by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading: I recently finished the YA book, My Eyes are Up Here, by Laura Zimmerman, and it was SO GOOD! It was funny, emotional, fun, and romantic and raised awareness about an important issue with access—namely, how big-breasted young women can’t find clothes that will fit them. I loved everything about this book. Zimmerman is also the author of Just Do This One Thing For Me, which will release in August of this year. I can’t wait!
2. Reading: Leslie Connor is one of my favorite middle grade authors, and I just finished her newest book, Anybody Here Seen Frenchie? It was lovely and heartfelt. Featuring a character who is differently abled, and told in dual voices, it was compulsively readable. I’d read it again. And I’ve put it on my kids’ reading lists as well. Connor’s book, A Home for Goddesses and Dogs, is still my favorite, but this one’s a close second, along with The Truth as Told By Mason Buttle.
3. Watching: My husband and I just finished watching Apple TV’s Bad Sisters. This was the second time watching through for me—which was great, because I picked up on some subtleties that I missed the first time around. If you haven’t watched this series, you owe it to yourself to watch. It’s cringey and emotional and funny and addicting.
4. Reading: One of my favorite reads this month was Hope Jahren’s The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go From Here. While she has an adult version of the book, I read the one for young readers, and it was so well done. Jahren explains things in ways young people will understand. And it wasn’t just information, it was also part personal story and part entertaining vignettes. Highly recommended to read with children. This will be going on all my kids’ summer reading lists this year. Jahren is also the author of Lab Girl, which is a memoir of her life as a scientist in a male-dominated field. It was equally as good as this one.
5. Watching: I recently had a birthday Sabbatical week, so I spent some extra time watching a few shows (and reading, of course). One of the best shows I watched (binged on, really—and I very rarely binge on shows) was Netflix’s Wednesday. This show was delightful. Macabre, sarcastic, dark, entertaining…everything director Tim Burton is known for (and Danny Elfman did the music—the perfect pair). Wednesday Addams is one of my favorite characters now. It’s still a dream of mine to have Tim Burton direct a movie for my book The Woods, and for Danny Elfman to write the musical score. Wednesday renewed that dream in a very big way!
6. Bonus: Reading: I can’t say enough about the lovely picture book, Dear Mr. Dickens, by Nancy Churnin, which was a 2022 Sydney Taylor honor book. It tells the story of Eliza Davis, who wrote to Charles Dickens about the way he portrayed Jewish people in his books. I read this story aloud to my kids; it was my first time reading it, and I got (probably predictably) emotional. I love Charles Dickens (I fell in love with him in high school, because, as an economically disadvantaged kid, he gave voice to my frustrations and struggles), and this story is just phenomenal—and true. Check it out. You won’t regret it.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
The idea of karma is an ancient idea. Even when I was a kid, I was familiar with the saying, “What goes around comes around.” The saying served two purposes back then: first, to get me to think about what I was doing that might come back around to haunt me (which was hardly ever my first consideration), and second, to think about what others were doing to me that might come back to haunt them.
That was my preferred interpretation and consideration. It enabled me to construct revenge fantasies. Ann told me my nose was pointy—she would get hurt as much as that snippy comment hurt me. Tony called me a nerd in front of the whole bus—one day soon he would be humiliated, too. William snickered when I got emotional during the reading of Great Expectations? He’d give the world plenty to snicker about someday.
I spent a good part of my life wishing and hoping that the people in my life who’d hurt me in visible and invisible ways would get their comeuppance in the end. What goes around comes back around, I assured myself when my best friend in college spread untrue rumors about me in our circle of friends. What goes around comes back around, I told myself when a man I worked for denied me a raise because I was a mom of three kids and he said, “A woman loses her ability to work well when she has kids.” (Yes. This really happened.) What goes around comes back around, I whispered into the hurt places when a good friend from college said he hadn’t considered my husband and me friends for several years because he doesn’t associate with “aggressive feminists.”
What goes around comes back around.
It’s an uncharitable thought and hope and desperate wish. And the worst part is—I still find myself thinking and hoping and wishing it at times, even today.
