by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
Ideas are all around us.
The problem is, sometimes we’re so focused on other things, our eyes fixed on just about everything else, that we miss them.
When I visit schools or I do author panels or interviews, I’m frequently asked where I get my ideas. My answer is usually, “Everywhere.”
Sometimes I’m reading an article in the paper or the latest National Geographic, and an idea knocks on my brain. Sometimes I’m out for a walk, clearing my mind, and suddenly ideas flood me. Sometimes one of my kids makes an observations or says something funny or offers up the magic words, “What if…”
So many ideas come from the words “what if.”
I keep an idea journal ever at the ready, because I can never predict when the next idea will announce itself. Sometimes it’s a book idea, sometimes it’s a marketing strategy, sometimes it’s a way to get my 16-year-old out of bed in the morning. All the ideas go into this journal (which means it’s a bit of mess), no matter how outrageous or seemingly impossible.
It seems silly to say, but I think ideas like being captured and collected. They multiply when they know they have an open mind to land in.
If you have trouble coming up with writing ideas, whether it’s for books or essays or poems or whatever you may be writing, here are some suggestions that might help generate some.
1. Read!
I know this one’s pretty obvious. Most writers know that the more they read, the better writer they’ll be. But I will add something to the advice:
Read widely.
It doesn’t matter if you write kids books or romance or mysteries or nonfiction—read them all. Most of the advice we get as writers is “read in your genre.” But as an eclectic reader who picks up middle grade literary books, young adult fantasies, adult historical fiction, poetry books, biographies about Sylvia Plath and Mark Twain, memoirs, National Geographic, Psychology Today, the local newspaper (really, I read all over the place), I’ve found that the richest ideas come from the most unlikely and unexpected places. Our brains are amazing at stitching together new ideas if we give them all the threads.
2. Take a walk.
This comes with a catch: Don’t take any distractions with you.
Some of my most exciting ideas have come to me when I’ve been out on a walk or run in my neighborhood. For my walks I leave my phone at home. For the runs where I want to generate ideas or think something through, I listen to music. There’s something magical about moving the body while out in nature that stimulates the brain and gets ideas flowing.
If you’re afraid of losing the ideas that may come to you on those walks or runs, take a notepad with you.
3. Cultivate your relationships.
It seems a strange way to generate ideas, but we all have people in our lives with whom we come in contact on a regular basis. And sometimes all it takes is tuning in and listening to the people around us to come up with ideas. I was washing dishes one night during my family’s after-dinner chore time when I turned around to throw away a tea bag and nearly collided with my second son, who was supposed to be sweeping the floor. He was, instead, dancing with a broom and throwing out new I wonders for our “I Wonder Wall.” One of them was, “I wonder what it would be like to live in a home without a roof.”
I now have a middle grade book called The Home Without a Roof, based on my research about and my work with the homeless here in my city.
Of course these aren’t the only ways to generate ideas; there are many more (listening in on conversations, anyone?). But what they all have in common is the importance of keeping your eyes and ears wide open. You never know what brilliant ideas await you just around the corner. Make sure you’re paying attention.
I hope you have a wondrous month full of new and exciting ideas.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
Here are five things worth sharing this month:
1. Reading: I recently finished the middle grade historical novel, Brother’s Keeper, by Julie Lee. It’s about two North Korean kids who flee their part of the country for Busan in South Korea to escape the war between the north and south. They have to walk hundreds of miles in the winter. The book is heart-breaking and beautiful and haunting. Don’t miss it!
2. Reading: I absolutely LOVED Natalie Lloyd’s latest book, Hummingbird, about a girl with brittle bone disease who convinces her parents she wants to go to public school so she can find her forever best friend. You will fall in love with the main character, Olive, who is full of positivity and joy kabooms and love for her fellow students. It was sweet and heartbreaking and funny and so lovely; my kids are getting tired of hearing me talk about it. This is the first book of Lloyd’s I’ve read, but now I also have her books, The Key to Extraordinary, A Snicker of Magic, and the Problim Children series on my to-be-read list!
3. Watching: Lately I’ve been watching through My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, with David Letterman. I find the guests (so far I’ve watched Barack Obama, George Clooney, Malala Yousafzai, Jay-Z, Tina Fey, and Howard Stern) to be SO inspirational. There’s always some nugget of truth I can take and apply to my own life. And David Letterman is the perfect host. Check it out if you want to be inspired!
