by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading (MG): I loved the book, Louder Than Hunger, by John Schu. It’s a novel in verse that follows Jake as he struggles with anorexia and treatment for it. It’s powerful, informative, and emotional—and because it’s a novel in verse, it flies by. Though you may not want it to. (And other times, yes, you will. Schu, after all, examines a very difficult mental illness.)
2. Reading (memoir): “A person was an accretion, constantly growing in strangeness, becoming an accumulation. Healing was found in stretching toward abundance. It was not about leaving the past behind, dividing the self into good and bad, but about opening a path through ruins.” If you haven’t read The Man Who Could Move Clouds, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, you must pick it up sometime this summer. It’s a brilliant exploration of Contreras’s family history as well as her life growing up in violent Columbia in the 1980s and 1990s. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, the book is one of those you’ll probably never forget.
3. Watching: I know I’ve probably exhausted your tolerance for gushing about Apple’s TV and movie offerings, but seriously. They make good film and TV. And their series Masters of the Air is no exception. But it is exceptional. It follows the 100th Bomb Group, comprised of airmen played by such swoon-worthy actors as Austin Butler (my favorite), Anthony Boyle, and Ncuti Gatwa (who was stupendous in Sex Education on Netflix). Check it out if you’re into historical shows based on true stories.
4. Reading (YA): I recently finished Mariama J. Lockington’s novel in verse, Forever is Now, about Sadie, who, after witnessing an altercation between a young Black woman and the police, struggles with her agoraphobia and anxiety in ways that are debilitating. It was a sometimes painful, sometimes beautiful exploration of anxiety and Black female joy. I highly recommend it.
5. Reading (memoir): “Mom didn’t get better. But I will.” Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died is probably one of my favorite celebrity memoirs that I’ve read (and I’ve been on a kick of them because I’m a nosy person and love learning more about people and harbor a secret wish to one day help write a celebrity memoir or biography). Funny (my favorite—dry humor AND sarcasm), emotional, and full of great quotes about mental illness and mental health, this is one you won’t want to miss.
6. Reading (MG): I enjoyed Corey Ann Haydu’s The Widely Unknown Myth of Apple & Dorothy, which follows the story of Apple and Dorothy, who are modern-day descendants of the gods. They live in their own city, and things are happy—until Dorothy’s mom decides to become human. I enjoyed the mythology and the friendship and the impossible choices the two of them face. If you have a kid who enjoys mythology—or you are one—this book’s for you.
7. Reading (A): “For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.” I LOVED The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly. This is an old book (published almost 20 years ago!), but it just became available as an audiobook in my library, and the cover intrigued me. The world-building, the magic, the fairy tales—all of it was spectacular. It follows 12-year-old David, who’s mourning the loss of his mother, with only his books to keep him company. He falls into a world of fairy tales and has to find his way back out, with wolves pursuing him every step of the way. The book has a sequel, The Land of Lost Things, which was just published this year. You can bet it’s on my TBR list!
8. Reading (upper MG): And what list would be complete without my newest release, Something Maybe Magnificent, which published in May?! This book is a sequel to last summer’s release, The First Magnificent Summer, but can also be read as a standalone. I would, of course, recommend getting both. 🙂 My heart and soul are in these books!
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I’m the kind of person who thrives on solitude. Not all the time (that, I fear, would make me lonely). But sometimes.
I recently had a few days to myself, and I hadn’t even realized how much I needed them because of all the activity that comes from releasing a new book plus having kids home for the summer plus the regular speed of life.
Solitude revitalizes me. I use it to read, write, run, just stare into space.
Our modern lives are full of activity and people—not necessarily in-person people but online—and all of that can feel overwhelming. Sometimes I have to take time away from it all.
Summertime is challenging, because there are people everywhere. I don’t live in a big house, and now most of my kids are bigger than I am and take up more space. It’s practically impossible to find stillness and quiet, much less solitude.
But it’s necessary—for all of us.
Solitude can be uncomfortable for some people, especially at first. Without all the voices of other people, we can hear our thoughts really well. And that can be…unpleasant, depending on the day.
I recently watched a documentary on anxiety. In an anxious mind, like mine, there’s always chatter. It takes a lot of time to find quiet, and it rarely happens without solitude.