This kind of thinking and wishing and hoping hinders progress. It keeps us stuck in a very small place. It keeps our hearts strangled and our minds—or at least part of them—in a kind of prison.
Relationships are tricky waters. And hurt can turn us into uncharitable people who imagine elaborate revenge fantasies of how what they did to us will eventually return to them—for better or worse (usually worse).
I don’t want to be an uncharitable person, even when I’m hurt. Or angry. Or disappointed. Or scared. I want to be a forgiving person. A person with boundaries, of course, but a person who doesn’t wish the worst on those who have done the worst to me. I want to flip the script.
Florence Scovel Shinn, an American artist, once said, “The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds, and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.” I love the way she puts this, because it makes me think there’s another way to consider “what goes around comes back around.”
Reframed, it becomes: What are you putting out into the world?
This question is a much healthier (and enjoyable) one to consider, because it focuses on ourselves, not on other people. One of the frequent refrains I repeat in my house (so many times!) is, “Mind yourself.” I use it when my kids are comparing what one got to do versus what another got to do. I use it when one kid got in trouble for something and immediately said, “Well, he did it, too.” I use it when I’ve instructed them to tidy up and one wanders around the living room telling his youngest brother to clean—when he’s not cleaning, either.
“Mind yourself,” I say. If we spent half as much time minding ourselves as we spend minding other people, I tell my children, we’d probably be so much better at everything. Tidying. Loving. Living.
It’s true for us too, isn’t it? If we just minded ourselves, we’d be so much happier and wiser and more fulfilled. Comparison—gone. Fair and unfair—gone. Revenge fantasies—(mostly) gone.
What are you putting out into the world?
I know what I want to put out into the world. Love. And peace. And hope. And truth. And beauty. And wonder. Did I mention love?
It’s not easy to put these things out into the world. It’s especially not easy when our eyes are so focused on how others have it so much better than we do. Or how much they hurt us or how unfair it is that they have this amazing thing and we only have this unimpressive thing. Or how they’re such a difficult person and they’re so successful anyway.
We need to change our focus.
What are you putting out into the world?
Every day we have the opportunity to make the world better in whatever small way we can—whether it’s through our work or in our families or with a stranger in a chance encounter. If we keep this question top of mind and think about how every encounter and activity and task is an opportunity to put peace and hope and love and truth and beauty and wonder into the world, and we do our best to put peace and hope and love and truth and beauty and wonder out into the world, it will come back to us. It’s a game of boomerangs.
What are you putting out into the world?
I hope it’s beautiful.
3 ways to put love and peace and hope and love and truth and beauty and wonder out into the world.
1. Thank yous
It’s such a simple thing, and yet a thank you goes a long way. We live in such a rush-rush world; oftentimes we live under the belief that people just know we’re thankful. And while that’s sometimes the case, it’s not always. A few words go a long way. Think of someone who deserves your appreciation today. Send them a note—email or text is fine, if you’re not the snail-mail type—but a real physical note is even better.
2. A “random” act of kindness.
It doesn’t have to be random, of course. But think of some ways you can be kind to someone in your life today. Can you compliment someone on a shirt that makes their eyes shine? Share some homemade cookies with a group of teenage boys who show up at your house unannounced? Invite a neighbor over for dinner and conversation? It doesn’t have to be anything big or expensive or inconvenient, even. Just like with thank you, a little goes a long way. Let the kids have a day off chores. Pick up dinner so your partner doesn’t have to cook. Fill up a water bottle for the kid who needs hydration.
3. Use less.
This one may seem a little out of nowhere, but hear me out. We live in abundance. But there are many, many people who don’t. And when we take more than our fair share—of food, water, electricity, resources, etc, we are taking those things from the people who don’t have enough. So a way we can put love into the world is to use less. Eat less food. Use less water and electricity. Drive less and walk more. Look for ways to take care of the earth and others. (For more on this concept, I highly recommend Hope Jahren’s The Story of More.)
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
As much as we like to think we have everything under our control (or maybe that’s just me), there’s a lot that’s out of our control, especially when it comes to writing.