4. Reading: If you’re looking for a delightful young adult read, look no further than Carolyn Mackler’s The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. It’s funny, it’s fun, it deals with deep topics, and it’s pitched perfectly for young adult readers. It was published several years ago, but Mackler republished it in 2018, along with the release of the sequel, The Universe is Expanding, and So Am I, which I’m reading right now (and it’s just as good as the first one). Mackler has written a collection of other books, all of which are now on my TBR list, because I love her work so much.
5. Reading: While on vacation with my family, I sped through Ethan Kross’s The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. What an eye-opening book. We all live our lives with a voice in our heads (sometimes multiple voices, and for some of us those voices are VERY loud and not all that nice). Kross provides scientific and situational evidence about this voice and how we can use it to our advantage. I found it enlightening and encouraging.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Be your magnificent self.
That’s the tagline I chose for my newest middle grade book, The First Magnificent Summer, which releases this month.
Be your magnificent self.
It’s a great message, isn’t it? Especially for kids. I hope every kid in the universe knows they’re magnificent. Just because they’re themselves.
But I know not every kid does.
I’m one of them.
That’s not a typo. I didn’t mean to say I was one of them. I still am one of them. I know I’m not a kid. But the kid who failed to believe she was magnificent, who filtered most of her life through the lens of “I’m not good enough, I will never be good enough,” still lives in me. She’s a big part of me. I’ve only just begun the work of assuring her she was always magnificent. Assurance and deep-down belief are miles away from each other, and it is hard work crossing the chasm.
In a recent therapy session, I told my therapist that I’m tired of feeling like no matter what I do or achieve in my life, it’s still not enough. I told her it made me uncomfortable to have a reporter come into my home and ask me questions and write a story because it left me so exposed and known. And I told her when I’m exposed and known my anxiety and depression and OCD explode into action.
“Why do you think that is?” She said.
“Because I know if people get too close to me, they’ll see my darkest parts,” I said.
“And what happens then?” she said.
“They’ll leave me.”
And there it was: the crux of the problem.
When I was eleven years old, my parents divorced. My dad left entirely. From what I remember, we had only spotty contact for the first two years, a couple of summers when he took us to Ohio, and then he dropped off the face of the planet. He didn’t come to my high school graduation, where I delivered my valedictorian speech; or my college graduation, where I walked with honor cords around my neck; or my wedding or the births of my children.
Nearly my whole life was spent under the shadow of his leaving, looking through the lens of “I must have done something to drive him away. To keep him away.”
Who knows you better than your parents, when you’re a kid?
Be your magnificent self? My “magnificent self” had driven away one of the most important people in my life. My “magnificent self” was too much—too emotional, too anxious, too extra, too everything, too whiny, too sarcastic, too loud, too silent, too in love with writing. I needed to be someone different.
I wrote about this in The First Magnificent Summer. I wrote about the small hurts and the big ones. I wrote about the breaking in two. I wrote about disappointments and dreams and everything between the two.
I wrote a better ending.
And thought I was done.
“Be your magnificent self,” I wrote in the author’s note. “You deserve to be loved just because you’re you.”
And still I couldn’t fully believe it, as evidenced by the discomfort and terror of attention.
“You wrote all your hopes into the book,” my therapist said. “And now you need to absorb them as your truth, like you hope the kids who read it do.”
They’re wise words.
So the first thing I say to the 12-year-old girl in me every morning is “You are magnificent.”
Because she has to believe that first.
Recently I came across something the Indian scholar and activist Manabi Bandyopadhyay said: “Be yourself, the world will adjust.”
But the truth is, the world doesn’t always adjust. Dads don’t always come back home or say they’re sorry. Friends don’t always admit they were vicious and jealous and it had nothing to do with you (and also everything to do with you). The people in our lives don’t always accept our neurodiversities or quirks.
But if the whole world doesn’t adjust, that doesn’t mean we have to. It just means we may have to adjust our expectations—and maybe stop looking for our worth and acceptance in other people.
I believe 12-year-old Rachel was magnificent. I wish she had believed it all those years ago.
But I think we’re getting somewhere now.
