by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I recently returned to work from a Sabbatical week. During this Sabbatical week, I took luxurious naps and read for hours on end and hung out with my kids and watched documentaries and ate good food (probably too much) and rested as well as I could.
I still feel tired.
I’m realizing, once again, that it’s the world that makes me tired.
The world makes a lot of us tired.
What is happening in the world encroaches on the safe spaces I draw around my life, my work, my heart. I want to distance myself from it all. I want to ignore it. Pretend it isn’t happening. I want to believe this is just the way it is, that I won’t be able to change anything.
That’s just because I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting for the things I believe in. I’m tired of trying to stand strong when so many want to knock me down. I’m tired of trying to teach my kids how to be kind, compassionate, loving activists in a world that shows them something completely different, everywhere they turn.
Maybe you can relate.
But just because I’m tired doesn’t mean I can quit. Just because we’re tired doesn’t mean we can quit.
Obviously, we can’t fix every problem we find in the world. That would take a thousand of us, and probably that many lifetimes. But we can pick our focus.
On a recent walk, my husband asked me, “If you could pick one issue to focus on, and you knew someone else would focus on the other issues important to you, which one would you pick?”
I said, “Only one?”
I broke the rules, of course. I told him I’d focus on women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and environmental issues to combat climate change. (There are many other issues I care about, but if I knew someone else was taking care of them, these are the top three I’d put my energy into.)
I used to write beat poetry inspired by issues I read about in the newspaper. I likened myself to the old beat poets, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Hirschman and Diane de Prima and Joanne Kyger and Jack Kerouac. They wrote poetry as an activist act or as protests or to rally a cry for better treatments and policies (among other things).
I used to share my beat poetry. I was called an aggressive feminist, a misguided liberal, a disgusting man-hater, a disgrace to my husband and children (!!). By people I knew, people I didn’t know, people I’d served with in ministry for decades.
I lost my courage for a while.
But I think I’m finding it again.
I’ve picked up my beat pen. I’ve started writing that pointed poetry again. I’ve begun using my voice in louder (and softer) ways. It’s what I can do. It’s my way to speak up. It’s where I can make a difference.
The haters win when they silence you.
We can take heart from Jesse Jackson, an American civil rights activist and minister: “Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high; stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don’t you surrender!”
I find courage in the words of Thema Bryant-Davis, an American psychologist and minister: “Outlast the heartbreak and disappointment. Dare to believe there are beautiful moments ahead.”
And I find hope in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt: “I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.”
I hope we all do the very best we can while choosing to be the most loving, accepting, and understanding people we can be.
Light shines through compassion and love. Shine your heart out.
Question: Where will you funnel your focus? How will you make the world a kinder, more compassionate, more loving, more equitable place?
Small things that add up to big things. That’s how I think about what I can contribute to a cause. I’m not a politician. Sure, I can march and write my representatives and use my voice, but, you know, life gets in the way. So what are some small things we can do that can make a small—or maybe large—difference?
1. Use your gifts.
Maybe you don’t write like I do, or maybe you do. Use your writing. Use your art. Use your creative brain. Use your wicked math skills. Use your creative problem solving. Use your scientific proclivities. Use your self. Be yourself. Share yourself. Share your heart. Do no harm. There are a thousand little things we can do, every day, that might one day add up to something big.
2. Find local ways to get involved.
Maybe it’s the local school board, or attending a meeting to say your piece. Maybe you go to a city council meeting. Maybe you help your city vote on where its city budget dollars should be allocated. Maybe you raise your voice in local marches and peaceable demonstrations. All of these can help you feel like you’re less alone, that you have support around you, and that you are connected to others—and to the issues important to you—in ways that will make a positive difference.
3. Take care of yourself.
When you stand for anything, people will also stand against you. We can’t be brave all the time. It’s okay to take time away from our causes, to refresh and reconnect with the people who love us. To care for ourselves. To take some breaths and protect our hearts and remember that we are amazing and worthy and important, too. And when our strength is shored up, we get back out there and keep sharing our hearts.
by Rachel Toalson | Writing tips
Now that my kids have been back in school for a while, I am settling into my schedule, trying to use my time as wisely as I can and be as productive as possible.