Sometimes kids get sick and writing time disappears. Sometimes there’s a freak snowstorm in Texas and the power’s out for three days and you can hardly think about anything except the blanket barely keeping you and your kids warm. Sometimes you’re tired because you haven’t been sleeping well.
Add to that the uncertainty of the writing industry. You can’t just make a goal to get an agent this year when so much depends on someone else’s subjective judgment of your book. You can’t make a goal to sell a book to a publisher when first you have to get your agent to read the manuscript (or get an agent in the first place) and then you have to wait for the right editor to fall in love with it. You can’t just say, “I’ll write X number of books,” because sick kids, winter storm, and exhaustion!
What’s a writer to do?
Here are my suggestion for setting reachable goals even when so much lies out of your control.
1. Focus on improvement goals.
While we may not always be able to set and keep word-count goals or goals to write a certain number of books (don’t get me wrong: I still try), we can make it a goal to continue improving in our craft.
Maybe that means we attend one more writing craft conference than we did last year. Maybe we take a class on writing short fiction so we can improve our long fiction. Maybe we challenge ourselves to write a story in a completely different genre so we’re continuously evolving (I did this last year—I wrote a young adult romance and discovered I loved writing them).
Improvement is always within our control.
2. Progress goals
While we might not want to name a specific number of manuscripts we want to finish or a total word count we want by the end of the year, we can make progress goals. They can be vague (like “make some progress on the YA fantasy”) or very specific (like “write three chapters on the adult thriller this week”). They can even just be something like “commit to writing every day from 10 a.m. until 11:30 a.m.” (I know that’s wonderfully specific; it’s the time I write with my online writing group, so it’s an actual commitment I’ve made.) It can even look like improving specific skills, like character development or plotting or the musicality of language.
All of that is progress. And the good news is, we control our progress.
3. Network goals.
In the daily work of writing and revising, I often forget how much control I have over networking. We network in many different ways—through social media and in person at conferences and local writing organization meetings. But if you’re like me, you might feel a little inhibited meeting new writers. I often hear those negative voices that say, She’s a big-time author. Why would she want to talk to you?
But authors are regular people, too. Don’t forget that (I’m reminding myself, too). So the next time you or I second-guess ourselves when meeting and networking with a new author, I want us to remember it never hurts to introduce ourselves.
I can tell you countless stories of times I saw another, seemingly more successful author and I thought, “I’m a no-name. Why would she talk to me?”—but I introduced myself anyway, and we’re good friends to this day. Most authors are generous, friendly people. Give yourself a chance to discover that.
I hope your new year is off to a fantastic start. I’d love to hear some of your writing goals if you’d like to share them.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading: I recently finished (and totally loved) Sandy Stark-McGinnis’s Extraordinary Birds, about a girl in foster care who dreams of flying and the journey she takes into self love, acceptance, and trusting the people in her life, after her early trust was broken by her mother. Sad, poetic, imaginative, sweet, and redemptive (but no easy, tied-up-perfectly happy ending)—it was everything I want in a middle grade book. (And my kids loved it, too!) Stark-McGinnis is also the author of The Space Between Lost and Found, which is now on my TBR list.
2. Reading: Rebecca Solnit is such a captivating writer. In Orwell’s Roses, she examines the life of George Orwell—his political writings and his personal love for roses. Infused in that examination—which already makes the book well worth a read—she includes tidbits about the history of roses, their manufacture, art that contains roses, and all sorts of ways they bring pleasure and beauty to the world. It was a lovely read that will inform my re-readings of 1984 and Animal Farm, perhaps this year.
3. Watching: I recently finished watching Mrs. America, on Hulu, and I am so sad it’s over. It was a limited series that told the story of the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, through the eyes of feminists like Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Jill Ruckelshaus, and Bella Abzug and also the leading opposition of the movement, Phyllis Schlafly, who led the conservative women against the ERA. It was fascinating. I knew the story already, from research and obsession, but seeing it dramatized was a delight. Cate Blanchett plays Phyllis Schlafly, Rose Byrne plays Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba plays Shirley Chisholm, Elizabeth Banks plays Jill Ruckelshaus—and there were many more stars included. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed it. I’ll be watching it with my husband and with my sons, because it’s an important history to know and understand. Watch it!