I know this was a hugely personal email. But I hope you’ve found some value in it and that it helps you remember that we are all deserving of love (it deserves repeating) just because we’re us.
Have a magnificent month of being your magnificent self.
Strategies to help you believe in your magnificent self:
1. Draw a scale
Whenever I talk about how I feel like a bad mom, my therapist encourages me to create a scale from “best mom” to “worst mom ever.” On the top is the mom who never yells or gets frustrated or wishes she could have a break from her kids (I’m not her). On the bottom is the most neglectful, spiteful, unkind mother I can imagine (which I’m also not). I fall somewhere in the middle, which instead of labeling “enough” I’ve named “magnificent.” Do the same for whatever you’re struggling with—parent, friend, employee, human being. My guess is you’ll fall somewhere in the middle, too, which is magnificent.
2. The word cloud
Grab a piece of paper. Write your name in the middle and circle it. Now create a word cloud for all the things that make you you. (Mine would have things like, loves to write, finds life in reading, hates clutter, needs space, doesn’t like loud noises, enjoys sarcasm, dislikes talking about Minecraft endlessly, prefers staying home, etc.) At the bottom of the page, write the sentence, “I am magnificent, because…” and finish the sentence. Hang the paper where you can see it or put it in a safe place where you can refer to it easily.
3. Seek therapy
Sometimes it takes a licensed therapist to peel away layers of misbeliefs we’ve had since we were kids. I know we’re pressed for time and money (and honestly I think mental health care should be free for all), but this is important work. And we never regret the important work of healing.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
One of the most frequent questions I get from young writers and even seasoned writers is: How many drafts do you need to write a story?
I have a super helpful answer:
It depends.
Let me explain. Some of my books only took four or so drafts. (Even saying “only four” will probably freak some people out—you have to really love and care about a book to read it four times!) Some have taken seven or eight. A couple have taken more than ten.
Really, it depends on the story.
My book that publishes May 30 (The First Magnificent Summer) took so many drafts I never thought I’d be finished with it. The first draft I wrote in prose. The second draft I turned into poetry. Third draft back to prose, fourth draft poetry, with a little humor, fifth draft back to prose with some more humor, sixth draft diary entries with more humor. This format stuck for the next three drafts.
Yes, three. It turns out humor is really difficult to get right, if you’re as picky as I am about humor.
For the seventh draft, I layered in more humor. In the eighth draft I added some poetic asides; in the ninth draft I rearranged some things, cut the first five thousand words, and meticulously examined the humor to avoid cliches and old tired metaphors. In the tenth draft I tightened up pacing, shortened most of the journal entries (adding more in one day if they felt too long) and added more humorous asides.
Finally, on the eleventh draft, I focused on language, word choice, and typos. And this is before the manuscript even sold to an editor!
Writing is a lot.
Compare all of that, however, to the book’s sequel (The Second Magnificent Summer, which will publish in summer 2024). I brainstormed, wrote a first draft, a second draft to tighten pacing and layer in more humor, and then it was off to my editor.
Part of this is that some stories are easier to tell than others (sequels and subsequent books can be easier because you’ve already spent so much time with the characters and know them so well). Another part of it is the more we write, the better we get at it (although this doesn’t always translate to fewer drafts, especially when getting better at what we do also means getting better at recognizing the flaws in our manuscripts).
So how do we know how many drafts a story needs, if it depends?
The answer to that is we have to get really honest with ourselves about the state of our manuscript.
As writers, we generally know when something is finished and when it’s not quite there. Sometimes it’s a little tricky to determine, but there’s usually a sense of unease in our gut if there’s still work to be done on a book or composition.
But here are some more practical ways to know if your writing composition needs more drafts.
1. It’s a first draft.
I know this seems like an obvious statement, but many of the young writers I meet wonder if a first draft, in some cases, can be the draft. And I don’t like speaking in absolutes, but I have strong feelings about this. I don’t personally think anybody can write their best book (or their best anything, really) in one draft—even those seasoned writers who claim they write their books in one draft. Nothing comes out perfectly the first time. Our first drafts are places to explore our stories and characters. Our second, third, fourth (okay, it can just be a second if you’re going to fight me on this) drafts are the places where we analyze, tighten, and perfect everything.