As a task-oriented person, I have a slight productivity advantage over personalities like my husband’s. He tends toward, “I’ll get done whatever I get done, and no more or less. No expectations. We’ll see what happens.” That’s too ambiguous for me.
There are, of course, advantages that his personality has over mine (I’m reminded of this any time I try to take a day off or we go on vacation), so I don’t want you to hear that one personality is better than the other; that’s not what I’m saying at all.
I do, however, want to share some of my favorite productivity hacks, in hopes that some of them might be helpful to you.
1. Try a schedule.
I know some people cringe at being locked into a schedule. For some it can seem like a prison of sorts. I have to write every day from 10 to 11:30 a.m.? What if something comes up? What if I don’t feel like it? What if…?
I won’t say that this schedule won’t be interrupted now and then. If a teacher calls because my kid has a fever, I obviously have to go pick him up. But having that dedicated time to write, every day, helps when I’m making yearly doctor checkups and scheduling meetings with friends; I schedule around it. It is sacred writing time.
Beyond that, scheduling my days helps me make the most of my time. I schedule workout time, writing time, break time, yoga and stretching time, short walks through the wilderness time. You can even schedule social media time if you so desire. Knowing where your hours go is helpful when you’re trying to accomplish big things with a very tight schedule.
2. Know what you’re going to work on before you sit down (or stand up) to work.
Before I put away my week’s work for the weekend, I always look ahead to the next week and plan. I figure out the projects that will take precedence (I work on multiple projects at a time, which helps me do my best work—but also doesn’t work for everyone). I assign one project to each writing session (I have three sessions during the school year and two during the summer). I plan my business tasks. Then I put my work away and wait until next week to pick it up again.
Planning before my work time begins helps me save time trying to decide, in the moment, what I want to work on. It reinforces the habit and discipline of sticking with a project to the finish. And it means when I have dedicated writing time, during which I’m making lots of decisions for my plot and characters and words, I don’t have to preface all that work with a decision about which project I should pick up—which can often feel intimidating and hinder our starting in the first place.
3. Take breaks and get enough sleep.
It might seem strange to include this suggestion in a piece about productivity. Shouldn’t you want to use all your hours to create? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate productivity win?
No! Contrary to the American way, our productivity is directly tied to how rested and invigorated our mind is. When we burn the candle at both ends (even during a regular eight-hour work day), we risk burnout. It’s practically impossible to create effectively with a brain and mind and body that’s burned out and exhausted.
Schedule regular breaks. Take a quick walk. Meditate. Play a game of Wall Ball with your kids. Sit down at the piano and play for five minutes. Get a snack. Stepping away from your desk for even a few minutes can help reinvigorate you so you’re ready to work smart.
These are not all of my productivity hacks, but I hope they help you in a small way (or a very big way!) this month.
Happy creating!
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading: I recently finished Simu Liu’s memoir, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story. It was both heartbreaking and inspiring, if a book can be such a thing. Liu shares about his family’s immigration to Canada, his fraught relationship with his high-expectation parents, and his difficult journey into acting. I loved everything about it—his humor, his humility, and most of all his hope. I listened to the audiobook on long runs, and his emotional sections were…well, let’s just say it was hard to breathe during those long runs when I heard his voice crack with pain. So, so good.
2. Reading: On the middle grade side, I thoroughly enjoyed Sal & Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez. It’s a book published by the Rick Riordan imprint, and it was a hilarious romp through the multiverse. I don’t generally pick up science fiction, but this one was well worth it. There’s a sequel, Sal & Gabi Fix the Universe, and that’s next on my list. I suspect it will be just as hilarious as the first. And who doesn’t need a little humor fiction?
3. Watching: Every Friday, while I’m huffing and puffing on the elliptical (after a 10-mile warmup run), I watch the Netflix series Call the Midwife. I am so glad I didn’t watch this series before I had babies, because it is terrifying, all the things that can go wrong during a birth—granted it takes place during the 1950s and 1960s. The characters and their arcs are so sweet and intriguing, and each episode has a wonderful story to tell about life and love and joy. I’ve gotten emotional so many times watching this series, and I’m only on Season 2. And they just announced the 11th season—which means other people like it as much as I do. I highly recommend it!