4. Listening: Do you know the German singer-songwriter Zoe Wees? Oh my goodness, is this young woman talented. I first stumbled upon her song, “Control,” which struck me as being about anxiety (and really connected with both me and my 13-year-old, who also struggles with anxiety). And she did it again, with another chart-topping hit, “Daddy’s Eyes,” which made me cry the first time I heard it. Check her out. You won’t be sorry.
5. Ellen Outside the Lines, by A.J. Sass (middle grade) was the kind of book that every kid should read at least once in their lifetime—to understand themselves, or, if they don’t struggle with issues of identity and sexuality, to understand what their peers may be going through. It may have been one of the best middle grade books I’ve ever read about a neurodivergent MC who’s exploring her sexuality and gender. I can’t wait to share it with my kids.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Do you make goals for your new year?
I’m one of those people who takes the last couple of weeks of the old year so she can look forward to the brand-new slate of a new year and dream and make goals and plan on the next year’s calendars she bought back in July. I look forward to this time with an almost giddy excitement.
Most years.
This year I found myself almost…apathetic about the whole process. Which is significantly out of character.
As a person who deals with clinical depression, anxiety, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I am accustomed to these ebbs and flows of emotion and mood. Sometimes it’s the season of year that brings on a depressive episode. Sometimes overwhelm sends me into a tailspin of obsession. Sometimes it’s completely unpredictable what sets off an anxiety attack or a mood. You mostly learn to live with them.
I had lots of things going on at the end of my year. My family’s schedule was almost laughably busy, in spite of my hard work and intention to make it less so. Family members and friends were dealing with heavy personal issues. It wouldn’t stop raining.
Whatever the reason for my apathy, I found myself at a loss. While I usually have no problem listing out new year’s goals for my career and my personal life and my fitness and my family unit, I couldn’t seem to focus enough to write down even one.
And then I read this from writer Anne Lamott: “I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life’s work.”
I thought that quote would make a perfect springboard for this year’s goals.
I broke my goals down into three parts:
Be here now.
As a task-oriented, always-planning person, this is one of the hardest parts of the equation for me (but I bet, by the end of this, I’ll say that about every piece). Anchoring myself to a moment is challenging.
My mind wanders two minutes into a ten-minute explanation from my sixteen-year-old on the new stuff he added to the video game he’s writing and designing. One question from one of my kids leads to a hundred different streams of thought firing in my brain. I have a busybody brain. Keeping it here, now, is a work in progress.
But I want to do more of that this year. I want to be here now. (At the end of this email, I’ll share some of the specific ways I’ll work to do that—and ways you might, too.)
Love as if your whole life depended on it.
Some days I feel like I do a good (enough) job loving the people in my life. Many days I feel like I fall short—which my therapist assures me is not true. I may fall short of my own standards, but I don’t fall short.
See, I have an unrealistic idea of what love is supposed to look like. It never gets angry at my children. It always supports my husband. It never thinks, I wish they would leave me alone so I could have a minute to myself.
But when we live in relationship with other people, there are bound to be moments when we’re so tired of each other’s company we could scream (into a pillow). When we annoy each other. When one of us says something we didn’t mean. Love is not perfect. And if I expect it to be, then I will never feel like I’m loving enough.
So I love the best way I can, as though my life depends on it.
And this is another layer to love: removing perfection from the love equation is a way I can better love myself.
Find your life’s work.
I am incredibly grateful that I have found my life’s work. Writing is my passion. It’s my purpose. It’s how I leave my mark on the world, spread love, and hopefully heal some of the broken places that exist in the lives of real people.
But I want to be excellent at that life’s work. I want to grow and constantly improve in it. I want to be teachable and recognize my weaker skills so I can work to strengthen them.
These seem like overarching goals that will take longer than a year. And of course they are and will. And that’s what finally excited me about this year’s goals: They reminded me that I’m a constant work in progress, that there’s always room for improvement.
That may seem daunting to some. But I’d argue it’s a cause for hope.
We live in a huge world that needs us all. There’s still work to be done. Let’s commit to doing it in the new year.
Here are some ways I’ll be working toward my goals this year.