2. There are still places where you’re shaky on details.
These details could be plot points or character personalities or even the beginnings and endings of chapters. Reaching the end of a book you’ve written should leave you with a solid grasp of your plot, your characters, your structure, your word choice, your title, your settings, etc. If there’s any question in your mind (Does her sarcasm come through? Did I end chapter three in a place where people would want to read more? Does his motivation make sense in light of his actions? Have I said what needs saying in an understandable way?) it could be worthwhile to give it another draft.
3. You have an unshakeable feeling that something’s not quite right.
This is, honestly, one of my least favorite ways to figure out a story needs another draft—because many times it’s something you, as a writer, just can’t put your finger on. You just know there’s something. That the book needs more drafts. This is where it’s helpful to engage other readers—writer friends, or if you’re fortunate enough to have one, an agent who doesn’t mind reading a draft. Sometimes the perspective of another trusted person can lead you to the exact solution the next draft needs to get your story (or whatever you’re writing) in publishable shape.
I hope some of these suggestions are helpful to you. I’d love to know some ways you know when a draft is finished.
I’ll leave you with two very important questions I ask myself anytime I write something—whether it’s a piece of marketing content, a newsletter, a short story, a poem, or a 65,000-word novel:
What do I want to say?
Have I said it?
Have a fantastic month of writing and revising!
by Rachel Toalson | Books
Here are six things worth sharing this week:
1. Reading: Have you read Rob Harrell’s book, Wink? It’s SO GOOD! Harrell is the author of the Life of Zarf series, which I have not read. But I picked up his book, Wink, because someone mentioned it to me as a great humorous read. It was so much more than that! It’s a novel based on Harrell’s experience with a rare eye cancer, and it will have you laughing and crying at all the right places. Highly recommended!
2. Reading: I recently finished We Deserve Monuments, by Jas Hammonds, a young adult novel about racial violence and the generational results of it. I loved this book so much. And so did many people, apparently, since the book was a 2023 Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent Winner as well as a Kirkus Best Books, a School and Library Journal Best Book, A B&N Best Book, and a Parents Magazine Best Book of 2022. If you haven’t read it, put it on your list!
3. Watching: Husband and I are watching the third season of Apple TV’s Ted Lasso, a series about an American coach who moves to England to coach soccer (or what they call football). I’ve loved every season of this show. Ted Lasso is wise and witty and optimistic. It’s so funny and heartfelt and cheesy in some places and really funny that you’ll find yourself looking forward to your Friday night dates with the smart TV. I mean…hypothetically speaking. WATCH IT!
4. Reading: I adore some good nonfiction, and I just finished a book that definitely qualifies: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Gathering Moss: a Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. It sounds like a heavy read, but Kimmerer is a fantastic writer. She writes her nonfiction so it reads like memoir or fiction, even. I first discovered Kimmerer when I read her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants (which I also highly recommend), and I was hooked. Gathering Moss is a science book that will have you riveted, ready to learn more, and looking for the mosses in your environment, hoping they’ll tell you a story, too.
5. Reading: On some early-morning (very dark) runs, I read the audiobook of Lora Senf’s The Clackity, a middle grade horror novel. (I don’t know why I do this to myself; I was jumping at every little sound during the reading.) It’s so good. Frightening but full of heart. This is Senf’s first book, but she has another coming October 17: The Nighthouse Keeper. It’s definitely on my list (although I don’t think I’ll be reading it during dark runs!)!
6. Reading: I’ve loved Traci Chee since I read her young adult book, We Are Not Free, which published in 2020 and was a Printz Honor book. Well, I recently finished her latest YA book, A Thousand Steps Into the Night, which is completely different from the historical We Are Not Free but is no less engaging, entertaining, and enchanting. This one’s a fantasy that reads like a fairy tale. I read it while running around Hourglass Lake at Disney World with my kids—which could have increased the magic of the words. But no. Chee is a master. Highly recommend this book—which was long-listed for the National Book Award!
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
When I was a kid, I enjoyed being a leader.
What that meant at the time was that teachers looked to me to be an example for other students. Friends came to me for advice, because they (mistakenly) believed I had some inner wisdom they didn’t have (I had strong opinions and read a lot, which made me an expert in my own and apparently my peers’ eyes). I kept my brother and sister out of trouble (or tried to) while my mom worked multiple jobs to put food on the table.
