I Did It! 2022 Edition

For the past nine years, I've tracked my annual accomplishments via an annual I Did It! list, originally inspired by writer Lisa Romeo. Previous posts can be found here: 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?

Writing I Did Its!

My first book--Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail--was published, hurrah hurrah!

To all those people who say that publishing a book doesn't change your life, I say pppppbbbbttttsssttt! Almost nothing could be better, except maybe holding your newborn baby in your arms--I don't know, it's been a while since I did that ;-). Anyway, Oh, happy publication day and month and year!

Book Publicity Activities in 2022:

• 17 public book readings, signings, or author talks (some live, some virtual)
• 1 book club appearance
• 1 video interview
• 1 podcast interview
• 4 print interviews

(See all past and future events here and read/watch/listen to interviews and recorded events here.)

I also did some more revision on Book Two, which I mention having completed drafting in last year's I Did It! post, and I decided to illustrate it (I was wavering for a bit) and began work on those illustrations, basically, teaching myself how to draw in pen. I'm still a bit wishy-washy on how I feel about the results so far, but I'm making progress. I also drafted a book proposal for Book Two, which I haven't sent out, due to working on getting enough illustrations done to my satisfaction first.

I began Book Three, meaning I outlined it and began the research, which is really just a LOT of reading. I've also drafted a very sketchy intro and part of Chapter 1. It's a book I've been dreaming of putting together for nearly two decades, so I'm excited to finally be making progress. 

I started the year with a plan to focus on writing short pieces (essays, stories, etc.), since I couldn't wrap my brain around the idea of a big book project while working on promotion of Uphill Both Ways, but obviously I overcame that block and ended up working on two book projects after all. My plan was to write one short piece a week, in addition to a flash piece on this blog ("Flash Friday"). That did not exactly come to pass, but in a file labeled "2022 Short Works," there are 15 documents, 11 of them complete pieces. In addition, I wrote 5 "Flash Friday" posts, for a total of 20 partial or complete short works, or just shy of two per month (and one of those "short" works is nearly 10,000 words).

This practice probably led to an improved submission and publication rate over last year:

• Submissions: 16 (double last year's rate)
• Acceptances: 3
• Rejections: 8
• Publications: 9 (so much better!). They are:

• "100 Words of Writing Advice" Literary Mama blog, January 2022

• "From the Editor" Literary Mama, May/June 2022
• "Stay Together, Learn the Flowers, Go Light" The Art of Everyone, May 2022
• "Alligator Pear" Stonecrop Review, June 2022
• "River Revival: Clean Water Act 50th Anniversary" Green and Healthy Maine Summer Guide, Summer 2022
• "10 of Maine's Best Lakes to Visit" Green and Healthy Maine Summer Guide, Summer 2022
• "Citizen Scientists Key to Maine's Clean Lakes" Green and Healthy Maine Summer Guide, Summer 2022
• "Five Hundred Miles" Deep Wild, July 2022 (reprint)
• "'Mother Brain' delves into the science of how our brains are rewired by parenthood" Maine Sunday Telegram, October 2022

(As always, the submission/acceptance/rejection/publication numbers don't add up due to carry over from year to year, not everything published having gone through a normal submission process, etc.)

Other Writing I Did Its!

• 11 Newsletters (so far)
• 44 Blog Posts (including this one)
• I continued working as Literary Reflections editor and senior editor at Literary Mama
• The writing group I started in 2021 (Maine Writers and Knitters) got together in person about three times and once over zoom, including one fantastic field trip to a local historic author's residence/museum
• I applied for two grants (and was rejected for both)
• I completed just over half of a (self-paced) book coach training program
• I gave a presentation and taught a workshop at my grad school alma mater
• I taught a nature writing workshop to two different groups 

Travel and Adventure I Did Its!

