by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
Lately I’ve been having trouble finding balance.
I have heard it said that in order to be prolific at what we do, balance is not something we can achieve. But I don’t believe it. Or maybe that’s just not the kind of prolific I want. Balance is important in my life.
[Tweet “It’s not easy to find balance as a parent writer. But it’s possible.”]
As writer parents, it’s essential that we find balance in both our professional and personal lives.
Parenting can feel all-consuming, because those babies are precious, and they don’t stay little for long, and shouldn’t we be using the time we have to just enjoy everything about them?
And writing can feel all-consuming, because those stories come knocking, and it’s not easy to put down the pen once we get started, and writing isn’t always something we can do in bits and pieces and fits and starts, and shouldn’t we be using the time we have to create?
Balance can sometimes feel impossible when kids are sick or the epiphany we had while making breakfast flew right out of our heads while we were opening our notebook to write it down.
A couple of weeks ago, while my kids were playing with cars right in front of me, I was crafting pitches to send out to various publications. And right in the middle of my writing, that voice came creeping in.
Shouldn’t you be enjoying the last mornings you have with your boys?
My boys started school recently, and, before they did, I had been meaning to spend more quality time with them, because summer was a madhouse, and I didn’t get in as many quality time-with-boys hours as I wanted. At the same time, pitches have deadlines, and I knew I needed to do them now if I wanted the best chance for my manuscripts.
I feel this tension all the time—play with my kids or try to get more work done. Teach the 4-year-olds preschool, like I did all the other boys, or take a few minutes to myself and actually read something I enjoy—that’s not full of letter sounds and “which one is different” and colors and shapes.
There’s always so much work to do and so many new things to learn about in the life of a writer, and there is always so little time in which to create and still enjoy my children without deadlines hanging over me.
It’s possible to achieve balance, but it may look differently than we think it should. Sometimes the expectations we have for ourselves are the hardest expectations to achieve—and we have to take a step back to see why we’re expecting so much and whether we can let the pressure off a little. That’s the first place I always start.
[Tweet “The first place to start in attempting balance is with our expectations. Let the pressure off.”]
But here are some other places I’ve found ways to step toward balance in my writer-mom life:
1. Quit looking at the competition.
There are many writers out there cranking out stories at an impressive rate. Many of them are not parents. We should stop trying to be like them. We move at our own pace. Maybe we can’t write a book every 30 days or 60 days or 200 days. That’s okay. If we are doing the daily work of it, we will, eventually, have a book.
We have time restraints, and sometimes that can seem like it’s a handicap. But according to research, restraints can be good for us. They can make us more creative, if we use them to our advantage.
2. Invite the children in.
If you’re having trouble achieving balance, invite your children in to your work. My children know that, every morning at 6:30 a.m., we will listen to an audio book while we’re all getting ready to leave for school. They know that once a week, during Family Time, we will have a writing night—and sometimes that means collaborating on a story together and helping Mama work out a plot line where she’s stuck. Sometimes it means reading excerpts from writing books we’ll read together.
There is something sacred about that shared space.
3. Establish set hours.
Parents who work from home can have a tough time with balance if we have no set hours. My kids know that from 9-9:30 a.m. I am catching up on emails and business matters, but the rest of the morning, I am available to them. If I receive an email outside of those morning “office” hours, it can wait until later.
They know that during their naps and Quiet Time I will be working but am available for emergencies. They know that from 1 until 5 p.m. their daddy is on duty.
If I am doing any business outside of those hours, they will call me on it.
Sometimes, when a deadline is looming, it’s necessary to work on finishing a story during Family Movie Night, but open lines of communication are important for those instances when office hours creep into family hours. We don’t ever want our children to believe that our work is more important to us than they are. But we do want them to understand that our work is important.
4. Adjust your mindset.
Some days we just won’t get a whole lot of work done, because a boy was feeling sick or lonely or doubly mischievous. If we can shift our mindset from “I didn’t get everything done that I needed to get done today” to “Today’s work is enough for today,” we will be happier people, and so, by extension, will our children.
Balance and brilliance are not opposite poles. They can exist together. But it will take great intention and focus and compromise.
It’s a good thing we’ve already mastered that as parents.
Week’s prompt
A picture is one of my favorite ways to generate inspiration. Look at the picture below. Write whatever you want for as long as you can.
Photo by Ben Rosett.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
All of us have our shortcomings. That’s for sure. No one is perfect, after all.
For all the shortcomings I notice about myself (and there are a lot, let me tell you), probably about 80 percent of them are true, because I’m a child of divorce and suffer from self-esteem issues and blah blah blah, I don’t want to bore you.
But this amazing thing happened when I became a parent. All of those shortcomings disappeared. That 80 percent dropped to zero percent.
How did I make that happen? Well, that’s easy. I just blame everything on the kids.
Like…
The smells.