In college, I ran the university newspaper as editor in chief, acted as the leader of a band, and organized multiple social groups. But into adulthood, those leadership roles began to slip away.
It seemed much easier to be a leader when I was younger.
I don’t consider myself a natural leader. Even when I was younger, I stepped into roles only because there were great, gaping holes that seemed important to fill. I stepped into them because no one else would.
But my life today is filled with amazing, competent leaders. And, I don’t know. Maybe I’m tired. I have a lot of kids. I live every day as a leader—a mom…and my kids’ lives aren’t getting any less complicated, and their problems aren’t getting any less challenging.
Maybe that’s enough for me, I told myself. To be a leader of this one, tiny world.
But it wasn’t. I could feel it down deep—that aching to make a difference, that longing to change the world that I’ve felt since I was a child.
After watching through Mrs. America, a Hulu original series that follows the women’s movement to push for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (highly recommended, if you haven’t seen it!), I spent months obsessed with learning more about Gloria Steinem, one of the movement’s leaders. I felt a strong connection with Steinem, who spoke up for women’s rights, wrote endlessly about their importance, and founded a pivotal magazine, Ms.
Her story—and the stories of all the other women leaders—were so inspiring. But I could never be them.
I believe in the ERA. But if I had lived back during that time, when women were fighting for it, would I have been a Gloria Steinem or a Betty Friedan or a Bella Abzug or a Pauli Murray or a Shirley Chisholm or a Gloria Watkins? Probably not. (Maybe I could have been an Audre Lorde.)
I’m not comfortable in the spotlight. Public speaking makes me uncomfortable, unless I’m talking to kids and teens. When I used to sing the national anthem for sporting events—in middle school, high school and college—I hid behind a curtain or up in an announcer’s booth so no one would look at me while I was singing (except for the college baseball games, which left me vulnerable at home plate…I only did three of those, because my anxiety couldn’t take it).
And then an episode of the show highlighted a group of women athletes who in 1977 organized a 2,612-mile relay from Seneca Falls, New York, where the first national women’s convention was held in 1848, to Houston, Texas, where the pivotal National Women’s Conference was happening, and I told my husband: That would have been me.
They didn’t say a word. They ran. And their voice was heard.
Here’s the thing. We often mistakenly believe that in order to make a difference in the world, we have to be a loud leader, in the spotlight often, with millions of followers. But some of us are quiet leaders. Some of us lead by example. Or we lead by arranging careful words on a page and occasionally (or often) sending them out into the world. Or we lead by expressing our creativity and our hearts in music or dance or film or sport or marketing or science or math or interior design or fashion or engineering or food service or the millions of other possibilities that exist.
We do what we can with what we have. Some of us have legs to run. Some of us have voices to speak. Some of us have a marvelous gift for creating communities. Some of us like to be alone.
We’re all leaders, whether loud or quiet. Whether large or small or young or old. Whether we want to be one or not. Someone somewhere is looking at us as a leader to follow.
So the question is not Will we be a leader but What kind of leader will we be?
A. Breeze Harper, an American critical race feminist and author, says, “No one is on the sidelines; by our actions or inactions, by our caring or indifference, we are either part of the problem or part of the solution.”
I want to be part of the solution. I want to act and speak up and make change—in my own way. I don’t want to be indifferent; I want to care. I want to help repair the broken places in the world.
I think, at the heart of us, we all do.
So now the question(s) becomes, How will you use your one, unique voice to make a difference? To lead the world into a better tomorrow? To repair hearts and minds and whole lives?
I can’t wait to see.
I hope you have a lovely month of surprising opportunities to lead.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
My first book, a middle grade novel in verse, was written in tiny fifteen- or twenty-minute windows, back when my kids were very young. I had a newborn, two 3-year-olds (twins—so double trouble), a 5-year-old, a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old, and not a lot of time—obviously.
But I had a story that needed to get out, so I did what I could to jot it down between bedtime and the next newborn feeding.
When I shared this information at the book launch party for that book (The Colors of the Rain, which published in 2018), someone asked, “How do you keep a plot line going in only fifteen minutes a day?”
It’s a good question, and one that I think is probably on the minds (or in the Secret Fears Box in the brain) of many authors who don’t have hours at their disposal to write on their works in progress. Or those of us who take a while to write our books. We don’t want to rush stories. They need time and space to grow and develop.
