I Did It! 2023 Edition

It's time again for the annual pat-myself-on-the-back post. Past years can be viewed here: 2022, 2021 (Apocalypse Year 2) 2020 (Apocalypse Year 1), 2019 (including decade-in-review), 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. Let's jump right into 2022's I Did Its! Shall we?

Andy Goldsworthy landscape installation at Alnoba in New Hampshire, here for no reason
other than it's a place I visited this year and never got around to writing about it. Also it's cool!

Writing I Did Its!

• Drafted a novel in my own version of National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), which I called JANOWRIMO. (And I love it!)
• Finished revising and illustrating and writing a book proposal for my second nonfiction book, and submitted it to my publisher for consideration.
• Did some work on my idea for a third nonfiction book.
• Attended five book promotion events for Uphill Both Ways.
• Recorded two podcasts promoting Uphill Both Ways (one of which can be heard here, and one of which will come out soon!)
• Did a big freelance project.
• Freelance articles: 2
• Stories in the Snow
• Maine's Native Butterflies
• Essay Submissions: 5
• Essay Acceptances: 3
• Essay Publications: 
• "Faith in a Seed" Rooted 2: The Best New Arboreal Nonfiction, Summer 2023 (reprint)
• "Inflection Point: The Birth of a Mother Writer" Literary Mama, March/April 2023
• Other publications: 
• "Growing an Essay" Rooted 2 Substack, December 2023
• "The Ever-Evolving Journey: An Interview with Majka Burhardt" Literary Mama, September/October 2023
• "Where Are They Now? An Interview with Anne Liu Kellor" Literary Mama blog, March 2023
• Residencies applied for: 3
• Residencies accepted into and attended: 1 (a little about it here).
• Newsletters: 10
• Blog posts: 27
• Workshops taught: 2
• Workshops taken: 2
• Got through >75% of my book coach training program.

Travel & Adventure I Did Its!

• We went to Europe!!! Can't really top that.

• Went on some local adventures to museums and other sites of interest around Maine, and one in New Hampshire, with family, friends, and on my own.
• Did *some* kayaking, but much less than in recent years.

Arts & Crafts I Did Its!

• Knit *one* pair of mittens!
• Took up mosaic-making (mosaicing?), and made three projects, including these two:

Other I Did Its!

• Got my older kid graduated from college and the younger two from high school. (Is this really my accomplishment? I don't care--I'm taking credit for it!)
• Got the younger two kids off to college.
• Hosted my parents for a couple of weeks in the spring (around those grads) and my sister for a few days in the fall.
• Created a true space of my own in the vacated bedroom.
• Maintained pretty regular yoga and walking routines (not-quite-daily).
• Kept a daily journal and a fairly regular morning pages routine.

I have some ideas about what I want to accomplish in 2024, writing-wise, and otherwise. But for now I'll just bask in the glow of self-congratulation for having written a novel and traveled to Europe and learned a new craft.

Book Stack ~ November 2023

A monthly post about what I've been reading.

January 2023
February 2023
March 2023

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

My reading this month was a little all over the place--representing my literary split personality. Starting from the bottom of the stack:

Nonfiction

If you swim at all in the sea of memoir writing, one of the books that gets referenced most frequently is Andre Dubus III's memoir Townie. I finally picked it up and gave it a read last month (and, if I'm being honest, which is what memoir requires, bleeding a little into this month). Man, it's a brutal book. So hard to read. I don't, of course, mean the writing, but the experiences of violence and neglect Dubus went through as a child and the violence he participated in as he got older and took on an almost pathological role of defending himself and the people he cared about. I was so mad at his parents, who didn't abuse or hurt their children, but who just did not do what they needed to to make sure they were safe and taken care of--his mom mostly because she was exhausted from working all the time to keep them housed and semi-fed, and his dad because he put his needs--writing, running, and dating college students--ahead of his family. I was also so mad at our society for creating the conditions where so many families fall into circumstances where they can barely survive. It is, ultimately, a triumphant story about overcoming adversity and one's own worst instincts, but it truly takes an extraordinary individual (like Dubus and his siblings) to survive let alone thrive after such an upbringing (many of the other characters in the book, raised in the same chaotic milieu as Dubus do not survive).

On a totally different note, I read Read Books All Day and Get Paid for It by Jennie Nash, which is all about running a book coaching business, something I've been pursuing incrementally over the last couple of years.

Fiction

My sister sent me The Hike by Lucy Clarke, a thriller about four women on a four-day hike through the wilds of Norway that goes horribly wrong. Our day-after-Thanksgiving plans fell through, and so I spent a lot of that day reading, nearly finishing the book in one day. It was a fun read, with a good plot twist, and some interesting characters, each struggling with her own circumstances and her relationship to her friends.

And, of course, I read some Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels. First, I found Legend in Green Velvet, the last book I needed for my collection, at a used bookstore I popped into on a trip to Portland. It's a totally fun and slightly ridiculous caper through the Scottish countryside (similar in vibe to The Camelot Caper/Her Cousin John). Then, because I was working with a friend on the beginnings of a novel she's writing that revolves around antiquarian bookselling, I pulled Houses of Stone off the shelf, because it has an antiquarian books element, and I was curious to see how the great Barbara Michaels made the subject into a thriller. The book doesn't disappoint, with all kinds of gothic elements and quirky characters and a really long chapter that takes place at an estate auction. Finally, I reread Search the Shadows, mainly, I think, because I needed a soothing antidote to Townie. This was the first Michaels/Peters book I read, way back in high school, and it's one of my faves--again, gothic elements, plus Egyptology. Love it!