4. Reading: Another great middle grade book I recently finished is Lisa Jenn Bigelow’s Hazel’s Theory of Evolution, a book that covers family, friendship, and the unpredictability of life. I loved the way Bigelow explored intersectionality in a way that would be understandable for young readers—and would promote empathy and acceptance for the peers in their midst. I’m always looking for books like these to share with my kids, and this one I’ve recommended to my fifth, seventh, and eighth graders.
5. Listening: Looking for some great tunes to add to your playlist? Try Banners (actual name: Michael Joseph Nelson, but all his music is under “Banners.”). “Someone to You” is the first song of his I heard, and I was hooked. My kids and I were actually watching the trailer for the Apple Original animated movie Luck (also recommended), and this song was the backdrop. We had to know who it was, so I “searched it up,” as my kids say. Apparently he’s been around for a while. So I took a deep dive, as one is prone to do. Banners just released a new single, “Happier,” and it’s fantastic too. Download his music wherever you get your music. And happy listening!
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I’ve been pondering some deep things lately.
I recently finished Simu Liu’s memoir, We Were Dreamers: an Immigrant Superhero Origin Story. Liu is probably best known for his role as the Marvel superhero Shang-Chi. But you might also know him from the TV show Kim’s Convenience.
Liu’s memoir was an inspiring read about the life of an Asian immigrant in the acting world.
He was thrown into fame after his role in the Marvel universe. And that got me thinking: What must it be like to be a superhero? To be known as someone so great (even if it’s fiction)? To be seen and, consequently, known?
I know only a mere fraction of that notoriety. I’ve visited my kids’ schools and talked about my books. Occasionally, when I’m walking my young ones to school and I pass kids who have been in one of my talks, I’ll hear them whisper to their friends, “That’s the author, remember?” I find myself standing a little straighter, speaking more gently to my children, smiling a little more.
My mode of operation is to stay out of the spotlight. I like existing behind the scenes. But I also have big ambitions. I want to make a difference in the world. And to do that, I’m beginning to think you need to be known.
Trust me, I know how uncomfortable this can make some of us feel. When I get a big idea, like I should do a school visit and talk about compassion and love, I immediately think, But there are so many people who would do a much better job at it than I would.
There are so many who know more, have done more, who are more.
Really, when we think this way, we are just discounting ourselves. Negating our greatness. Succumbing to our insecurities.
“Be immeasurably great, be unfathomably deep,” said the ancient Chinese philosopher Han Fei.
How? I want to ask him. It often feels impossible.
But here’s the thing: We are all immeasurably great, in our own unique ways. Some of us are great speakers, some of us are great listeners—we need both. Some of us are great teachers, some of us are great learners—we need both. Some of us are great dreamers, some of us are great doers—we need both. And some of us are both.
We are all great. So that leaves “be unfathomably deep.” And that’s the real work. Because to become unfathomably deep, we have to reach out. We have to listen. We have to learn. We have to be seen, and, more than that, we have to be known. We become unfathomably deep in the relationships we have with each other, in the forgiveness and compassion and understanding and love and generosity we extend to each other.
I’m not sure there’s another way. Knowledge only takes us so far. Notoriety only takes us so far. Achievement only takes us so far.
We plant ourselves into the soil together, and that’s how we reach deeper and stand taller and survive the storms of doubt and insecurity to become a world-changer.
No one can do it alone.
I hope you have a wonderful month of rich and meaningful connection.
What one step can you take today to become “unfathomably deep?”
Here are some ideas:
1. Make a lunch date with a friend or partner
It’s hard to find the time, isn’t it? We’re all so busy with our own lives, it can seem practically impossible to schedule a lunch or breakfast date with a friend we haven’t seen in a while. My husband and I have been trying to find a day we can have some old friends over for dinner, and we’ve been searching for three weeks, trying to line up schedules. But it’s worth the pursuit. Not only do those relationships need nurturing, but we need the presence of other people, to help us remember we are made for each other.