But how do you give them the time and space they need without losing sight of where you’re going?
I’m in a different place now. I have more time to write. But there are still times when I’ve had to put aside a manuscript for weeks or even months, because of deadlines that come calling. And in a collaboration I’m working on with another author, sometimes I don’t write a chapter with my character for weeks.
How do you keep a plot line going? How do you remember who your character is? How do you make the most of the time you have, without needing to re-read everything you’ve previously written on the project?
That first book I mentioned was written, as we say in the writing world, by the seat of my pants. That means I did no brainstorming (what others call plotting). I just started writing—and the story required a LOT of revision!
Now I brainstorm (or plot) every story. It’s much easier to hold a storyline in your head for those fifteen minutes of daily writing time if you know the story already. Or if you at least have a vague path for where it’s going.
So that’s my first tip. I know it will make some writers cringe, but…
1. Brainstorm your story.
This can be whatever you make it. It can be an in-depth main character analysis followed by in depth character analyses on every other character in the book, followed by a detailed look at the setting, followed by detailed plotting. Or you can make a Pinterest board and call it your brainstorm (it’s actually surprising how well a Pinterest board satisfies the imagination and keeps a story at the top of mind).
Draw maps. Make calendars. Create whatever materials you might need to help you get right back into the story the next time you pick it up.
The more time you have to spend remembering what and who your story is about, the less time you’ll have to actually write it. And when you’re crunched for time, every minute counts!
2. Leave notes on where the next scene will go.
When I’m working on the first draft of a story, I will generally only write one chapter a day on the project, because I enjoy giving it space and some time to breathe. But this is a little trick I use in all my first drafts: After I’ve written that one chapter, I make notes on where the next chapter will start and where it will likely go. Sometimes I even write the first line of the chapter.
But what either of those things does is they propel me right back into the story the next time I pick it up. The brain is amazing; when we give it an open loop (like some notes about the next chapter), it happily plays without our even noticing.
3. Know your character.
I write character-driven fiction—but even if you don’t, knowing your character (or characters) is important for maintaining a storyline for however long it takes you to write a story. And knowing your character will, of course, make your story better.
Fill out character sheets, or make cheat sheets for quick reference, or keep a picture of him/her/them right by your computer. (Though your kids might thinks it’s weird. “Who’s that?” they might say. “A character I’m writing,” you might say. “Why do you have a picture of them and not me by your computer?” they might say. Hypothetically.)
The more you know your character, the more you know your plot, and the more you know your plot, the faster you can dive right back into a project that’s been left on the back burner for a while.
I hope these tips are helpful to you. I’d love to know any you might have for maintaining a storyline over the months and years it takes to write a book!
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading: I recently finished Karah Sutton’s magical middle grade debut, A Wolf for a Spell, and it was delightfully enchanting! Full of magic and wolves and Baba Yaga and love and the power of community. I couldn’t wait to share it with my eight-year-old (who’s reading it now). Sutton has a new book coming out in October, called The Song of the Swan, a retelling of Swan Lake. It’s definitely on my to-be-read list!
2. Reading: You absolutely must not miss Jewell Parker Rhodes’s newest middle grade book, Black Brother, Black Brother. I flew through this one! It was poetic and profound and hard-hitting and heartfelt…everything a middle grade novel should be! Rhodes is also the author of Towers Falling and Ghost Boys. This one takes its place as my favorite, though. I even added it to the slides I use when visiting schools, as one of the books that shape me today. Read it and re-read it. I will be!
3. Watching: I don’t know what it is about Apple, but they have a team of writers who know how to write shows! My husband and I just started watching a new Apple series called Shrinking, starring Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, and Jessica Williams. It is SO GOOD! Sorry for shouting. But it really is. You will laugh, cry, and laugh some more. Apple has a corner on heartfelt comedies!
4. Reading: On the young adult end, you must pick up Emily X. R. Pan’s An Arrow to the Moon, which is pitched as Romeo and Juliet meets Chinese mythology. It was phenomenal. Pan has a poetic way with words and knows how to craft characters that live on in your imagination. Pan also wrote The Astonishing Color of After, which is still my favorite book of hers.
