All downhill from here?

Last year, I was hoping to break my record for most original papers. I tied it, with three papers. This year, I broke it.

Actually, shattered might be more apt than broke. Or maybe smithereened.

I had five data-driven papers, an ethics paper, and a chapter in Open Lab 2010. Six original peer-reviewed papers, and a book chapter that was more heavily vetted than any of the papers. A couple, though, were things that had been in the pipeline for a long time – some my fault, some not. They probably should have been out earlier.

And then there was #SciFund.

That’s still pretty productive. And it was made possible by hard working students and collaborations. As I wrote before, it was great to have two papers on subjects that I never in a million years expected to be publishing on (ecological modeling and parasitology).

The downside to having a great year is that you know you’re not going to top it next year. While I don’t have the same momentum going into 2012 as I did for 2011, I have a few things lined up for next year already. There’s the symposium for the tenth International Congress for Neuroethology; the Manuscript That Will Not Die finally seems to have left my desk for the last time and is in press; and I’ve got a paper in the hands of an editor being reviewed right now.

Maybe I’m finally getting the hand of this science thing.