In solitude, the mind fills with a hundred things. It’s unsettling. At first. And then you reach the silence. A deep, inner silence (even if it’s not complete silence—it’s not for me). A place of knowing and understanding and clarity.
Gabriel García Márquez, a Columbian novelist and short story writer, once said, “The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.” (He lived until he was 87 years old.)
I tend to agree.
Solitude, according to research, can reduce our feelings of stress and make us feel calmer. In solitude we can increase our self-knowledge and figure out our problems and think deeply about what’s going on in our lives and how to be a better human.
(A note here: Solitude is not synonymous with lonely. The reason I can be okay with and long for my solitude is because I have my people. So don’t cut yourself off from people just to find solitude; we need each other!)
Solitude increases our creativity, because it gives us space to breathe and think. It fosters a greater sense of intimacy and connection with others, contrary to what we may think about relationships (the old adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” turns out to be true).
How much solitude is best for us?
That depends on the person. We all have to figure it out for ourselves. I spent a few days alone, and I felt completely renewed.
What should you do with your solitude? That’s completely up to you, too. Some of us can feel a little itchy with fifteen minutes all by ourselves and no one needing anything from us (myself included). So I’ve collected some of my favorite things to do with solitude (scroll down to the end of this email for the list).
In order to practice solitude, however long or short it may be, we have to prioritize it. The activity of a day eats away the hours. It’s gone before we know it—at least that’s how my life goes.
We might find we can better deal with the challenges our days often throw at us if we can just spend a little time by ourselves.
I hope you have a splendid month of finding moments of solitude.
What to do with solitude:
1. Read a book or write in a journal
2. Sit and stare into space (if it makes you cringe, set a timer so your brain knows it will end)
3. Just listen to your thoughts as they pass
4. Meditate
5. Do some candlelight yoga
6. Go to the library and browse books
7. Run or hike
8. Color
9. Play dress up for yourself
10. Cross a room doing forward flips like you used to do as a kid (just don’t pull any muscles)
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
Some writers stay far away from personal experience when crafting stories.
Me? I like to toe the line. Most of my stories contain very specific pieces of my life. My first traditionally published book, The Colors of the Rain, included grandparents and an uncle and a real-life family tragedy. My second book, The Woods, was not my personal experience, but I drew upon real-life historical events—the Texas City Disaster. The First Magnificent Summer includes my experience starting my first period one thousand miles away from home while visiting my dad and stepmom after my parents divorced. And my most recent book, Something Maybe Magnificent, is a very close retelling of my stepdad’s and my story.
In Donald Maass’s book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction (which is one of the best craft books I’ve read, by the way), he says, “Writers have amazing personal stories. Sometimes they’re downright astonishing. What’s puzzling to me is that people with such rich experience to draw upon too often write stories far less dramatic than their own.’
Why is this?
I think sometimes we’re afraid to write our stories. We’re afraid to use the situations that caused us such turmoil and angst and all kinds of big emotions. But we felt those big emotions. And when we write about those big emotions, our readers will also feel them. That’s something worth considering.
What I’ve discovered as a writer of semi-autobiographical fiction is that often, sorting through those situations in my past—the ones that hurt me or the ones that threw me sideways or the big disappointments and setbacks—help me actually process through them in a healthy way. Write them into a better story, maybe. One of the most powerful things we can do in our lives is turning our experiences into a story—whether or not we share that story with the world. Psychology research shows that shaping our experiences into stories helps us process and heal from them.
Most of us have rich experiences that would make fascinating stories. Many times we think, No one else would be interested in this. But that’s just seeing through our foggy lenses. It may not be interesting to us, because we lived it. But it will definitely be interesting to others who haven’t lived it. Or others who have lived it; they’re grateful to know they’re not alone.
Of course we might not want to share every personal story we’ve lived. But some of them might be worth exploring, don’t you think?
Here are my best tips for doing that:
1. Make a list of all the significant events you can remember in your life so far.
I’m thinking high school trips where you fell in love (hello, Disney World band trip), the first week of college when you were trying to find your bearings. First love, first kiss, a marriage or engagement. Kids. Deaths. Divorce. That family tree project in third grade where you didn’t know anything about your family and could only trace back a couple of generations. The time your grandmother told you she liked you better when you ate.