2. Join a new group of like-minded people
I know, I know. I’m not a group person. But I do belong to a writing group of really lovely people. We meet every morning at 10 a.m., and we write and then we chat about our lives. One of the writers this week said, “Sometimes I feel like this is a good therapy session. There are things I tell you all that I don’t tell anybody else.” And I feel the same way. We all happen to be writers, which means we all understand the ups and downs of writing and publishing, and there is something really special about that. It’s important that we find places of belonging. Among like-minded people is one of the best places to do that.
3. Invest time in young people
I have a large family, which means any time we eat together it counts as a group gathering. We talk around our dinner table about silly stuff, like how to fit twelve grapes in your mouth, and we talk about serious things, like what it means to support a transgender friend going through a rough season of life. Sometimes my kids surprise me with the wisdom that comes out of their mouths. Childlike simplicity is often the best answer to complicated questions. We’ll never know whether or not it is if we don’t invest in the young people in our lives.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading: One of the best books I’ve read so far this summer is Kelly Barnhill’s adult novel When Women Were Dragons. Barnhill is the Newbery award winning author of the middle grade novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon (also a beautifully written book), as well as Iron Hearted Violet, and The Witch’s Boy, both of which I’ve read aloud to my children. Her adult novel is clever, entertaining, philosophically inventive, and (my favorite) delightfully feminist. I loved it so much I recommended it to my husband (who reads about four books a year, so I have to be picky what I recommend. Another recommendation, which he read, was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists). I said, “This is one of the books you have to read this year.” So there you go.
2. Reading: The July issue of National Geographic had a fascinating story on the power of touch. I’ve said it before in this newsletter: National Geographic is probably one of the most enjoyable magazine subscriptions I have. Unfortunately, you can’t read the article without a subscription, but this free article provides some of the thoughts underlining the larger article and is just as fascinating. They also published a podcast exploring the science of a mechanic who lost his hand in an accident, getting the sensation of touch restored in a prosthesis. Science is amazing, isn’t it?
3. Reading: Mark Bittman, who’s best known for his cookbooks, published a book last year called Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal. I finally got around to reading it, and wow. This was the first time I’ve read about (or even thought about) the history of food—how we became farmers, why processed food came into the picture, and how the food system highlights inequality and injustice. It was illuminating and very interesting. You may not be a food nerd like me, but it’s still worth a read, for the history and justice-minded solutions presented.
4. Watching: If you’re a writer, you need BookEnds Literary YouTube. BookEnds Literary Agency publishes videos about how to get a literary agent, how to tell when your book’s done, why revisions are important, answers to rights questions, and a whole slew of information that’s helpful for anyone new to the business or even those who have been in it for a while and have questions about whether or not the way things are working is “normal.” (There is no normal is the short answer to that.)
5. Reading: Liane Moriarty is one of my favorite adult writers, and her newest book, Apples Never Fall, is one of the best I’ve read of hers. She has this way of expanding on human nature and really exposing every side of her characters that’s simply delightful. Other favorites includes Big Little Lies, The Husband’s Secret, and Truly Madly Guilty.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Back before I published my first book in the traditional publishing world, I had erroneous ideas about what publishing would mean. I thought, for example, that when the first book launched into the world, I would have “arrived.” I would have “made it.” I would have joined the world of…well, it was vague, what that glamorous world of Published Author looked like.
Nothing really changed. I had some launch parties, I signed some books, and I wrote my next book. I did not become famous (not that I would want to be famous—although name recognition, at least, would be nice). I did not move up an income bracket. I did not earn fewer arguments with and tantrums from my children.
I could have let myself feel disappointed. Let down. Betrayed by a dream I’d had since I was four and read my first book all by myself. But I moved on.
That’s the thing about goals: their end point keeps changing. Especially when they’re muddied up by unrealistic expectations.
Once upon a time, I had a goal to become a published author. Then I had a goal to be a doubly published author (meaning, two books out in the world). Then I realized I needed to start making better goals.
It’s good to have quantifiable goals—this many products sold, this many words written in a day, this grade on a test or a project, this much money saved in a month. You can “arrive” at the endpoint of these goals. The endpoint may not look anything like you thought it would. Maybe it looks exactly like you thought it would. But you’re still not finished, not by a long shot.
