2023 came on stunningly beautifully cold. The river was so frozen the deer were walking across it. The ice fishing, I’m told, was fantastic. And I watched a webinar with Author’s Publish in which Emily Harstone essentially said, it takes ten rejections to get one acceptance, which birthed my #100RejectionsChallenge

I began furiously writing, editing, and creating short stories and essays I could submit for publication. (As it stands currently, I have thirty-eight pieces out for submission, I’ve received fifty-three rejections, and I’ve had four acceptances).

In May I created a Patreon account and attended my first writing retreat with Laura Munson and Haven. It wouldn’t be long before I’d begin the Montana Arts Council Montana Artrepreneur Program (MAP), attend the Authors of the Flathead Writers Conference, and Writing By Writers Manuscript Boot-Camp, rounding out a year of meeting other writers and artists and encouraging me in this audacious undertaking.

I sent my first piece for publication in June, nearly six months after I started my Challenge. I got my first rejection in July and my first acceptance in September. In the six months I’ve been submitting I’ve had four pieces published in three outlets.

October was insanely busy, marking one year I’ve been writing a monthly column for The Sanders County Ledger called Whatcha Readin’. I gave my first writing presentation and was asked by multiple people to turn it into a series of talks (the best feedback ever!). And I started recording monthly 2-minute book talk videos for my local Thompson Falls Public Library.

I saw a Facebook meme today where the poster was asking people to sum up 2023 with one word. My word would have to be “Unexpected.” If you’d told me in January of 2023 that by December I’d be an internationally published writer, that I’d have met famous writers like Laura Munson, Chris La Tray, Mark T. Sullivan, Gina Frangello, Pam Houston, Antonya Nelson, and Antoine Wilson I would have smiled, laughed, thanked you for lying to me. I still can’t believe it. It’s like this young bull moose that sauntered onto our property in May: Unexpected. Surprising? Yes. Wonderful? Absolutely. And mostly, thoroughly, unexpected.

I’m closing out 2023 by finishing edits on my memoir so that I can begin querying agents in the New Year. It has been an insane year and I’m so grateful to you all for joining me. I hope/suspect it’s only the very beginning of a fabulous ride….