• I spent 10 days in Mexico (and didn't write about it much here on the blog; but I have an extraordinarily long essay about the trip that's in my rejections pile).
• We went on our annual family camping trip 
• C and I went on a 2-day backpacking trip, kid-free
• C and I spent a weekend in Bar Harbor for alumni weekend, also kid-free
• I took some small trips on kayak and on foot here and there

It took me a minute to remember that I went on a BIG trip at the beginning of the year, which tells me I'm either ungrateful or I need to go on big trips more frequently. I definitely need to work harder to make adventure a priority. And keep a list!

Arts and Crafts I Did Its!

My focus was on writing more than making, and my sewing machine spent most of the year tucked away on a side table under a dust cover. But I got some things done:

• Finished knitting the gigantic poncho I started early in the pandemic
• Made some tiny shoes and knitted a tiny sweater (and deciphered an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern!) for my niece, who was born in September
• Knitted a runner hat for Z (and then the weather was warm through cross-country season, so he never had an occasion to wear it, officially, but he has worn it some since the weather has gotten cold)
• Made a new duvet for C's and my bed
• Made a fleece skirt, plus two more for gifts
• Made a silly little (and totally impractical) bird feeder, just for fun

Household I Did Its!

• Deep-cleaned the kitchen in anticipation of Thanksgiving and houseguests
• Cleaned and organized drawers and cabinets in the bathrooms--long overdue
• Moved several boxes of books and bags of clothes to the used bookstore and consignment shop, respectively
• Finally made inroads on cleaning the basement (the perennial to-do list item, which I claimed to have done last year--the inroads part--but this year I really made some progress)
• Tried to be more systematic about menu planning and shopping so that figuring out what to have for dinner every night isn't such a chore; this doesn't make me excited about cooking dinner any more than I was before, but it makes it slightly less stressful
• Worked on maintaining my houseplants in a healthier, less neglected state than usual (battling some pests like scale and spider mites), even moving a few from the sunroom to the living room to enjoy them more (and because they seemed to want warmer weather conditions)
• Expanded my pollinator garden, fed it a few rounds of duck mulch, and largely stayed on top of the weeds

Nature I Did Its!

• Bird-Watching: 132 checklists and 114 species for the year (in eBird) as well as several new species sightings in Mexico (around 25)
• Did a little butterfly and dragonfly wildflower watching
• Taught a nature writing workshop to 3 different groups
• Made 25 nature journal entries
• Continued to serve on board of Maine Master Naturalist Program and helped organize their conference

All-in-all a pretty good year (can't really complain when you've published a book)! It's occurred to me, for the first time after ten years of these posts, unbelievably, that in planning my goals from this year, I can think about what I want this post to look like next December and reverse engineer it so that I aim for what I'll have wanted to accomplish. For instance, I want to see more travel and adventure in my life, so I can set a goal of X number of hikes/kayaks per week or month and X of overnight trips and X real big expeditions. And then make it happen!

September Book Events and Book Half-Birthday

Uphill Both Ways has been out in the world six months as of today! Join me in a hip-hip-hooray and a many happy returns on the day for this little book.

If you want to celebrate with me in person, I have two events happening this month:

Saturday, September 10th, 10 a.m., at Lithgow Library in Augusta, with Jennifer Dupree, author of The Miraculous Flight of Owen Leach.

Monday, September 12th, 6 p.m., Readfield Community Library, Readfield, ME.

I also expect a couple of podcast episodes to drop this month, and I'll keep you posted on those.

Earlier this week, I received my first royalty statement (and check!) for the book. It's sold nearly 500 copies of paper books and more than 20 electronic. I read somewhere that most books sell fewer than 250 copies in the first year, so that's good news, I think. I'd like to double that number for the second six months. Here are some ways you can help make that happen:

• If you haven't bought your own copy yet, you can order one from one of the vendors listed here.
• If you read the book and enjoyed it, review it on Amazon and/or Goodreads.
• If you know of a podcast, blog, magazine, website or other platform that would be a good fit for featuring the book, let me know.
• Ask your local bookstore, outdoor gear store, or library to carry the book. You can use this sell sheet to provide them more information. 
• Drop a stack of bookmarks at your local bookstore, library, coffee shop, gear store, or climbing gym. Email me and I'll send you a bunch.
• Share a picture of the book with your pet, your favorite beverage, or yourself reading it on social media. Tag @Andrea.lani and #uphillbothwaysbook on Instagram or link to my website www.andrealani.com on Facebook or Twitter.