Every now and again, I’ll be in the store, perusing the aisles like any other shopper, except I’ll suddenly inhale and realize my nose hairs are singed. “Oh my gosh,” I’ll say, loudly. “Did one of you toot?” The boys will look at me and laugh, because just the IDEA of a toot makes boys laugh, even if none of them claims it. They don’t claim it because it was me. But the other shoppers don’t know that. So I innocently continue on, cropdusting through the produce section, the healthy living section, the dairy section and then on toward the checkout counter. Next time I’ll think twice before I gorge on hummus and then head to the store. Lucky I had my kids with me.
There are other smells I blame on my kids, but these are legit. Like how my house smells like a swamp because boys are really bad at aiming, and, apparently, flushing. Like how my backyard smells like a gas tank, because my 4-year-olds managed to pick the lock on the shed out back and dump the lawnmower’s gas supply out all over themselves and the grass so we could all go out in a blaze of glory (this isn’t the first time, either. There is no place that isn’t dangerous when you have twins.). Like the sour milk/mildew/fart/dirty sock smell that wafts out into the world every time we open our van doors because, well, boys. It’s like the air freshener you always wanted in your Honda Odyssey, one that tells the story of a family. I know I’ll miss it when it’s gone. Which is a good thing, because it never is.
The state of our house.
The reason our house looks like a paper supply manufacturer blew up in it is because my kids enjoy creating colorful forts out of construction paper when they’re supposed to be in bed and Husband and I have already fallen asleep. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m too lazy to get a trash bag out and sweep it all into a dump. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I might have heard them out of their beds last night but I was too exhausted to go check. All those papers? They make great sliders when I’m lifting weights, so win win.
My kids are also the reason everything in my house is broken. The coffee maker didn’t actually explode because I poured water in the wrong slot. It exploded because my kid rigged it to break when I wasn’t looking. The toilet didn’t stop flushing because Husband took a massive sit-down and used a whole roll of toilet paper. It stopped flushing because one of the 4-year-old twins looked at it. That hole in the wall did not appear because I accidentally threw a shoe toward the shoe basket and missed by about 500 yards. It appeared because boys weakened the drywall by touching it.
The door won’t open all the way? The fan is missing a blade? The kitchen chair collapsed when I sat in it? Come on, kids.
The state of my yard.
Kids are the reason we hardly ever get around to mowing our yard. Do you know how hard it is to muster up the energy to pick up all the crap kids leave outside and know there’s still something else you have to do? (I suspect you do know, if you’re a parent.) So after you’ve spent three hours playing “search and find all the Hot Wheels” because your backyard turned into a wilderness, you’re supposed to mow and weed eat and edge? No thanks. My ugly yard is the fault of my kids.
And not just the overgrown grass and the tree-weeds and the rose bushes that reach for you when you knock on our door. Also the holes you’ll trip in when you’re trying to play that Search and Find game in the backyard. My kids are using table spoons to dig a hole to the earth’s core. I know, because they told me. Also, I fell in the hole, and Husband had to pull me out with a rope. I think they’re almost there.
Being late.
It doesn’t matter how early we get up to go somewhere or how prepared we are for the day, shoes lined up just so, outfits picked out, breakfast already in the refrigerator, waiting to be warmed. We’re going to get in the car at least fifteen minutes late—and that’s a good day. All the boys could have every single bag in the world packed, and they would still remember something they need to “go back inside” to find. Someone will have to go pee. Someone else will spill their water all over themselves and scream until they get a change of clothes, because they don’t want to “wear wet underwear all day!” Someone else will squeeze out a fart and accidentally shart.
Kids make parents late. Don’t worry. You’ll never remember how to get anywhere on time once you’ve been through the circus kids perform on the way out the door. So just sit back and relax and blame it on the kids while you can.
The rapid deterioration of my brain.
I used to be able to hold my own in the intelligence department. I don’t say that to brag. I knew what the square root of sixty-four was. I knew what three times forty-seven was without using a calculator. I knew what entropy was an how it was explained using physics (though I never truly understood its potency until I had kids). Now? My kids ask me how many pieces of pizza Suzy had if there was pizza with thirteen pieces and Margie had three of those pieces and Terrance had fifteen. I get all nervous, because I DON’T KNOW. I don’t know how to solve their math anymore. I aced college algebra, but I can’t do a second-grade math problem.
While we’re on the subject, here’s some math for you. I had a whole brain. I had six kids. Each of those six kids got a piece of the brain. How much of my brain is left?
The answer is not much.
The stains on my shirt.
No, I’m not a messy eater. I just have kids who like to touch me with food on their hands.