That’s part of our purpose in life—the unfinished business. The open-ended goals. “Just keep swimming,” as Dory says. Keep creating. Keep working to make the world a better place. Keep being you.
The hardest goals to define are the stretchy ones. Stretchy goals are the ones that keep changing. Growing with us. The ones that never seem finished, no matter how long or hard we work on them.
Stretchy goals can be like my “Become a better writer every book I write.” Or “Make better financial decisions.” Or “Eat cleaner today than I did yesterday.”
There’s this concept in yoga (or at least I was introduced to it in my yoga practice) of becoming one percent better. Be one percent better today than you were yesterday—in money decisions, with your work, when you’re eating, when you’re being a friend or a sibling or a parent. “One percent better” is a stretchy goal.
The best goals, in my opinion, are the ones that have no exact arrival point, either because the end goal keeps stretching or because the end goal is unquantifiable. Like the goal of improvement. How do you know when you have “arrived”? We will never be perfect.
It’s really more about the journey than the end goal, anyway. The journey to our goal is what shapes us and makes us who we are.
Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my favorite poets, famously said, “Live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
We live the journey, and we might eventually find the arrival gate. Or not.
Some of my current “journeys” or “stretchy goals”
1. Fuel my body better.
As a person who has struggled with anorexia for most of my life, I don’t have a great relationship with food. I’m not sure if I ever will. But I keep this as one of my stretchy goals, because I might not ever be healed completely—many former anorexics struggle with food their entire lives—but that does not mean I’m not making progress along the journey. One percent better tomorrow than I was today—and if I slip up again, I start again, too.
2. A better relationship with money.
I worry about money. A lot. Part of this (or maybe most of it) stems from my childhood, growing up in a family that did not have a lot of money, sometimes needed government help, and almost never had extra for savings or spontaneous meals out—at least not until I was almost all grown up. This past, coupled with anxiety, means I stress about money more times than not. I want to work on having a better relationship with money—which, to me, means not worrying so much when a surprise cost pops up—because they’re always popping up. It means keeping a budget and yet not stressing over the numbers. It means saying yes to the spontaneous meal out every once in a while. One percent better.
3. Caring for myself better.
As a mom, I typically let myself get rundown trying to see to the needs of all my children. And then I rarely have time to recharge. But I am on a journey to find moments here and there when I can meditate, do yoga, or sit and read for two minutes, five minutes, maybe a luxurious ten minutes. The biggest part of this? Not feeling guilty for taking time to myself. One percent better tomorrow.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. Reading: I just finished Erin Entrada Kelly’s newest middle grade book, Those Kids from Fawn Creek. What I liked most about this one is that it humanizes the people who make mistakes, who maybe have a moment (or more than a moment) of meanness. That’s an important lesson for kids to learn and for all of us to remember. We’re all just doing the best we can, right? (Erin Entrada Kelly won the 2018 Newbery medal with Hello, Universe, and her middle grade book We Dream of Space was a Newbery Honor book in 2021. Both are worth checking out.)
2. Reading: I’m currently on a research frenzy, reading everything I can about the 1900 hurricane in Galveston, which was the deadliest natural disaster and the worst hurricane in U.S. history. (Why am I researching? For a story, of course!) The best book I’ve read about it is Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm: a Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History. Larson is one of my favorite nonfiction writers. He’s written many historical books. I haven’t read them all but can highly recommend In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin; Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lusitania; and Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. Larson also released his first novel, No One Goes Alone, last year. It’s been on my TBR list for a while now, called “a ghost story grounded in history.” Who wouldn’t want to read that?
3. Reading: As a mom trying to still be productive and creative while my kids are home for the summer, I found this piece particularly relevant. And cool. And not just for moms. Or writers. How many of us find our “second acts” later in life? Doing what we love and loving what we do? It’s never too late to become who we want to be and do what we dream of doing.