Five Hundred Miles in Deep Wild

 I'm pleased to share that my essay "Five Hundred Miles" appears in the 2022 issue of Deep Wild: Writing from the Backcountry.

My 15-year-old son Milo and I are hiking along the backbone of a ridge. The land drops away on both sides to deep, green valleys. Beyond the valleys, jagged peaks rise up, red and gray dusted with green. Farther in the distance, more mountains stretch hazy and blue to the edge of the sky. 

We climb up sharply, heading toward a rocky knob—the high point mentioned in the guidebook, I hope. I lift one foot after the other, repeating a mantra I found in a book on walking meditation: I have arrived. I have arrived. Looking down, I notice the track of a mountain bike between rocks. 

“What a stupid place to ride a bike,” I say.

“What a stupid place to do anything,” Milo replies.

It tells a little bit of our Colorado Trail story, although it's not a direct excerpt from Uphill Both Ways (though you might recognize a phrase here or there. . . I'm a strong believer in recycling). 

I'm notoriously bad about keeping up with reading the literary journals and anthologies that come my way, even when my own writing is included. But I've read the two previous issues of Deep Wild and have started in on this one, and the writing is really good. If you love reading about nature and wild places, you'll love this journal. You can order your copy here.

And if you enjoy my essay, you'll definitely love my book, which you can order from one of the links listed here.

So Much Gratitude

The first couple of weeks of book motherhood have been an incredible experience. The book launch party was the first time I've been in a room crowded with people in nearly two years (other than Passport Control and various other airport and airplane spaces on my trip to Mexico, but let's not count those)--and all those people were all there for me (except the ones who thought they were going out for a late lunch at the local farm store/dining establishment, but let's not count those). I've been touched, honored, and humbled by the range of people from all different chapters in my history who came to the launch or attended my remote reading or have read my book and sent me messages with such kind words about it. It's been like starring in an episode of This is Your Life.

An enormous THANK YOU to all of you who have made it to any of the events or who have read the book so far! And for those of you who couldn't make it--don't worry; there's more to come! (See below.) And if you want a book reading or signing at a book store, library, or event space near you, drop me a line.

Book News

If you missed my Stone House Readers Series reading, along with the amazing poet Eder Williams, you can listen to the recording here (I say listen, since my internet has going wonky and my video was off).

If you missed my conversation with Jim Davidson, author of The Next Everest, through Old Firehouse Books in Forth Collins, CO, you can watch the recording here.

My local paper, The Lincoln County News, did a great interview about the book and a lovely writeup about the book launch party. 

Upcoming Events

Live Reading, March 29, 2022, 6 p.m., South Berwick Public Library, South Berwick, Maine.

Check out my events page for updates about readings and events as they're scheduled. And if you'd like to schedule an event at your local bookstore, library, school, land trust, business, or organization, send me an email and we'll put one together!

Buy the Book

You can order Uphill Both Ways from:

• Bison Books
• Bookshop.org
• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon

Or visit your local bookstore and ask them to order a copy for you

and a few to put on the shelves for other customers.

Signed Bookplates

If you can't make it to a reading, book signing, or other event but would like your book signed, send me an email with your address and the name of the person the book is for, and I'll mail you a personalized, signed bookplate that you can stick inside the front cover of your copy of Uphill Both Ways.

Giveaway

I'm doing one last giveaway of a matted 8x8 archival art print of one of the book's illustrations to a subscriber of my newsletter. This month's giveaway is one of my favorites--Blue Pleasing Fungus Beetle. I'll draw the winner on April 1. You can subscribe here.

Help Spread the Word!

