Twitterverse getting to know folks. Then he disappeared from my view for a bit and came back full of love for the beautiful Kimberly Kinrade. It was at his suggestion that I started following Kimberly. Their story has been epically tweeted and they have a love blog about their story if you’d like to find out more. Suffice it to say, that although the original plan was for the two of them to be together for a couple weeks prior to the party, Dmytry didn’t actually arrive until yesterday. The two were very happy to be together after their enforced separation.

2010 was a year of meeting some incredible people. With some the relationship is still new and forming, like those mentioned above, others have become entrenched in my heart. For me, spending 2010 with people I had not met in person before, but knew online was a fitting way to see the year out, because my brightest moments of 2010 were primarily made up of meeting people in real life whom I had made my friends. And while there were others at the party, I have plans to talk about them later in this series.