4. Reading: Ellen Hopkins, one of my favorite novel-in-verse authors, has a new middle grade novel in verse out: What About Will. Hopkins is best-known for her young adult fiction (The You I’ve Never Known is so far my favorite) but started publishing in the middle grade space a few years ago. I liked this one so much I put it on several of my kids’ summer reading lists. Another of Hopkins’s middle grade gems: Closer to Nowhere. I highly recommend both!
5. Watching: On the TV side, my husband and I are currently making our way through Community. This is an older show, and I know we’re late to the party, but we’re really enjoying using it as a “palate cleanser” after some heavier shows (including Netflix’s Stranger Things, which recently released its fourth (and, I believe, final) season. I need some laughter after the terror!). You can watch Community on Netflix.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Everybody loves a celebration, don’t they?
The problem is, I often forget to celebrate.
This is terrible, you might be thinking. How in the world can a person forget to celebrate?
As someone who keeps a very meticulous calendar, it might even seem unbelievable that I forget to celebrate. And of course I don’t forget to celebrate my kids’ birthdays or the last (or first) day of school or every little amazing thing that happens in someone else’s life. There is always something worth celebrating when it comes to someone else.
But celebrating myself? Not so much.
I was recently reminded of this rather careless attitude of mine while talking to a friend. She hasn’t been to our Zoombie writing group for a while. When I asked her why she’d been missing, she said, “Well, I finished writing my chapter book and sent it off to my agent, and I just figured I’d celebrate for a while.”
I thought, When’s the last time I celebrated finishing a book? I thought, I usually just move right on, like it’s no big deal. (It’s a big deal. Writing 70,000 words over and over and over again? Seeing a project through to the finish? Making anything that adds value to the world? Those are all big deals.) I thought, I’m not even sure I properly celebrated getting a book deal.
I thought, What does a celebration really look like?
I don’t think I’m alone in this.
Celebrating yourself isn’t quite as easy as celebrating other people.
We should make it so.
Celebrations are uplifting. They’re markers of our hard work. We don’t work hard for the celebration, of course, but it allows us a moment to really take stock of the strength and fortitude and perseverance it takes to finish something, to share it with the world (or colleagues or teachers or friends), to give something back.
We can celebrate our hard work. We can give ourselves permission to acknowledge that while we came close to the edge of giving up (really, really close), we didn’t give up. We can celebrate the chapter written today, the newly perfected song lyric after so long feeling stuck, the second step of our project done and dusted, even if there are ten more to go.
We can celebrate in big, throw-a-party ways or tiny take-a-nap-during-this-work-session ways. It doesn’t really matter how we celebrate.
Celebration, I’m coming to understand, is a state of mind.
What would it look like if we turned a celebratory eye to the seemingly small, insignificant things of our world? We finally mowed the lawn after four weekends of having it on the to-do list. Celebrate! Our kid found his missing left shoe. Celebrate! We made it through the whole day without saying, “I was, like.” Celebrate!
I know these are mostly silly examples of small celebratory accomplishments, but I also often wonder now how much joy we might see if we looked at everything with celebratory eyes—and how much we miss when we don’t.
Here are some of my favorite ways to celebrate:
1. Watch a show or read a book.
Of course I’m always reading books for my writing career (because reading widely is one of the surefire ways to make you a better writer), but I also sometimes like to celebrate by taking half an hour or an hour to watch a favorite show. I’m currently watching Downton Abbey, a historical saga produced by the BBC (it was just taken off Netflix, but you can watch it on Amazon Prime as well). Because I don’t often take the time to watch shows, this really feels like a celebration when I do it.
2. Give myself a day off.
I’ve come to understand (or I’m starting to, at least) that days off are like celebrations in and of themselves for a person like me. I don’t often give myself days off, except for the occasional Sabbaticals I take to step away from projects and let my brain refresh itself. So a day off, or a half-day off, feels like a sort of celebration, especially when I can do something special with my friends or family. Which leads me to the last (and best) way (in my opinion) to celebrate.