You’ll never actually know if this is true or not, because I’ve sworn Husband to secrecy. Only the two of us will know that the last time we went out on a date (which I can hardly remember, it was so long ago), I dropped jalepeno ranch dip all down the front-side of my shirt, and there was no kid within fifteen miles of that restaurant. Only the two of us will know that when we swung by the froyo place for a tasty treat, we ate it in the car, and when I turned on the light to check my face, there was a string of chocolate ice cream clinging to my shoulder (I’m pretty sure Husband flung it in his excitement to shovel a mouthful in his piehole). No one will know that when I’m huddled in my pantry, eating a handful of chocolate chips Husband hasn’t found yet, I’ll end up with the evidence on my thighs. The shorts that cover my thighs, that is. I mean, on the thighs, too. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips. Who cares?
Going to a Fresh Beat Band concert.
I only bought tickets because I have kids. It’s not because I think the Fresh Beat Band is the coolest kids band ever and every time one of their songs comes on I just want to break out dancing. (Well, so what if that’s true?)
If you see me playing with the build-a-house blocks at the San Antonio Children’s Museum, it’s because of the kids. If you see me dressing up like a royal queen in a too-short cape at the Witte Museum, it’s because of the kids. If you see me playing with Legos and building a Star Wars Desert Outpost, it’s because of the kids.
I’m realizing here that you can pretty much blame anything on kids. You want to be perfect? All you need is someone to blame everything on. Which makes you a perfect candidate for becoming a parent.
Seriously, though, the truth of the matter is that we all make mistakes. We all have imperfections. Who am I to hold you in judgement? Who are you to hold me in judgement? We’re all just doing the best we can, so we should embrace our mistakes.
Because as long as we have kids, we can blame EVERYTHING on them. Now. Go live it up and do some blaming.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
Emmy & Oliver, by Robin Fenway, was a sweet love story about two kids, Emmy and Oliver, who grew up together but were separated when Oliver’s dad stole him from school grounds as an elementary school kid. Emmy didn’t see Oliver for ten years, and then, suddenly, he came back.
The premise of this novel was intriguing. That Oliver’s father could have gotten away with taking his son and hiding him for ten years was a little disturbing and yet made the book that much sweeter, because during all that time, Emmy had never stopped loving Oliver. Now they’re in high school, and Oliver is back, and he has to get used to interacting with the best friends he had forgotten in the decade he was gone from them. He has to adjust to his mother’s new family. He has to get to know Emmy all over again.
There was so much tension in this novel, because while Oliver is adjusting, everyone else remembers him. Their town was never the same after he was taken, so how could they forget? All the kids’ parents cracked down on their safety. Emmy’s parents became practically glued to her hip. They don’t even want her to go off to college because they want to keep her in their sights.
Emmy, though, wants to be in charge of her own life and has some secrets she’s been keeping from her parents.
Added to that was also the tension of Emmy’s love and Oliver’s confusion. While she loved him all those years he was gone, he seems to have forgotten the connection they’d had when they were in elementary school. This makes her feel a bit foolish.
Throughout the book, Benway strategically placed some flashbacks that told the story of when Emmy and Oliver met and also what their relationship was like as children. I found the flashbacks a masterful contribution to the sweet emotion of the book.
I loved everything about this story. There was so much emotion, so much teenage angst, so much tension between teens and their parents, and yet, it was refreshing that the teenagers had mostly good relationships with their parents. But most of all I loved the relationship between Emmy and Oliver. It endured through all the waiting and hoping, even when everyone in Emmy’s town thought Oliver would never be found. Still she loved him.
Here’s a quote that shows the constant tension between Emmy and Oliver and the love they’re trying to remember:
“The more you start to love someone, the more you ache when they’re gone, and maybe it’s that middle ground that hurts the most, when you can see them and still not feel like you’re near enough.”
A Night Divided, by Jennifer Nielson, was a historical young adult novel set during the time of the Berlin Wall’s construction. Greta and her brother, Fritz, along with their mom, are stuck in East Germany, with their father and younger brother in West Germany, because the Berlin Wall went up seemingly overnight. One day, on the way to school, Gerta sees her father on the other side of the wall. She’s not allowed to look at the wall for all that long, or the secret police will tag her as a traitor. And traitors could be killed. But it seems that her father wants to tell her something.
It takes Gerta a while to figure out what he wants to say, but she and her brother embark on a mission to escape from East Germany, even while neighbors and friends are turning names over to the secret police and people are being killed for their attempted escapes. Nothing deters them. Not only do they want to escape East Germany, but they are driven by their desperation to reunite with the rest of their family.
A Night Divided contained a lot of tension as well because it dealt with a wall dividing a country. What I loved most about the book was that it was based on a historical event and contained quite a bit of fact about the Berlin Wall and the situations that cropped up because of it. Nielson did a great job highlighting a part of our history and bringing it to life for young adults.
I love this description of Gerta’s family after the wall goes up:
“Our family was like a house of cards in a stiff wind. And when it became too much to feel the pain of our collapse, all I could do was become angry.”