Here are some ways you can help make Uphill Both Ways a success:

• If you enjoyed the book, please review it on Amazon and/or Goodreads.
• If you're a blogger or bookstagrammer and you'd like to write a review of Uphill Both Ways on your platform, send me an email and I can forward you a digital promotional copy of the book.
• If you know of a newspaper, magazine, or website that would be a good fit for a review, contact the book reviewer and let them know about it or send me an email and I'll get in touch with them.
• Ask your local bookstore, outdoor gear store, or library to carry the book. You can use this sell sheet to provide them more information. 
• Drop a stack of bookmarks at your local bookstore, library, coffee shop, gear store, or climbing gym. Email me and I'll send you a bunch.
• Share a picture of the book with your pet, your favorite beverage, or yourself reading it on social media. Tag @Andrea.lani and #uphillbothwaysbook on Instagram or link to my website, www.andrealani.com on Facebook or Twitter.

A version of this post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child" and also be entered in ONE LAST drawing to win a print of one of the illustrations from Uphill Both Ways.

Book Stack ~ February 2022

A monthly post about what I've been reading, with aspirations but no real hope 

of reading down a very tall stack of books. Previous posts from this year:

January 2022

I see from this photo that I read a lot of books last month--I'm not sure when I found the time, because I felt straight out with book promotion all month, but I guess I found some escape and rest in books.

Poetry

I had enjoyed Kate Baer's poetry collection What Kind of Woman and I love her erasure poems that peppered Instagram last year and which are gathered together in I Hope this Finds You Well. These are found poems, in which she turns messages--often hostile troll messages, but sometimes lovely, supportive messages--and blots out many, or most, of the words and turns them into tiny haiku-like commentaries on human nature. Loved it. 

Fiction

I brought a lot of books to Mexico in January. I don't know why I thought I'd have so much time to sit around reading, but I only finished one while I was there (covered in last month's post). I went thematic, and brought along novels that take place in Mexico. 

The first, Lost in Oaxaca, by Jessica Winters Mireles, I bought because I thought it was a thriller, but it turned out to be a love story, which was a little disappointing (in my defense, the first paragraph of the back cover makes it sound like the setup for a thriller; I did not read the second paragraph, which makes it clear it's a love story). Still, it had some lovely descriptions of the food, culture, and landscape of Oaxaca (which was not the part of Mexico I was in, so it was fascinating to read about). 

To sate my appetite for a thriller, I picked up a book I've read many times before, The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits by Elizabeth Peters. Even though I remembered who done it (though not why), it was still a thrill to read, and even though it was published in 1973, it has held up. The description of the drug trade in Mexico, however, comes off as naive, or quaint perhaps, compared to today's (more) murderous cartels. 

Finally, in the Mexico category, I read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which is SO good--super creepy and delightful in the gothic tradition, but with a heroine who is not a helpless ingenue and a supernatural force that is so original. I wish I could rhapsodize about the device, but it would give too much away. If you're a fan of the gothic tradition, you will want to read this book.

Graphic 

When I heard that a school district in Tennessee had banned Maus by Art Spiegelman, I knew I had to read it. I mean, if some ass-hats in Tennessee think it's bad, it must be good, right? And it's a book I've been meaning to read for a long time. It's the story of Spiegelman's parents' experience in Poland under Nazi occupation, right up to their removal to Auschwitz. You can see why fascists wouldn't want children to read about where fascism ultimately leads.

Nonfiction

Because my book has been so admiringly compared to Kelly Corrigan's work, I figured I needed to read her latest, Tell Me More. I was familiar with her work on NPR podcasts, but this was the first book of hers I read. It's warm and funny and smart and generous in all the right proportions, and even though it tackles a very difficult subject--the death of her close friend due to cancer--it manages to be a feel-good read. I do admit to skipping one essay, though, once it started delving into the realm of the scatological. I mean, I've got a pretty high tolerance for potty humor, being the mom of three boys, but this one went a little far down the toilet even for me to take.