1. Be here now
One of the ways I practice being in the moment is through meditation and yoga. Meditation trains the mind to focus in a distraction-heavy world. Yoga connects the mind, body, and breath to the moment.
While I practice long yoga sessions, I have yet to do a meditation session that lasts longer than ten minutes. So this year I’d like to try three-to-six 20-minute meditation sessions. (If you’re wondering what program/app I use, it’s Apple Fitness+. They offer both yoga and meditation with some amazing trainers, and they’re phenomenal sessions. Just don’t ask to see my crow pose…yet.)
2. Love
I want to practice healthier self-talk this year. You know the saying, “Don’t say anything to or about yourself that you wouldn’t say to or about a friend”? That’s never worked for me. My negative voices are incredibly negative..and persistent.
So this year I’ll be working on a cognitive behavior therapy technique that stops (or at least lessens the frequency and power of) the negative voices. Every time one harasses me, I’ll say (or think forcefully), STOP! And then What is actually true here? If it helps, I’ll journal my responses; sometimes my brain can be better tamed when I write. It’s very strong-willed.
3. Improve my life’s work
This year I’d like to practice writing shorter pieces. I dipped a toe into short-form writing at the end of last year, but I want to do more of it. And share more of it—which could be good or very bad for you, depending on how well or disastrous my experiments turn out to be.
Writing short fiction can help me improve one of my biggest struggles as a writer: tight plotting. Character, emotional journey, setting, dialogue—all of those things come easily for me. I have to work significantly harder at the external journey, plotting, and pacing. So I’m hoping short fiction will help me exercise those skills more consistently and help me grow in them.
What about you? What are some of your new year’s goals? How do you plan to execute them?
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
Since you’re having such a wonderfully imaginative September, I wanted to send a short-ish note about collecting ideas.
Collecting ideas, for me, is incredibly important. I don’t ever want my ideas to slip through my unprepared fingers.
But we’ve all been there: Washing the dishes when a brilliant idea crashes into our brain regarding how to motivate our kids to pick up after themselves. In the shower when we solve the problem in our story that’s been stumping us for the last week. Awake in bed, in a dark room, our partner sleeping beside us while we might have solved the world’s climate crisis (I wish that would happen for me. Truly.).
I am of the opinion that every idea deserves to be captured, no judgment. I write down every idea that comes to me, regardless of whether it ever progresses beyond just an idea.
There are, today, many different ways to capture ideas. And, again, I’m going to be super helpful and say: It depends on what works best for you. But here are some ideas.
1. Paper and pen
This is my preferred method of capturing ideas, whether it’s brand-new story ideas, ideas for the stories I already have in process, things relating to family and the home, relationships, etc. I have multiple file folders labeled “story ideas,” “meal plans,” “family issues,” “poetry ideas,” “summer” (yes, it needed its own folder). I also keep multiple journals with quotes that spark ideas. These ideas, which are rarely developed beyond a line or two, go on pieces of printer paper, with plenty of room for elaboration. I also carry index cards and a pen bag around with me everywhere I go. And a stack of notecards in the drawer of my bedside table. Preparation wins.
2. Phone, computer or other tech
You can do all of the above with your phone or computer or iPad or whatever tech you desire. There is absolutely nothing wrong with capturing ideas this way, and in some ways it might be better (you’re not using paper, and you don’t have to flip through a ton of papers and sort through folders when you’re trying to find something specific). I just don’t happen to gravitate toward technology naturally; when an idea strikes from nowhere, I reach for a pen, not my phone. My husband is the complete opposite. And he uses the voice recording feature on his phone to record melodies for songs, even if there are no lyrics—which you can’t do on paper. I mean, I guess you could, but it would be much more time-consuming.
3. A mix of both
Maybe, in certain instances, one might work better than the other. This is why I say it’s an experimental process and that we each have to find what works best for us.
But in order for it to become an experimental process, it first has to become a habit. Build the habit, put the process in place, and you’ll start collecting more ideas than you know what to do with.
There’s a mysterious, magnetizing effect ideas have when you start collecting them. It almost makes a person wonder if the ideas appreciate your acknowledgment and thus attract more.