And here was one of my favorite quotes that shows the history contained in the novel:
“I wanted books that weren’t censored. I wanted to see places that were now only pictures in the smuggled magazines that had passed though my hands. Places like the canals of Venice, or the beaches in the South of France, or maybe even one day the Statue of Liberty in the United States.
“I wanted a home without hidden microphones, and fiends and neighbors I could talk to without wondering gif they would repot me to the secret police.
“And I wanted control over my own life, the chance to succeed. Maybe I would fail, but if I did, it shouldn’t be because some Stasi official holding my file had made that decision for me.”
Both of these books were fantastic, entertaining reads that will stick with you for a long time.
I hope you enjoyed these book recommendations. Be sure to pick up a free book from my starter library and visit my recommends page to see some of my favorite books. If you have any books you recently read that you think I’d enjoy, contact me. I always enjoy adding to my list. Even if I never get through it all.
by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
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In this episode of On My Shelf, I’m talking about two young adult reads that will likely haunt you when you read The End.
Book links:
Emmy and Oliver: http://amzn.to/2bcEE0L
A Night Divided: http://amzn.to/2bcDPoX
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I know how it is. I know how it goes. You just want to know what’s coming. You want to know if there’s something bad around the corner, or something good, because you don’t want to lose your heart to the bad, and you don’t want to lose your hope to the good, because there might be something bad coming after that.
The knowing means a calm and controlled and perfectly ordered life. If you don’t know, you can’t control.
It’s easy to understand. Because there is that past, when you were just a kid, or maybe more than a kid, when something happened, something completely dangerous and out of control, something unexpected and unwelcome, and you just want to make sure nothing like that will ever blindside you again.
And there could be something now, too. A too-empty bank account. A call you don’t want to get. A test. A job’s insecurity. A child. A big step into the black.
There is something frightening about the unknown. We try to leave it be, because we can’t change it anyway, when it all comes down to it, but then we care too much, we think too much, we fret and worry and agonize over all the details—surely there’s a formula that will tell us what’s waiting in the future so we can plan and plan some more.
It’s not easy living in this world of tension, where we aren’t really sure what’s next, whether we’re going to have to venture through sickening dark or blinding bright, and so we try not to. We try to figure it all out. We try to run it over in our minds, every possible situation sitting behind that what if, so at least we’ll be prepared. So at least if our plans don’t pan out we’ll have a backup plan. So we won’t hope unnecessarily and feel those hopes clanging to the ground when the universe throws its curveball.
But we know life doesn’t work that way. Because we just can’t plan for everything.
I did not plan on a layoff two days after I welcomed my sixth son into the world. I did not plan on being launched into my passion pursuits because there was nothing left to do but GO, hard, fast, without even considering its cost. I did not plan on loving so many boys around a dinner table so they could strip me of my control.
I did not even know how to put one foot in front of another.
And I cried and raged and shook a fist to the sky, because I just couldn’t see the end in it, I couldn’t see whether it would work or not, I couldn’t see all those possible outcomes, and it made my head ache with its impossibility, because I was just a small-town girl who grew up in a poor family, and all I knew was I didn’t want that for my boys, and I planned for everything, every single little thing, except I hadn’t planned on this, and here was a place where I could not possibly know everything.
Our circumstances, you see, asked us to walk a plank and pray it wasn’t the end. That we wouldn’t fall. That we wouldn’t go under in shark-infested water.
And then we did.
We fell, and we went under, and the sharks circled, and we tried to catch our breath and fight back to the surface so we could see the sun again. And we did.
The thing is, when the unexpected comes sweeping in, uprooting all those old oaks and tearing the roof off our house and lifting all the random toys our kids left in the backyard so they shift and turn in the vortex, what we get to learn is that those old oaks can be made new, and that roof can be repaired and we didn’t really need the toys anyway.
Before life began to peel the control from my cramping fingers, I thought I needed to know everything. I thought I needed to examine every scenario, every last possibility, so I could just go on and expect the worst and rise again when it came, as it always would. I thought that was best.
But a lost job offered something startling in its hands: freedom.
I sank and I nearly drowned, and my hands were water-logged by the time I climbed back out of those waters, but I rose again completely out of control and unprepared and surprised, and I felt free.
Control keeps us from freedom.
Control says we have to wrap our arms around it or else (fill in the blank). Control says we have to grip this circumstance in won’t-let-go hands until we have wrestled to the death, even though we’re the ones who will do the dying. Control says we have to live on a plan that always knows what’s next.
Control is not telling us the truth.
You, dear one, don’t have to know everything. It’s safe to let go. Go on. Let go. Just open your hand. Pry your fingers loose, if you have to. Let the sparrow fly, and feel the weight of the world and all its possibilities leave your shoulders once and for all.