(These are just my stories. I know they’re probably not yours. I’m just trying to get your brain working.)
Think about all those experiences that made an impact on you one way or another. They don’t have to be bad. They can be joyful, too. Though the disappointing and heartache-y situations make for better fiction. 🙂
2. Consider the question, If I had to write a story about my childhood, what would it be?
Or another: If I had to write a story about my young adulthood, what would it be. And: If I had to write a story about my life now, what would it be?
Sometimes just asking ourselves the question can unlock inspiration to draw upon for stories or writing pieces. For example, I had a string of months right after my oldest turned 13 when we couldn’t seem to have a conversation without an argument. He took everything I said the wrong way. I wrote a poem called, “I Am a Villain in His Story.” Because that’s very much how I felt. That led me to begin work on an adult novel about a mother exploring her relationships with her children and the myriad ways she lets herself down. It may or may not go anywhere. But it’s real-life inspiration.
3. Look back at old things.
After graduating high school, I spent my summer making scrapbooks of all four years of my high school education. These things are a treasure trove of what teenage Rachel felt was important to highlight in her life. Have I used them for some young adult story inspiration? Absolutely.
Journals, diary entries, old writings, yearbooks. Receipts, old emails, letters. Get your hands on anything that will tell you a little bit about your past life. Something more than your memory can tell you.
If you’ve been a diarist or journal keeper, these, too, can be spectacular treasures. When I was thinking back to my first love story (which I shared in the last email, if you want to read a teeny bit about it), journals were helpful for showing me just how melodramatic those first-love feelings can be. When you’re young and in love and that love is suddenly taken away, it’s devastating. It feels like life won’t go on (contrary to what Celine Dion sang the year of my first heartbreak). Like you will never feel that way about someone again. Like the world can’t possibly have another Bubba Loewe in it. (Yes, I dated a guy named Bubba, and I was completely smitten. I don’t even recall his real name.)
You never know what kind of inspiration you’ll find when you look back. So take out those old journals and start paging through your “important mementoes” drawer. Real-life stories can make lovely fiction.
When we write from real life, we don’t have to imagine emotions, because we lived them. We remember them. Or we’re still living them. And that makes a difference to readers. Because we remember the way books make us feel.
I hope you have a fantastic month of writing your stories—for yourself or for others.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
Here are five or so things worth sharing this month:
1. Reading (A): I just finished Emily Henry’s latest rom com, Funny Story, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Henry has a way with characters and romantic tension and is one of the master’s (in my opinion) in her genre. I also really enjoyed her Book Lovers and Beach Read.
2. Reading (MG): When I heard Dan Gemeinhart had a followup book to his The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, I knew I had to read it. And Coyote Lost and Found was splendid. We get the same quirky characters (with a few added in) on a different roadtrip quest.
3. Watching: A couple weekends ago I watched the Max documentary The Fastest Woman on Earth, about professional racer and TV personality Jessi Coombs and oh my goodness was it fantastic. It’s a fascinating story about Coombs’s quest to break the land speed record and how speed racing is still a field of men. It includes information about one of the first women racers and daredevils, Kitty O’Neil, who was a deaf woman who paved the way for people like Coombs to participate in racing events. I think I might be falling down a hole of research because I’m so fascinated by all this. Summer research project?
4. Reading (A): Well, it’s been a while since I’ve read a book where I got so invested in the characters I didn’t want the story to end—but that was the case with Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano. What a magnificent story. It follows four sisters through decades and has the feel of Little Women, which I believe was kind of the goal. It was voted one of the best books of 2023, and I definitely see why. This is the first of Napolitano’s books I’ve read, but I’ll be looking to add more to my TBR!
5. Reading (MG): Varsha Bajaj’s book Thirst, was a lovely read about Minni, who lives in Mumbai, in one of the poorest sections where water is rationed and is only available during certain times of the day. And yet someone—a richer someone—is stealing the water, and Minni and friends have to uncover it. I found the tale sweet and sad and important, especially for young readers who often take for granted their access to water (like my sons). Highly recommended!