Oh, why yes, I did read my own book, Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail. I started it the minute the box of author copies came in the mail. And, in my totally biased opinion, it is SO good! Of course I was on the lookout for mistakes, but I only found one typo and a handful of commas I wish had been placed differently, plus a sentence I didn't think needed to be in there--it over-explained what came before it in the rest of the paragraph. Otherwise? You guys, I'm SO happy with it. I mean, really, really happy. So please, if you haven't already, get your copy today, and then you can read it, too! And if you like it, give it a review on the old Amazon and Goodreads (I know, I know, but it's good for my visibility, which is good for my sales, which is good for feeding my children). 

And last of all, the book on the bottom of the stack, which doesn't have a title on the spine, is Your First 1,000 Copies by Tim Grahl. It's, as you can probably tell from the title, a book about marketing your book. Grahl calls his system permission-based marketing, which he defines as asking people's permission to market to them (primarily by getting them to sign up for an email list) and then giving them something of value in exchange (useful content). So here goes: if you subscribe to my newsletter here, you'll receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child" and also be entered in ONE LAST drawing to win a print of one of the illustrations from Uphill Both Ways. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Publication Day!!!

Today is pub day, friends! I know many people have already begun to receive their copies of the book, which I guess could make today a little anticlimactic, but I hear pub day is generally anticlimactic anyway, and I'm not good at waiting for Christmas or birthdays, so I'm all for the books trickling into the world ahead of schedule. So far the reviews have been all positive (but then again, so far I've mostly only heard from friends and family!). I've already given two interviews (keep an eye on my website for links to those when they're published), and I've got two book events scheduled with more to come (see below). It's all terribly exciting!

At the same time, it's really hard to feel so happy and excited for myself when children are being bombed in Ukraine in an unprovoked attack by Russia, when trans kids are being persecuted by the government in Texas (and elsewhere), and women are losing their reproductive rights all over this country. The entire journey of creating this book has been a process of me trying to convince myself that what I'm writing about matters when really shitty things are going on in the world. The hardest day was November 8, 2016. Why should I bother writing a book about hiking, I wondered, when half of the people in this country chose to elect a tyrant and a buffoon president? It took me months to ease back off that ledge and get my pen moving again. The pandemic, along with being a health crisis of unprecedented proportions, brought with it dire predictions about the future of publishing, just at the point when I was ready to send my book proposal out to publishers. I had to forge through that barrier as well and send my book out into an uncertain world.

Speaking of uncertain worlds, on top of scrambling to accomplish a scattershot of pre-publication publicity efforts and having anxiety dreams about my book launch, this week I've been taking the younger two kids on tours of colleges around Maine. Unlike myself, who could not wait to go to college, their enthusiasm for the project is underwhelming. I wonder if it's because boys mature later than girls or if life at home here is just too cushy. C told me that he heard a radio report which suggested that all kids these days are lackadaisical about the future because they're skeptical that they'll even have a future, thanks to climate change, mass shootings, wealth inequality, and creeping christo-fascism (I added that part, but it's what keeps me awake at night). I countered, What about us, growing up in the Cold War? At least our kids don't have to worry about mutually assured destruction. And then Russia invaded Ukraine, returning nuclear annihilation to the realm of possibility. So I guess I don't blame the kids, if they really are skeptical about the future. But you'd think they'd at least want to go to college for the unlimited meal plans. May as well face the end times well fed.

As I try to balance my joy with a world of sadness, I'm reminded of Rachel Carson, whose first book, Under the Sea Wind, was published on the eve of the US entering World War II and as a result did not do well. But she persisted, writing two more books about the ocean world and one of the most important books of the twentieth century. I'm no Rachel Carson, and Vladimir Putin's shenanigans in Ukraine are no World War II (let's hope), but I can draw strength from Carson's example, and, as I did to extract myself from those earlier funks/existential crises, remind myself that what I write about--family and the natural world--does matter. Perhaps it matters more than anything else.

A version of this post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child" and also be entered in ONE LAST drawing to win a print of one of the illustrations from Uphill Both Ways.