The truth is, we can’t know everything. Sometimes life will throw us a curveball, and the only thing we’ll be able to do is duck and cover, jump into those shark-infested waters for a time, because the pitches just keep coming, and the only way out is in and under. And sometimes we walk not a plank but a bridge, from one beautiful side to another, and we cannot know which it will be before we take the first step.
We can know that we will rise again. And we will rise stronger. Always, we will rise stronger.
But first we must fall.
This is an excerpt from Dear Blank: Letters to Humanity, which does not yet have a release date. For more of Rachel’s essays and memoir writings, visit Wing Chair Musings.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
When you have kids, you realize pretty early on that they have to eat three times a day, every single day, and that’s not counting snacks. We don’t do a whole lot of snacking in our house, but we do cook pretty much everything from scratch. This means that a lot of our time during the day is spent cooking or preparing meals.
The everyday-ness of it all can get pretty exhausting. Every morning, I’m wondering what in the world I’m going to cook that kids aren’t going to complain about before they’ve even tasted it. Every afternoon I’m trying to figure out how to spice up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—or what we’re going to have if we forgot to make bread or we ran out of yeast. Husband does most of the dinner cooking, but when it is my turn, that’s always the worst meal.
I’d find myself dreading 4 o’clock and then 5 o’clock and I’d just want to order something in or maybe stick some cut carrots and grapes and sandwiches on a plate and call it a feast. But then I remembered that I could listen to audio books.
Audio books have pretty much saved breakfast and lunchtime and dinner in the Toalson home. I actually almost look forward to this time now, especially when I’m reading a book I only let myself listen to when I’m preparing meals. It’s amazing how stories can hook into your brain so that something as mundane as cooking (I realize that cooking isn’t mundane to everyone, so please don’t be offended by my choice of words. Some people think writing is mundane, but without it, I’m pretty sure I would die.) can become something exciting.
Right now, during my cooking times, I’m listening to Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins audiobook. During lunch preparation, when all my boys are cleaning up, we’re listening to Stuart Gibbs’s Space Case audiobook, which my boys love.
So the trick to finding pleasure in things we wouldn’t normally find pleasure in is to include in it something we enjoy—like listening to books.
[Tweet “Find something you enjoy in the everyday, and the mundane becomes extraordinary.”]
I hope you’ve enjoyed this inside look at my life and family. Every Friday, I publish a short blog on something personal that includes a valuable takeaway. For more of my essays and memoir writings, visit Wing Chair Musings.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
If you’re not around any of my social media channels, you might not know that after two years and more than 150 rejections on two different novels, I finally signed with an agent. I am incredibly excited and am currently working on revisions to my middle grade historical novel written in verse, which we’ll be sending out to potential publishers this month.
But I knew that I couldn’t share this news without also sharing my story. If you’re new here, you might not know that I’ve self published a few titles—but what my dream has always been, since I was a little girl, is to be a traditionally published author. So securing an agent was always in my plans.
After I wrote my first novel, which was an adult literary novel written in verse, I researched all the agents who might be open to receiving something like that. There were about 140. So I put them all on a list, and in a matter of months, I’d emailed them all with a query letter and, depending on what they asked for in their submissions process, a few pages of my novel. I had a few bites on it, but nothing really serious, so I turned my attention to my second novel, which was a middle grade historical novel written in verse.
For this one I executed a different strategy. I stalked places like the twitter hashtag #MSWL, where agents will post about certain types of books they’re looking for. I had a much more targeted list. I sent my story out to 13 agents. Six of them asked for the full manuscript—which is almost half.
What this tells me is that targeting your queries is a much more effective process than simply looking for what agents accept. Sure, they might accept literary novels, but they’re looking for a specific one.
[Tweet “Target your agent queries based on current submission calls. It’s much more effective.”]
I received my first offer from an agent about six months after all those full manuscripts went out. This allowed me to turn around and let other agents, who still had my full manuscript, know that I’d received an offer, so if they wanted to make an offer, they could. This resulted in another offer, some non responsiveness and a decline. So I had a choice on which agent I wanted to work with—which was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But, in the end, I made it, and I signed with my agent.
Querying projects is a long and arduous process. We will be knocked down and picked up and knocked down again. My best advice? DON’T EVER GIVE UP. Even when your fragile self esteem can’t take another rejection. Even when you can’t possibly do this anymore because it’s too disappointing and hard. Even when you think you’re finished for good.
Keep learning, keep querying, keep improving and writing, and it will happen.
[Tweet “My best advice for securing an agent? NEVER GIVE UP.”]
My (other) best tips for securing an agent:
1. Do you research.
Make sure you’re sending your query to the right person. Make sure it’s something they would want to see. Make sure you’re not wasting your time or their time. Obsessively scour places like #MSWL on Twitter and the Manuscript Wish List blog. Find new agents looking for something that sounds similar to your own project. And don’t just look for agents who want “literary fiction.” Look for agents who want “literary fiction with a death at the center and a new definition of family in its pages,” if that’s the kind of book you have. You’ll waste a lot of time querying the generalizations. Go for the specific.