3. Making new memories with family and/or friends.
I love sharing a special meal or having a small dessert party or buying (vegan) ice cream to have sundaes with my kids. Going out to a restaurant. Hosting a potluck. Seeing a movie in the theater. Visiting a park for a nature bike ride. All these things feel special and can be considered celebratory, with the right attitude and under the right circumstances (such as a finished manuscript or powering through a particularly difficult creative project or a week spent building a new habit like daily meditation).
by Rachel Toalson | Books
1. If you’re looking for a fantastic middle grade fantasy series, look no further than Angie Sage’s TodHunter Moon series. It’s three books—PathFinder, SandRider, and StarChaser—and so full of personality and humor, and I cannot say enough about it. Angie Sage is also the author of the seven-book Septimus Heap series, which you might want to read first. I read it years ago and (shhh…this is a secret) thought it was even better than Harry Potter. Sage’s worldbuildling is fantastic, and her characters are intelligent, hilarious, quirky, and thoroughly entertaining.
2. I really enjoyed this piece in The Atlantic. It’s a long read, but if you’ve felt the divide that is our world today, it’s well worth a look. Jonathan Haidt, the author of the piece, shares a look at the ways social media has perpetuated the divide. It’s very interesting to consider.
3. My husband and I sped through episodes of Apple TV’s The After Party. It was so well done! It follows characters who have just gone to their high school reunion and met up at an afterparty—where someone is murdered. I don’t typically watch murder mysteries, but this one was hilariously quirky. What was so brilliant about it was that each character told their own story in their own way. As an author, this was delightful to me. We’re always told that everyone in our stories, whether side characters or main characters, are the “heroes of their own stories.” And Apple TV did a fantastic job of showing that on the screen. This might be the only show I ever watch a second (or third) time, just to pick up on the things I missed the first time.
4. Speaking of Apple TV, they recently released a new series called Roar, pitched as “darkly comedic feminist fables.” That sounded perfect for me (plus there are some superstar actresses in it). I started watching it this weekend, and it’s both disturbing and hilarious at times. The episodes make you laugh, cry, cringe, wonder, shout, and do all the things good shows make you do. Do yourself a favor and binge in honor of Mother’s Day!
5. I recently finished Darcie Little Badger’s book A Snake Falls to Earth. If you haven’t yet read this one, it should be on your to-be-read list. The book earned a Newbery Award Honor and was long listed for the National Book Award this year, and it’s full of rich folklore and feels like a old story told in a fresh way. Really well done. Darcie Little Badger is also the author of Elatsoe, which was also a great read!
(Photo by veeterzy on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Happenings
Every Friday at 11:30 a.m. CST my husband and I present a live podcast on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. It’s called In the Boat With Ben and Rachel. We talk about creativity and productivity and what it’s like to be a creative person in today’s world. Here are the places you can watch and chat live:
FB: https://facebook.com/bentoalson
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bentoalson
YouTube: https://youtube.com/bentoalson
We also have a web site where you can sign up for a newsletter; we’re getting ready to launch this podcast, which will happen with a live launch party. We’ll be releasing the podcast episodes in all the regular podcast places, so you can always go back and listen as much as you want.
If you have any questions about creativity and/or productivity, be sure to get in touch, and we’ll consider it for a podcast episode.
Other news
I’m finishing up the final edits on the last two Fairendale books, which will release this summer, the six-year anniversary of the series. I’m hoping to have more to share about them in next month’s newsletter, but I can tell you that Book 19 follows the story of the Snow Queen (a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale), and Book 20 follows the story of the Sea Witch (a Grimm fairy tale). I have really enjoyed writing both of these and am so excited to share them with you soon!
2022 books released
Below you’ll find the links for the books I’ve released this year. I’ve got more coming but don’t ever want to forget about these. For a look at all my books (including middle grade novels, adult essay collections, and just about everything in between), visit www.racheltoalson.com/writing.
Links:
Parenthetical Life
Ebook: https://amzn.to/3gGqhRF
Paperback: https://amzn.to/3rLlUeE
Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3HKwmI1
Ordinary Life
Ebook: https://amzn.to/3KlbpFi
Paperback: https://amzn.to/3MmfpY1
Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3LQUvPs
Sincerely Yours: letters in poetry
Ebook: https://amzn.to/3jsWWLX
Paperback: https://amzn.to/3rdwWZp
Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3uua9KH
(Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash)