5. Reading: If you love mysteries, you must do yourself a favor and pick up Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious series. I recently finished the third book, The Hand on the Wall, after flying through the first two. Her main character, Stevie Bell, is hilarious (dry humor is my favorite) and awkward and just wonderful. I know this series will end, as all series must, but I don’t want to leave Stevie behind! Anyway, check out the Truly Devious series. You’ll be wonderfully enthralled for weeks!
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
There comes this moment, before every big event in my life, where I have wondered, Am I ready for this? Is this the right thing?
It’s not a gentle wondering, either. It’s a loud, hot, cold, hot, cold, numb, hot hot hot kind of wondering. A spiral of wondering that tornadoes down to a funnel that drips into a bucket labeled “Probably Not.” (That may seen a tad melodramatic—but such is life with an anxiety disorder!) An endless wondering that darts in and out of moments for days or even weeks leading up to a life-changing event.
I remember it before my wedding almost twenty years ago. As I stretched out on my childhood bed and talked to my fiancé on the phone, I was blasted by the sudden thought: Am I doing the right thing? Am I ready to grow up? Do I even want to be married?
I remember it on the way to the hospital before the birth of my first child, and then the second, the third, the fourth and fifth together, the sixth: Are we crazy to think we could do this?
I remember it before every book has published.
We all experience this, in one way or another. Maybe not as dramatically as I do. But it’s a natural part of growing and stepping into something new and a little bit scary and entirely unpredictable, because there’s no guarantee it will work out.
Am I ready for this? we think.
Sometimes the answer is yes. I love those times, when I feel like I’ve prepared myself as much as I can, when I feel confident and in control, when I have a pretty good idea of the projected outcome. I think I’ve experienced that once in my life. Maybe twice.
Most of the time, I reach these giant (for me) turning points in my life story, and I don’t feel prepared. I read more than twenty parenting books before we had our first kid, and when the doctor released me from the hospital with this tiny screaming infant, I still didn’t know what I was doing. I was unprepared, even though I’d prepared.
I feel unprepared a lot.
I’m coming to understand that’s not a bad thing.
It’s probably no surprise to you that I am change-averse. I’ve written before that I thrive on routine and predictability—and change is certainly not predictable (though my response to it is!). But change is also necessary in life. No one goes through life without experiencing change. The physical body is proof of that.
Change can be scary. Major life events can be, too. We hardly ever feel prepared. We’ll probably (like many of the characters in stories) wonder, for just a moment, if we can maintain the status quo, keep living the same life and still be happy. Hold off until we’re ready.
The Spanish philosopher José Ortega once said, “We cannot put off living until we’re ready.”
I agree.
Sometimes we’re thrown into something before we’re completely ready. But that’s the beauty of humanity—we grow. We adapt. We surprise ourselves with our ability to carry on. To really live. To thrive and continue becoming ourselves, one unprepared step at a time.
We’re like characters in a real-life story. The Major Life Event is our catalyst, before change begins. We get to walk through our own emotional journey and become different people on the other side. I am certainly a much different person than I was pre-marriage and pre-kids. I like this version a lot more, I must confess.
Next time you and I face one of these crossroads where we could continue on as is or step into a future for which we’re not completely prepared, I hope we say, Bring it on. I can’t wait to see who I am on the other side.
Have a happy March of growth and renewal.
Here are some of my best tips for embracing change:
1. Keep a journal
I know, this is my go-to tip for just about everything (I even talk about it at school visits). So if you’ve already heard my spiel, go ahead and listen again.
When we record these feelings of inadequacy and unpreparedness in journals, we not only get them off our chests, we also give ourselves a gift: the gift of hindsight. Memories aren’t always accurate, when they stay trapped in our minds. The next time we face another life event for which we feel inadequate and unprepared, we may not remember that we felt the exact same way about this other thing that turned out just fine (or not—that’s also useful information). But if we recorded it in a journal, we can look back and probably feel a little relief that we’ve been here before and we made it out alive.
2. Play a game called Change the Small Stuff
This is a little game I play with myself, to prove that change isn’t going to kill me.
I am such a creature of habit. I get up at the same time every morning, I do my morning routine in the same order, I write at the same time every day, I eat dinner at the same time every evening with my family. I even run the same routes through my city.
But one morning I changed my running route. I made my morning tea before I meditated. I wrote my daily poem after I edited another manuscript. And it was awful. All of it. But you know what? The next time I played the game with myself, it was one percent less awful, because I had grown one percent.