2. Pay attention to your rejections.
Sometimes agents will include a short note that might help you improve your manuscript so that the next agent you send it to won’t reject it so easily. Which is why it’s always better to send queries in waves instead of all at once. My first querying process was one large tsunami of queries. I sent them all within a week. The next querying process took place over six months—one agent one week, another the next week, and so on. Sometimes a couple of months passed between queries. I wanted to make sure I was learning from the feedback I received (and when you actually get some feedback, you know you’re almost there. So be heartened.).
3. Keep your ego in check.
Try not to let the rejections bother you. Writing is a very subjective process. We know this, as writers. We don’t all like the same books. Neither do agents. So try not to take a pass on your manuscript personally. You are more than your work.
And never, ever, ever diss an agent, no matter what kind of response you get. You’ll pretty much be blacklisted.
4. Never give up.
I’ve already mentioned this one already, but it really can’t be underestimated. If there’s anything you can learn from my story, it’s that you should never give up. If you have a solid book and you’re willing to work hard enough to secure representation, it’s going to happen. It may take a while. It may even take until the moment you’ve given up on it all. But with perseverance and dedication and willingness to learn and improve your craft (because we can ALWAYS improve, even if we think we’re the greatest writer ever (we’re not)), it will happen.
Week’s prompt
Write as much as you can, in whatever form you want, on the following word:
Team
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Parenting is simpler than ever in our day and age. So much advice exists that you can’t really go wrong, even if you tried. All you have to do is:
1. Make sure your kids can do their homework themselves, because they’ll need to be able to apply for a job someday.
2. But also make sure they know you’re there if they need an answer or two on that project due tomorrow—kids feel abandoned when we don’t help.
3. Make sure they get ample time to play, because play is how they learn.
4. But also make sure you take some of their free time away to teach them how to tie their shoes and read and write their names and complete sentences before they go to kindergarten, even though when we were in kindergarten it was all fun and games and mostly coloring (it’s a different world now).
5. Just don’t take too much play time away. And don’t let them play all the time. Because they need to know their letters. And how to tie their shoes. And how to write their names and sentences.
6. Make sure you teach your kids how to handle technology responsibly, because there’s a whole different world they can discover on the Internet, and it’s not pretty.
7. Make sure you let them explore technology, though, because how will they ever learn how to be brilliant computer programmers if they never get to explore?
8. Make sure you teach them how to use their phones properly—not while they’re driving, especially—and make sure they know it’s not appropriate to text dirty pictures to anyone, and make sure you’re keeping tabs on all their social profiles so you can confirm they’re not Internet bullying.
9. But make sure you don’t invade their privacy. Kids hate that.
10. Make sure you help them understand the importance of good grades and going to school every day, without a break, ever, and that perfect attendance is the best award you could ever get, because this is teaching commitment.
11. But make sure they also understand that grades aren’t everything, and, also, it’s important to take time off.
12. Make sure you help your kids know that you’re a parent who will always be available, even though the pressures in your job are mounting and the economy’s not stellar and your raise in income doesn’t really even cover the inflation costs of last year so now you’re working harder than ever.
13. But make sure your kids also know that work takes commitment, because you don’t want them thinking it’s all fun and games.
14. Make sure they don’t see you worry about money, because then they’ll have a bad relationship with money.
15. But make sure they don’t use money too irresponsibly, either, because you don’t want your kids to end back up on your couch.
16. Make sure you don’t let your kids know that they’re good at something, because then they’ll feel the need to be the best at everything, and they’ll seek approval and try to impress by the things they do instead of the people they are.
17. But make sure you don’t just leave them out to dry when they seek your approval.
18. Make sure they don’t have a deflated sense of self, because that kind of thing is paralyzing.
19. But also make sure they don’t have an inflated sense of self, which is just annoying.
20. Make sure you give every kid an award for something, because kids are fragile, you know, and we wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
21. But make sure they don’t all get an award, because you don’t want kids dependent on awards for trying.
22. Make sure your kids know how to be kind.
23. But also make sure that they know how to stand up for themselves.
24. Make sure they can identify and name the bullies.
25. But make sure they love the bullies, too.
26. Make sure your kids understand that it’s a good thing to be bored.
27. But don’t ever let your kids get bored, especially when you’re in a restaurant, where they might disturb other people out to eat with their hard-earned money, or if you’re at the doctor’s office, where they’ll never be able to find something to occupy their imagination, or especially if they’re at home, because kids underfoot. I don’t even have to finish that sentence.
28. Make sure you have all sorts of enrichment toys for them to play with so they’ll stay out of trouble and learn enough to stay ahead of their peers.
