First things first: Fail Better Club is back next week! Fail Better Club is place where you send me your troublesome writing project, and I read it and tell you how I think you could fix it.
You might be thinking, “But Julie, it’s December, I have so much to do, I don’t have time to write.” Fine! But you have time to think about writing. Why not dust off that picture book manuscript that you haven’t yet figured out (but which is still nagging at you) and we’ll think about it together. Then, in January, you will have thought about it for weeks, and maybe taken some notes, and you’ll be ready write a new draft.
Or maybe you’re doing plenty of writing, and are looking forward to some help on your current project! Ok!
To join Fail Better Club, you need to be a paying subscriber to Do the Work. An email is going out tomorrow to everyone on the paid list, with instructions on exactly how Fail Better Club works, so upgrade now if you want in.
Here’s the link to last month’s essay, about being creative and making things even if the world feels dark and heavy and disastrous.
The dot markers I love are the Kuretake ZIG markers. The notebook I got to use as a deep work tracker / focus diary is the Cambridge Small Agenda, but you get whatever works for you. I’m glad I went to a store so I could really see the sizes and interior layouts.
Thoughts and Links
If you’re near Portland, Maine, I’d love to see you this Saturday (December 7) at Longfellow Books for Bring Your Child to a Bookstore Day. I’ll be there with Chris Van Dusen, Tom Booth, and X. Fang!
I was on the news, talking about Chester Barkingham Saves the Country.
I signed up for A Vision Board Can Change Your Life, which is a class in January from KEEP TRYING.
Though maybe also I need a Becoming Board?
It’s 24 degrees Fahrenheit where I live, and looking at the photos in Manjula Martin’s list of the best flowers of 2024 helped me remember that spring exists.
Two bumper stickers I saw recently and love: Romanticize Solitude and On My Way to Cry Near a Lighthouse.
Slightly late for 2024, but did you know that November 11 is National Corduroy Day, because of the way that 11/11 looks like the wales on corduroy?
Books I read recently and loved
Disclosure: book links in this newsletter are affiliate links to Bookshop.org, a site which supports independent bookshops.
I finally read Santa’s First Christmas by Mac Barnett and Sydney Smith. I thought it was going to be yet another Santa origin story, and was pleasantly surprised. It’s funny and cozy, perfect for December.
Subdivision by J. Robert Lennon is delightfully weird and unsettling, one of those books that slowly unfolds and keeps you as unmoored as the main character, who shows up at a guesthouse and isn’t sure why. It reminded me a lot of That Time of Year by Marie Ndiaye — a book I love — in that it’s about someone who is trying to figure out what exactly is happening in the town they’re walking around in. I think I like books where Things Seem Normal But It Is Slowly Revealed That They Are Not Normal.
For years, people around me have been obsessed with Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, but then it felt like they stopped short of recommending it to me. I recently found a copy in a Little Free Library, and now I get it. It’s an incredible book. One of the best-written books I’ve ever read. And also I hated reading it. It was, I can say, not for me. I am not someone who likes reading things that are icky or gruesome. I do not enjoy reading about horrible people doing unspeakable things to themselves and others. I almost gave up on it a few times from all the cringing and trying to read while also closing my eyes to it. I’m so glad I stuck through to the end. I did ultimately love it. And have no desire to ever read it again.
Oh man I love that picture of your dog. So sweet!
Thanks for telling folks about vision board class! So excited you decided to join this year :)