I hope we all say, “My mind is wide open! Bring on the ideas!”
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading: I really enjoyed Amy Sarig King’s middle grade book, The Year We Fell From Space. I know I’ve been like an A.S. King super-fan lately, but she’s so good at stories for young adults and adolescents. If you’re looking for a great book for adolescents or to read for yourself, or you’re looking for a good mentor text, check this one out. Or just read through King’s entire backlog. It’s worth it. Trust me.
2. Reading + Watching: A couple years ago I read The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy With Autism, by Naoki Higashida. I cried. I laughed. I felt thankful that a book like this existed in the world. And then this summer my kids and I watched the Netflix documentary based on the book. And I cried. And laughed. And I felt thankful that a documentary like this existed in the world. As the mom of a kid on the autism spectrum both the book and the documentary were beautiful inside looks into the minds of young adults with autism. After watching the documentary, my 13-year-old said, “So much more makes sense now.” He understood his brother better—and other people in his life. That’s worth a watch for sure.
3. Reading: “There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.” Ten Steps to Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby, is probably one of the best memoirs I’ve read in a long time. I was introduced to Gadsby probably like most people were—after her Netflix comedy special, “Nanette.” It made me laugh and cry and feel so many things. Her book is the same. It’s a profound look at neurodiversity and LGBTQ+ identity that’s also funny and charming. She reads her own audiobook—well worth the listen.
4. Watching: On the subject of documentaries, another the family and I watched this summer that’s well worth the watch is Youth V Gov on Netflix. It’s about a group of kids who brought a lawsuit against the federal government for actively working to make the climate crisis worse and, in the process, endangering their future health and well being. My kids were inspired by the young advocates and started talking about ways they could work in their own communities to make change.
5. Reading: I guess I was on a memoir/nonfiction kick this month, because I also read Managing Expectations: a Memoir in Essays, by Minnie Driver. It was another entertaining, emotional book, surprisingly accessible though Driver is a celebrity with a completely different life than the one I live. She’s down to earth, wise, and kind and compassionate in her relationships. I read the audiobook, which Driver reads herself (and her accent makes it a lovely read).
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is meaning to one’s life.”
—Viktor E. Frankl
Ever since I read this quote, I have been turning it over and over in my head. It rings true to me, deep down. We all live through countless challenges. Some of us have lived through multiple traumas. What helps us survive the hardest things?
Meaning.
But what is meaning?
That’s the question I wanted to answer after Viktor E. Frankl’s words got stuck on repeat.
And what does it mean to have meaning to your life?
These are questions the great philosophers of every age have tried to answer. And the difficult and freeing thing about philosophy is that there is no one right answer.
We all find different meaning to our lives. And sometimes, as we grow and change, the meaning to our lives grows and changes.
When I consider the meaning to my life, I find myself asking more questions. What is my purpose? What have I been put on this earth to do? How can I make the world a better, kinder, more just, more egalitarian, more enlightened, more loving place?
Your questions may look the same, or they may look entirely different. But I believe they all boil down to one overarching question: Why am I here?
We find meaning to our lives in purpose.
It’s not always easy to figure out or even remember our purpose, especially when we have brain disorders. Depression often clouds our purpose. OCD yells too loudly to hear it. Anxiety spirals too strong a whirlpool to clearly see it. But on our good days, we probably know why we’re here.
To love the people around us.
To remember we belong to each other.
To repair the broken places of the world.
The spread light and love and hope and compassion and acceptance and wonder and meaning.
There it is again: meaning.
When we know our lives have meaning—that there is a purpose to our existence, that we are important and necessary to a world that doesn’t always make us feel important and necessary—we can, as Frankl said, “survive even the worst conditions.”
How do we find our purpose? We look inside ourselves. And if our hearts and minds are too cloudy to see it, we ask someone who loves us and knows us. Why do you think I’m here? What value do I bring to the world?
Sometimes we forget our purpose, the meaning to our lives. It’s good to have someone else to ask, even if they don’t know the exact right answer. They can set us back on the path to discovery.