29. But don’t give them too many toys, because kids feel overwhelmed when faced with too many choices.
30. Make sure you get your kids in the gifted class (those enrichment toys will help!) so they’ll be challenged in the best possible ways.
31. But make sure they’re not aware that they’re different—special, even—because kids’ egos are a little flimsy, and they could feel sad that they’re different, or they could feel superior, which is slightly worse.
32. Make sure you feed them healthy food and teach them about organic and nonorganic, GMO and non-GMO, because you know the grocery store is like a death trap waiting to spring.
33. But make sure they have enough opportunities to eat like their peers, because everyone knows that a kid who doesn’t get to eat the donuts someone brought to school for a birthday party is a kid who will feel left out. We can’t let kids feel left out.
34. Make sure your kids know how to be independent.
35. But make sure they’re not too independent.
36. Make sure you protect their self-esteem.
37. But make sure they don’t have too much self-esteem, whatever that means.
38. Make sure they believe they deserve the life of their choosing.
39. But make sure they don’t feel entitled to anything.
There are so many things we’re expected to teach our children. So many paradoxes to parenting. So many people trying to tell us how to do it.
Maybe we can just take a deep breath for a minute. Maybe we can let a little of the pressure off. Maybe we can just let it be.
Maybe. But don’t forget that you can’t take too much time for yourself, because that would be unfair to the kids. But also make sure you’re getting enough rest. You don’t want to burn yourself out. You’ll need you strength, your sound mind, because parenting is hard. But also super easy.
You’ll never be confused. Always, probably.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Just Lie Down On, a humor book that does not yet have a release date. To read more of my humor essays, visit Crash Test Parents.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
I feel like I’m probably going to gush at some point during this blog. Doll Bones, by Holly Black, was one of the best creepy middle grade books I’ve read lately, right up there with Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener. I have a very overactive imagination when it comes to creepy things, so middle grade creepiness is about the highest form of creepiness I can take. Doll Bones was perfect—Holly Black filled in just enough of the details and then left the rest to kids’ imaginations, which is really the best kind of horror fiction.
Doll Bones follows the story of Zach, Poppy and Alice, who are the kind of friends who play pretend. It opens on a scene where they’re playing with dolls and action figures, creating a whole new fantasy world that has pirates and warriors and a Great Queen, which is the bone china doll Poppy’s mother keeps hidden behind a cabinet. She rules over all the lands and is creepy, creepy, creepy.
They’re all in middle school now, so Zach’s father, thinking his son is too old to play pretend with a bunch of girls, throws all Zach’s action figures in the trash while he’s away at school. So Zach has to stop playing with Poppy and Alice, but he doesn’t tell them why. Just when their relationship is starting to fray—possibly for good—Poppy tells them that she was visited by the ghost of the bone china doll—which she says was made from the actual bones of a little girl who was murdered. She says that if they don’t return the doll to the cemetery where the girl should rest, the girl’s ghost will haunt them forever.
So they set off on a quest to find the Great Queen’s grave.
Doll Bones was such a riveting story that every time I opened it up to read aloud to my boys, they didn’t want me to stop. Black is a master at creepiness. My boys would shiver. I would shiver. But it was a palatable creepiness, one that wouldn’t quite keep you up at night. Or maybe it would, if you thought about it long enough. A doll made from the bones of a little girl? What’s creepier than a doll? Well, clowns for me. But still. Dolls are pretty creepy.
During the book, Poppy, Alice and Zach are carrying the doll in backpacks or under their arms. Sometimes the doll moves while they’re sleeping. Sometimes it wiggles while they’re racing out of danger. Sometimes people refer to it as another person. Is it just their imagination, or is it real?
At the heart of it, though, Doll Bones is a story about growing up and finding your way. It’s a story of friendship, no matter what. It’s a story about how a person is never too old to imagine and play pretend. That’s probably what I liked most about this book.
Black is not only a superb story teller, but she’s also a fantastic writer. Here’s a description of a man Poppy, Alice and Zach run into on their quest:
“The man behind the counter had a thick, wild head of black hair. It stuck up as though he’d been electrocuted, except where it crawled down his cheeks into sideburns.”
That’s great use of detail and language to make a person come alive.
And here’s an example of the creepiness Black sprinkles in:
“A sudden gust of wind made the branches outside shake and jitter. He couldn’t help imaging the long, bony fingers of the tree scraping against the glass.”
I mean, I used to have those same thoughts when I was a kid—bony fingers scraping against the window, or, worse, Freddy Krueger’s metal claws, coming to get me in my dreams.
I hope you enjoyed this book recommendation. Be sure to visit my recommendation page to see some of my best book recommendations. If you have any books you recently read that you think I’d enjoy, get in touch. And, if you’re looking for some new books to read, stop by my starter library, where you can get a handful of my books for free.