The book launch party for Uphill Both Ways will be this Saturday, March 5, from 2-4 p.m. at Sheepscot General Store in Whitefield, Maine. There will be a meet & greet, reading, book signing, art print giveaway, and more!

You can order your copy of Uphill Both Ways from any of the following:

• Bison Books
• Bookshop.org
• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon

Or ask your local bookstore or library to order a copy for you. 

If you enjoy the book and aren't allergic to Amazon, consider writing a review. Those reviews really drive the algorithm. 

Drumroll, please...

It's here, it's here! The cover art is here! I hope you love it as much as I do. It's nowhere close to what I imagined when I envisioned my ideal cover and filled out the design worksheet for the publisher, yet it's exactly the perfect cover for this book (which, I suppose, is why I'm the writer and not the designer). There are so many things I love about it.

1. It's a picture I took, which is gratifying and validating and makes this book even that much more a product of my creativity.
2. It's iconically Colorado--dramatic scenery, blue sky, purple mountains majesty, and all that. You know what you're getting when you buy this book.
3. The kids look SO small. I remember thinking as they hiked down this very slope how small and vulnerable they were (and no doubt I wrote that thought in the book). It tells potential readers that there will be kids in the book, and it tells them that that's a pretty awesome feat. I mean, that mountain is so big and they're so little!
4. What you can't see is that this view is from the top of Hope Pass, a place whose name is symbolic of both this journey and of the stage of life I write about in the book. It's also one of the most physically and mentally challenging stretches of trail (something like 4,000 feet of vertical rise over four miles). So descending from that pass, though not quite halfway through our journey and though challenges would remain ahead, was an important symbol of overcoming obstacles and making progress toward goals.
5. Doesn't that view make you want to sing Sound of Music tunes (as my friend Libby pointed out), especially if you didn't just climb 4,000 vertical feet to get to it?

This week I've been reviewing the page proofs of the book, looking for last-minute typos that I missed in the first 3,000 drafts (like writing "tail" instead of "trail"). Those proofs, along with the cover, makes it all seem so real. They're laid out exactly as the book will appear, with the font and the margins and the photos and illustrations. It looks so beautiful--and professional. A real, live, genuine book. I suppose the proper attitude, the grown-up writer attitude, at this stage would be nonchalance, but it's all so exciting! I'm elated to see five years' (and counting) of work coming to fruition in such a beautiful way, and I'm so deeply grateful to the editors, designers, and other people who have helped get me here, including you, dear reader. Thank you!

This post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child" and also be entered in a monthly drawing to win a print of one of the illustrations from Uphill Both Ways.

Book Illustration Giveaway!

Once a month between now and when my book, Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail, comes out in March, I’ll give away an 8x8 inch matted art print of one of the book’s illustrations. This month is Alpine Springbeauty. To enter, just subscribe to my newsletter by midnight, October 31. 

Book Update ~ Page of Praise

It's been a while since I've updated you on the progress of my book, Uphill Both Ways: Hiking Toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail. So how about a little peek behind the scenes? In June I received the copy editor's suggested changes--they weren't huge, just some suggested word choices here and there, a bit of misused capitalization and hyphens, an extremely confusing number vs. numeral convention. I found that I wanted to rewrite my epilogue quite a bit, since that was the last thing I had written and so it hadn't gone through the endless rounds of edits that the rest of the book had before going to the publisher. Also it was meant to be "current," and much had changed between February and June. Most troublesome were the gear tables at the end, making sure I'd gotten all of the brand names correct (why is it that companies--especially outdoor gear companies--must abuse spelling, spacing, and capitalization so egregiously?) and second- and third-guessing my own math on the weight of items.