And when we find our purpose and meaning—whether through someone else or through our own self-reflection, it’s worthwhile to write it down. Keep it in a special folder or hang it on a bulletin board. Read it every night before you go to sleep.
Because challenges will come again. We’ll forget who we are and why we’re here. And we’ll need reminders.
I hope you always know how important you are to the world. Happy holidays.
Some questions to help your journey:
Sometimes writing can help us lock in on a purpose.
Here are some hopefully helpful questions to ask yourself in the quest to discover your purpose and the meaning to your life. Journal your answers. Pay attention to recurring themes. Remember, always, that you are vital and irreplaceable. No one else can be you. No one else can do what you do. No one else can accomplish your purpose.
1. Why am I here?
This can often be a difficult question to answer—and it may change during the seasons of life. If you’re having trouble answering it yourself, ask a partner or a close friend or family member. As mentioned above, sometimes others can see our purpose more clearly than we can. At least they can provide us with a springboard for deeper thought and reflection.
2. What do I love doing?
Considering what we enjoy doing can lead us to the cross-section where our passion meets our purpose. Passion provides meaning to our lives; if we find ourselves in a place where we lack passion for our work or our everyday lives, we’ve probably lost sight of the meaning to our lives. Reconnecting to that passion can help us reconnect to meaning and remember who we are and why we do what we do.
3. How do I want to impact the world?
Connecting why we’re here and our passion with a deeper purpose—like writing truth in our stories or enlightening people with our poetry or spreading compassion and love—can often lend a deeper meaning to our lives. There may be many people who desire to spread the message to kids that they deserve love just for being themselves—but no one can do it the exact same way I can. They do it their way. I do it mine—which means I’m necessary, too. And my life has meaning.
It’s the same for you. You have meaning to your life. We all do; we just have to look deep inside ourselves and find it. And embrace it. And live it.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
We are all born with a giant measure of creativity.
Of course that creativity looks different from person to person. Some use their creative brains to write fantastical or realistic stories. Some use creativity to draw portraits or dance on stage or act. Some use it for science and technology, psychology or caretaking.
Any time we problem solve, we are using our creative brains.
It’s true that we don’t always feel creative. Sometimes we feel the very opposite of creative. I often feel the very opposite of creative when I’m tired or overwhelmed or burned out and running on fumes or when one of my sons talks to me for an hour and a half about some video game I know nothing about.
How do we spark our imaginations when we feel decidedly un-creative?
Well, like most things regarding creativity, it doesn’t come down to an exact science. It will vary from person to person. But there are some things science says can help.
Like doing some other creative thing that isn’t directly related to the creative thing we’re trying to do. For example, when I feel un-creative in my writing, sometimes I take a step away from whatever project I’m working on and focus on something else that requires my creative brain—baking, drawing (although I’m not good at it; I just play around), or, sometimes, sewing bags and self-designed things I might use later as holiday gifts.
I have a friend who crocheted dragons with her newest Dragons chapter book. (They are super cute. She is amazingly talented.)
Time away is helpful. Sometimes all it takes to get the imagination back online is to take a break from our creations. It could be a short five-minute break or a rest-of-the-day break because we recognize we may be pushing ourselves too hard or putting too much pressure on ourselves. It could be a week-long vacation where we immerse ourselves in another routine entirely.
Movement also sparks the imagination. Science shows that when we take a walk or go on a run or stretch out into a yoga flow, it sends more blood to the brain. And more blood to the brain means we have a greater capacity for creative thinking. Schedule a break and take a vigorous walk. When you’re done, return to your project. I bet you’ll have all sorts of new ideas.
It’s probably no surprise that a reading or music break helps ignite the imagination. It can seem counterintuitive to creative pursuits, but our consuming can distract our more logical, conscious mind and allow the subconscious mind an opportunity to play freely. And the books we read, the music we listen to, the shows we watch (so long as we don’t spend all our time consuming) can potentially inform our creativity and unlock ideas for our ongoing projects. When I read books like Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste or Rosalind Miles’s The Women’s History of the Modern World, or anything by A.S. King, my brain is filing information and techniques and new ideas in some cabinet, to be used later. It’s magical.