*The books mentioned above have affiliate links attached to them, which means I’ll get a small kick-back if you click on them and purchase. But I only recommend books I enjoy reading myself. Actually, I don’t even talk about books I didn’t enjoy. I’d rather forget I ever wasted time reading them.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Every summer, it’s the same old thing. The school year creeps up on us, after more than two months spent playing together and resting together and just being together, and here comes my old friend anxiety.
I worry that they won’t have the right teacher. I worry that they’ll spend a miserable year wishing they didn’t have to go to school. I worry that they won’t find friends this year or that their friends from last year will decide they don’t want to be friends anymore or that they’ll be picked on instead of liked.
I worry about bullies and about their hearts and about their futures and about their health and about their safety and about how much they’re hydrating in a day and about what they’re doing in P.E. this afternoon and about desks pushed too closely together and about lonely lunch tables and about playground politics.
There’s so much to worry about when your kids spend seven hours a day in someone else’s hands.
So, teacher, please take care of my boys.
I know I’m not the only parent asking. In the last few weeks millions of parents released their kids to public schools. They watched their babies board a bus and turn to wave, or they watched those babies drive away, or they walked them down a sidewalk and hugged them so tight at their classroom doors. The children all get to you differently, but they all leave the same, sent off with that lump in the back of a parent’s throat, with those watery eyes we’ll try to blink away before our little one (or big one) sees.
Our babies will touch sleeves with other students and fill in the bubbles on math worksheets and breathe and slap colors onto a canvas in art, and it will all be new and exciting and wonderful and fun until it isn’t. It doesn’t take long for the first-day-of-school novelty to wear off, and that’s when those students need you the most.
I know it’s not easy. I know there are so many needs, so many hours, so many kids. I know there is only one of you, and sometimes it can get overwhelming. I know because I live in a home with six children, and I struggle on a daily basis to offer them the best version of myself.
I know it can feel like a lot of pressure on your back, all these parents looking to you to teach and train and mold their children in ways that line up with how they’re taught and trained and molded at home. But the truth is, teaching is a great responsibility. So please, take care of our children. They are easily broken, and they don’t often forget. They need someone telling them, even in their most unlovable, annoying moments, that they are still loved, that they still matter, that they are still worthy. A child who doesn’t believe he’s worthy won’t try all that hard.
I hope you remember, in those hard moments, that a moment in time, a moment of misbehavior, a moment of sass, does not tell the whole story of who a student is. There are a lot of wounded children out there, but you can be part of the healing. What an amazing privilege.
When they’re acting out, when they don’t know what to do with all their overwhelming emotions other than what they’re doing right this minute, the crying or the flailing or the screaming, I hope you know. I hope you see more than the inconvenience. I hope you try to figure it out instead of chalking it up to just who they are. Because their behavior is not who they are, not even close.
You see, I’ve got one of those children. One of those children who could read Harry Potter before he was 5 and yet did not learn to control his emotions until he was 8. But he had a teacher. She made all the difference.
And there is me, too.
I was a fatherless kid, a girl who missed her daddy, a girl who could find no worth in who I was because someone important had left me without a second look back. Or so it seemed when I was 10. Right on the cusp of womanhood, I took it personally.
But I had a teacher. Many of them. They believed in me. They whispered who I could be, and even when I could not believe it for myself, I could believe them. Sometimes that’s all it takes—a teacher’s belief—to pick you up and carry you through. They saw writer. They saw brilliant student. They saw that I could be so very much more than I thought I could be.
So they called out the brilliance. They called out the good. They called out the “can” in me.
There is something strangely beautiful about a teacher caring and believing and speaking honestly about what she sees and what he believes a student can do. Makes you want to do it.
My teachers called out the best inside me. And you know what? I did it all.
You have the opportunity to call out the best in your students, too. Even in the “bad” ones. Even in the “difficult” ones. Even in the ones who should already know this but just don’t.
Every kid need a teacher who believes. Might you be the one?
Oh, I hope so. Because there are so many students coming from places we don’t even want to imagine. So many students who need to know that someone besides their parents believes the best about them. So many students who need your help.
They will come to you, leaving their homes, their safe place or not-so-safe places, and they will step into the scary public school world. They will need you to guide them through the roaring waters.
Please take care of our children. Take care of their hearts. Love them with just as much love as you can call up from the wellspring of your heart. When they fall, please help them back up to a higher place than where they started. When they mess up, please remind them that everyone does, because there is no perfect. When they don’t know right from left or up from down, please be their compass and lead them toward truth.
Please keep constant watch and be fierce in rooting out problems and call up in them a desire to always do better. Teach them how to build their wings. Show them how to bare their hearts and their dreams and their gifts. (You can bet I’ll be doing the same.)
And then let’s watch them fly together.
This is an excerpt from Dear Blank: Letters to Humanity, which does not yet have a release date. For more of Rachel’s essays and memoir writings, visit Wing Chair Musings.