We can adapt to change, too (even if sometimes we have to repeat that as a mantra).
3. Talk to a therapist
You may get tired of me pointing, always, to therapy—but you must know that it’s only because I love you and I want you to live the best life you can and I know how valuable therapy can be for changing our mindsets and helping us grow. I think we can all benefit from therapy, no matter what we’ve been through in our lives.
And the truth is, not every instance of life throwing us into something for which we feel unprepared will be good. Some will be awful. And completely out of our control. And we have to make sure we take care of our hearts and minds. Talking with a licensed therapist or a psychologist or psychiatrist can help us come to terms with ourselves, our circumstances, and our future.
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by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life, Writing tips
At any given time, I’m working on between three and five manuscripts.
Some people’s jaws drop when they hear a thing like that (probably because the average person can hardly imagine working on one manuscript!).
Maybe it’s a leftover consequence of my decade in journalism, when I was balancing feature stories, in-depth investigative series, and the daily news articles that popped up unexpectedly. Or maybe it began even before that. For as long as I remember I’ve had lots of plates to juggle.
In middle school I played every sport imaginable, worked hard to get all As, played the clarinet, and wrote stories on the side. In high school I added to that class president, a boyfriend, and a part-time job. In college I had all of that (minus the boyfriend—I was more focused on education) plus another part-time job (two total—which still didn’t pay like a full-time job), a minimum of four writing-intensive classes per semester, and a band I sang and played guitar in.
I’m a busybody. I like to stay active. My brain works best when it has more than one thing to focus on. Otherwise it can get very anxious and obsessive.
Not everyone works this way. So the first thing I want you to know is that your process is your process. If you don’t enjoy juggling multiple projects at one time, that’s okay. Or if you’ve tried it before and it just doesn’t work for you, that’s okay, too. We are all different people with different brains, and one person’s way doesn’t make another person’s way wrong.
But I do have some tips that have been helpful for me, if you’d like to try (or try again) balancing multiple projects.
1. Make sure they’re different.
When I pick up new projects to write, I try my best to make sure they’re different genres, different age groups, or different narrators from the projects I’m already working on. For example, right now I’m working on two young adult literary books from a female perspective, a middle grade realistic fantasy book from a female perspective, a middle grade horror book from a male perspective, and a young adult biography in verse from a female perspective.
Why am I working on two young adult literary novels at once? Because one is a first draft and the other is a much later draft. One has a female voice that is angry and sarcastic; the other has a female voice that is curious and exploratory. They are in different stages, and they’re different people.
The pitfall we have to look out for when balancing multiple projects is making sure the narrator’s voice or the narrative voice of the story doesn’t sound the same in both. So we have to make sure we know our characters and/or the tone or voice we’re trying to capture in the story.
2. Don’t sacrifice one for the other.
What I mean by this is don’t move on to project #2 just because it’s the new and shiny idea. Writers are notorious for hitting a wall in project #1 and picking up a new project because it’s new and exciting—but never finishing project #1. So if you pick up a new project, make sure you also have plans to finish your first project. It deserves at least that.
It is, of course, perfectly fine to spend more time or an unequal amount of time on project #2, because it’s shiny and new and feels easy—at least much easier than the old project. This could be part of your process and strategy: spending 70 percent of your time on the new project and 30 percent on the old, until the old is done. Because eventually project #2 will get old, and you’ll need to pick up another project to spend 70 percent of your time on.
Do what works for you. Just don’t abandon a story that deserves to be told.
3. Let your brain lead the way.
The subconscious mind does a lot of work behind the scenes, without our even realizing it. That’s why I love balancing multiple projects. It allows my brain to play with a lot of different possibilities. Many times, when I’m writing on project #1, I’ll have a major breakthrough for project #2, and vice versa. The creative brain is a mysterious thing. Inspiration comes at the most unexpected of times.
That said, make sure you have a means of capturing these breakthroughs and little ideas the brain sends. I keep all mine in an idea journal, to revisit later, when I need them.
You may try balancing multiple projects and it absolutely doesn’t work for you—and that’s okay! Keep writing the way that works for you.
Or you may try it and think it’s the best thing ever.
To which I say: Welcome to the club.
Have a fantastic month of creating.