I’ve included more suggestions below. But this is something about which we’ll have to be experimental. Paying attention to the things that light up your imagination are important. Become your own detective.
May you have a joyfully imaginative month.
Here are more ideas for sparking your creativity:
1. Using prompts
Writer’s Digest posts a weekly prompt that I’ll check out now and then. But we can also make our own—looking at photos or pieces of art (in poetry, this is called an Ekphrastic poem). I have some daily desk calendars—one features a new vocabulary word and another shares a quote from a semi-famous person—that I’ll use as inspiration for creative projects (in fact, the vocabulary one inspired a YA book that I just finished, in which every chapter is a new vocabulary word). Prompts and visual art can often kick-start our creativity.
WD prompts: https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/poetry-prompts
2. Visualization
It sounds a little weird, but sometimes when I’m stuck in a creative project I will lie down on my bedroom floor, close my eyes, and visualize my characters interacting with each other. Sometimes I’ll turn this into a meditation session. Or sometimes I’ll do an actual meditation session, without thinking about anything related to my project. Just getting the mind free and clear of all its daily junk can be useful for freeing up the space needed for greater measures of creativity.
Playing with the kids. Or doing what-if scenarios with the kids.
3. Music
I mentioned this earlier, but music can really get the brain firing. If you feel stuck, take some time away to make playlists. Sometimes I’ll make playlists for the books I’m working on. Music has a magical ability to make us feel more relaxed and open to the world around us. If you’re writing words, though, wordless music would probably be best. But there’s some great inspirational music (I’m thinking John Williams and Danny Elfman.)
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. “The door is open. Go.” I recently finished Louise Erdrich’s masterpiece The Sentence. This is the first pandemic book I’ve read, and it’s probably the only one I want to read. Erdrich handled it so graciously and gently and somewhat peripherally, framed around a beautiful story about a bookstore and a ghost and love. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Night Watchman (which is also a masterpiece). Next up on my list is her novel, The Round House, which won the National Book Award in 2012. For more entertainment, here’s Ann Patchett and Louise Erdrich discussing The Sentence.
2. Every Tuesday morning during the summer my family and I watch a documentary or docuseries together. So far we’re wading through High Score (Netflix), which traces the history of video games; Welcome to Earth (Disney+/National Geographic), which is a look at some of Earth’s amazing places and mysteries, hosted by Will Smith; We Are the Champions (Netflix), a sometimes humorous look at the world’s most unique and bizarre competitions (you must watch the Cheese rolling episode); The Great British Baking Show (Netflix), a competition show that features bakers baking cakes, cookies, breads and all sorts of desserts in sometimes humorously disastrous ways; and The World According to Jeff Goldblum (Disney+), a charming docuseries that takes ordinary topics and explores the connections of history and science to make a fascinating trip through the world. We’re thoroughly enjoying all of these documentaries.
3. I know, I know. I had an article from National Geographic in last month’s newsletter. But I really do enjoy this magazine. And July’s cover was so arresting I couldn’t help but share about it. The cover photo featured Chasinghorse, an Indigenous model and activist, and was taken from the cover story, “We Are Here,” which explored how North America’s Native nations are reasserting their sovereignty. It was a fascinating look at this important culture and the ways Native nations are keeping their culture alive. If you don’t subscribe to the magazine, I’m sure your local library does; check it out there. You don’t want to miss this story. Here’s a little background on it, as well as a short interview with Chasinghorse.
4. “The way to keep going? Never stop reading. Say more than you thought you knew how to say in sentences better than you ever imagined for the reader who reads between the lines.” Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing was one of the most enjoyable books about writing that I’ve read in a long time. It’s a short book packed with wisdom about writing short sentences and communicating clearly. A great read for both beginners and seasoned writers.
5. “Sometimes a person who has survived losing everything builds the hardest shell over the tenderest soul.” It’s been a while since I’ve read a young adult novel I liked as much as Cory Anderson’s What Beauty There Is (with the exception of all A.S. King’s books). This book was a 2022 William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist, and it’s easy to see why. It’s full of poetry and motion and tells the story of a boy, a girl, and survival. Highly recommended for those who read and write YA.