6. Reading (A): Have I mentioned that I am a sucker for based-on-true-life stories? Ariel Lawhon’s The Frozen River was one of my favorite recent reads. It tells the story of Martha Ballard, a real midwife in the 1780s. It was fascinating and thrilling and completely compelling—and, of course, had feminist overtones, since Martha was a fierce and independent woman when that wasn’t exactly “allowed.” I loved everything about this book. And now I might have to do a deep dive into Ariel Lawhon’s books, because that’s how I roll. 🙂 When you read it, make sure you also read the author’s note. It’s as fascinating as the book!
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I’d just recorded a video about how not everyone will like our books and we can’t possibly please everyone—and I got a trade review that rubbed all my insecure places.
The reviewer clearly didn’t “get” the book and missed the whole point of it. She focused on strange pieces and made her assessment with what felt like only half the picture.
It threw me into a tailspin.
Have you ever noticed that when you think you’ve mastered some way of being human—when you think maybe you’ve wrestled with it enough to make some statement about it or even teach someone about it, the universe endeavors to prove you haven’t quite learned what you needed to learn? (My children show me this frequently.)
I’d just recorded a video about this. It’s like the universe said, “Okay. Challenge accepted.”
It took me a few days to get over this review. I kept hearing the reviewer’s words in my head when I sat down to write. Even though I knew they weren’t true. Even though I know that what other people think is not my business.
And then I read these words of Rose Marie Toussaint’s: “When we are rejected in the world we will recover only as we begin to realize that we must hold on to who we are and not be defeated by outside evaluations.”
You may not know who Rose Marie Toussaint is. She’s a physician who was the chief surgeon for the liver transplant center at Howard University Hospital. She was born in Haiti and came to the U.S. with her family when she was a teenager. She was a woman, born in 1956, who loved math and science and medicine at a time when women weren’t supposed to love math and science and medicine.
How much opposition and rejection do you imagine she faced as a Black woman in medicine during the 1970s and 1980s?
She meant those words she said, and she lived them.
Reading her words reminded me that I’ve been here before. I know who I am.
Sometimes we forget our song. We let those negative winds push us around and tell us a story that’s not true. We let them say, You don’t deserve happiness, this dream was too big, you are not good enough or worthy enough for any of it.
I get caught in that headspace sometimes. Many of us do.
The glib words of others can bring us low. They can make us forget our song, shake up the core of who we are. Holding on to who we are is not always easy.
But we must. We must hold on to who we are with aching, cramping fingers when we are rejected by the world.
We have multiple opportunities for those outside evaluations to come crashing in. I feel them in my mothering, my partnering, my writing, my publishing, my volunteering or not volunteering…on and on it goes.
The question is, will we hold on to who we are? Or will we be shaken by outside opinions and evaluations?
I hope we always stand strong.
Have a marvelous month of defeating those outside opinions. I’ll be fighting them right alongside you.
Here are some of my tricks for remembering who I am:
1. Take some time.
It’s okay to feel what you feel. These are words I’ve told my children over and over again. Our feelings are valid.
But.
But we don’t want to stay in the negative feelings for too long.
Sometimes outside opinions and evaluations hurt. Wherever and whomever they come from. They all have the same kind of sting.
It can be helpful to take some time away and reconnect with who you know you are. Let those outside evaluations run their course, and hold tight to what you know is true: You are magnificent just the way you are.
2. Lean on people.
The people who love you can remind you who you are and that you’re magnificent. Don’t push them away. Open up and talk. Let them love you.
My freshman year of high school, I was completely in love with my boyfriend, who was a junior—and absolutely gorgeous. We dated for about three months before he broke up with me. I was devastated with a capital D. I thought I would never make it through that breakup.
A good friend of mine made me a mix CD full of empowering songs that reminded me who I was and that I didn’t need a stupid boy who clearly didn’t know what he had when he had it. I listened to that tape over and over and over. She was my people. She reminded me I was amazing. (Also: there’s a young adult story in this. I’m working on putting it down on paper!)
3. Evaluate
I’m a big fan of evaluating. Everything can benefit from evaluations.
Ask questions like, Why does this bother me so much? The truth? It probably speaks to a pesky insecurity. Which means this is a growth opportunity.
And remember—the pain of this evaluation/disappointment/anger-inducing circumstance won’t last forever.
Onward!