Last week I got one more round of copy edits from my editor (more overuse of the hyphen) and I saw the draft cover design. It's so pretty!!! I can't wait to share it with you...and I will share it with readers of my newsletter first, so if you're you're not subscriber, be sure to sign up. The file my editor sent me for review was one long, continuous document with the full text of the book and little coded tags for the design team to use for inserting illustrations, photographs, maps, etc. The first page of the document was mostly blank with the following text at the top:

{~?~page of praise to come}

That's that page (or more) inside the cover of most books where other authors and reviewers wax effusive over the text of the book you have in hand, otherwise (and not very attractively) known as "blurbs." My blurbs started coming in in June, all from writers I admire so much, some of whom I know well, others who were scary to contact (and no, I never did hear back from Cheryl Strayed's publicist about getting a blurb from her). June was an otherwise difficult month, a the-bastards-are-getting-me-down kind of month. I'd often start my day like a cartoon character, floating a few inches above the ground, high on a beautiful blurb, only to, a few hours later, also like a cartoon character, have an anvil or a grand piano fall from a second-story window and flatten me into the sidewalk. I can't imagine how I might have peeled myself back up again if not for the stream of blurbs coming into my inbox.

So it occurs to me that we all need a page of praise, not just writers and not just about our books, but all of us should maintain a running list of kind words, compliments, and good deeds that others bestow upon us. And we should all make it our work to fill up the pages of praise of the people in our lives, to counteract the bastards who, let's be honest, are working overtime to get us all down. So next time someone does you a kindness, write it down, save it in an email file, or store it in that part of your brain you turn to when the going gets rough, and then pay it forward, help to fill someone else's page of praise.

This post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."

I Did It! 2020 (aka Apocalypse Year 1) Edition

For the past six years, I've tracked my annual accomplishments via an annual I Did It! list, originally inspired by writer Lisa Romeo. Previous posts can be found here: 2019 (including decade-in-review), 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. 

Let me just start this year's list by acknowledging that 2020 was a real sh*t-show of a year, and if all you managed to accomplish was doom-scrolling Twitter and binge-watching Tiger King, that's okay. I'm not here to judge or make anyone feel bad. In terms of hours devoted, streaming TV was probably my most productive activity of 2020. Nevertheless, traditions are traditions, and my tradition is to take a minute to celebrate my wins for the year, big and small.

Writing I-Did-Its!

My big win for the year is, of course, finding a publisher and signing a contract for my book. This was a four-year-plus-long process to get to this point, and I'm not going to let 2020 take that away from me.

My stats for this year:

• Submissions: 16
• Acceptances: 3
• Rejections: 7
• Withdrawals: 4
• Radio Silence: 2
• Publications: 4

"The Quilt" Willows Wept Review, September 2020 

"A Review of The Beginning of Everything by Andrea J. Buchanan" Literary Mama, May 2020 

"Faith in a Seed" Spire: The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability, April 2020  

"Sled Dogs and Search and Rescue" Maine Wilderness Guide, Winter 2020  

As  was the case for the last few years, while I've been working on The Book, I haven't been producing as many shorter works for submission. Some day I'll have to figure out how to keep short pieces going on the side while working on longer works. 

Other writing accomplishments:

• I re-reinvigorated my newsletter, moving to a monthly schedule and sending out 11 issues.
• I only wrote 35 blog posts--my lowest number ever--but I didn't abandon the blog entirely.
• I mostly finished drafting a second book and I did a fair amount of research on a third.
• I started a novel and got pretty deep into characters and plot, but had to shelve it at the point when I needed to delve into historical research, just when all the libraries shut down for the pandemic.
• I continued to edit for Literary Mama, both as a department editor in the Literary Reflections Department and as a Senior Editor (I suppose you could call another publication my letter from the editor in the July/August issue).

Travel and Adventure I Did Its!

Well, it wasn't much of a travel year for anyone, was it? Weeks went by in spring when I barely even left our property, let alone the county. What I did manage:

• Several local kayak trips, including one night paddle among the bioluminescence. I had fun making journal pages for some of these trips

• An overnight at a cottage on the beach, courtesy of a friend.
• A November hike with my family (who are usually impossible to drag out of the house) up a mountain not too far from home.

Arts and Crafts I Did Its!

Likewise, this wasn't a very crafty year, although it seems like it should have been what with all the stay-home-ness. What I did do:

• Made a cute little table topper thingy.
• Made a table runner.
• Made a billion face masks, starting with these.
• Finished C's fair isle vest.
• Remodeled my old dollhouse (phase 1, phase 2, phase 3).
• I've been working on one, long, endless knitting project most of the pandemic. It's been a good TV-watching knit, since it doesn't require a lot of attention-paying, but I've fallen out of the habit the last few weeks. Time to pick it up again.
• I did not do as much art as I would have liked, other than a little nature journaling and a couple of watercolor paintings. This is an area of my life I'd like to reinvigorate in 2021.

Household I Did Its!

2020 was the year of dealing with deferred maintenance, from repairing little things (bracelets and wind chimes that have been broken for years) to finally, finally repainting (most of) the house trim and the exterior doors. (See above. How much do you love that purple and green together?) Not that anyone other than the UPS man has seen the results, but it makes me smile every time I come home. I also:

• Finally cleaned up and organized the basement, starting with the "jar room." Other areas that got tidied up were my arts and craft supplies, three big bins of hand-me-down clothes that are all now either in kids' drawers or at the thrift store (or waiting till spring to go to the consignment store). I would still like to do a better job of organizing the camping gear and my fabric stash (maybe either burn through or get rid of some of it), and I finally threw out stuff I was waiting for recycling opportunities to open up for--old floppy disks and vinyl bags, that sort of thing. What I'd really, really like is for C to finish off the corner of the basement where all this stuff is stored and put in better lighting and shelving so I have better space to work with. Maybe some day...
• Expanded my Fiestaware collection...by a lot. I admit, I got a teensy bit carried away, but I'm pretty happy with my purchases (it all started with Goodwill but after the pandemic began, I turned into eBay, Replacements Ltd., and Fiesta Factory Direct for my fixes). Okay, so maybe buying stuff isn't exactly an accomplishment, but Fiestaware was invented during the Great Depression to cheer people up, so I feel like I'm carrying on that tradition--of cheering myself up with colorful dishes. All the new dishware necessitated reorganizing kitchen shelves and cabinets to create storage and display space where there was none before, so that's something
• In this same vein, I continued on my never-ending (and vain) quest to get the house so clean it stays clean by reorganizing and decluttering various book cases, cabinets, closets, and rooms.
• I spread topsoil and grass seed in front of our house, something we neglected to do after building, resulting in a bald, weedy lawn (don't get me wrong; I'm okay with "weeds" and even planted violets and bluets in the new lawn, but more green growing things than brown dirt was my goal).
• And I planted a butterfly garden, where I long ago put in an herb garden and then neglected it.

Nature I Did Its!

• I co-coordinated the Maine Master Naturalist training course for 2020, with three other terrific leaders. We pivoted and retooled with the pandemic, and were able to continue carrying out a complete and robust course using remote learning platforms, videos, do-it-yourself field trips, and socially distanced field days. The further I get from the elbow-deep, day-to-day operational logistics of this, the more I realize what an accomplishment it was. As a bonus, sitting through all of the lectures reinforced my own learning from the course (back in 2014-2015) and re-sparked my interest in several nature topics.
• I took an online class in butterfly ID and ecology, and discovered 40+ species of butterfly on my property alone.
• Most of my birding I did at home, yet I managed to log more checklists on eBird and more species than any previous year. I also had a couple of life birds and a few not-seen-in-a-long-time species, including two great sightings of sandhill cranes (not on my property), and I worked on my birding-while-kayaking skills. One of my big plans for 2021 is to get a lot better at birding.
• All the kayaking reinvigorated my long-held but recently dormant interest in dragonflies, and I reacquainted myself with some of my favorite species and learned several new ones. I look forward to pursuing this more in 2021.

Not too shabby for an otherwise hellish year. Another goal for 2021 is to not try to wish time away--even pandemic time, even work time--but to appreciate each moment as it comes. I'll let you know how it goes in next year's I Did It! post.