Journal of Many-sized Tales
Love for The Last House on Needless Street
Read The Last House on Needless Street.
I wrote a short review on Goodreads for Catriona Ward’s novel, The Last House on Needless Street. It’s early in the year, but there’s a good chance this is my book of the year. Similar to my favorite book in 2021, Stephen Graham Jones’s My Heart is a Chainsaw, Ward knows her characters inside and out. Read this book, and you will believe Ward got the characters to write their own parts, even convincing a cat to put down her Bible and pen her parts. Every detail serves to create an intimate and emotional portrayal of each character, making you emotionally invested in the twists and horrors that shape their lives.
I can’t recommend this novel enough, and I am very much looking forward to reading more of Ward’s work. If you want to learn more about her, this book, her other books, check out these links:
Interview on The Bestseller Experiment (a favorite writing podcast of mine).
If you give it a read, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Sabbatical Goals that Include More Work. I Am Excited.
I’m taking a work sabbatical from mid-July through mid-October. But “work sabbatical” is a strong phrase.
I helped create a sabbatical benefit with the company I work for, and I am using the benefit mid-July through mid-October. I was the sixth hire and have been at the company almost nine years. Contributing to growing the business and devoting myself to learn as much as I could—customer experience, business development, coding, design, and so on—I put most of my mental and physical energy into the job. I love the work, the learning, the chance to collaborate with intelligent, empathetic, and creative teammates. I love the work, but I also love my personal life that I’ve neglected.
My company encourages vacation and time off—we’re a travel company, after all—but I can find it difficult to carve out time for life outside of work. No one at my job asks this of me. I love making things, and almost every day I can see how my projects help travelers and teammates. That drives me. However, my personal work, health, and relationships drive me too, and I want to invest more time in those going forward.
So I am taking a sabbatical from work to focus on personal interests and necessities. A big part of this will be concentrating on my health each day, as I have been dealing with chronic pain from various stresses for close to two years. I also plan to travel a little, heading to Scotland for a wedding, driving up to the Northwoods to see family, and potentially taking another short trip.
The other big part of the sabbatical will be for my personal projects. I will sit at my desk—or a desk or couch or log somewhere in the world—and make things most weekdays from 9–5, and I am excited. Mostly I’ll be writing, but I have a design idea or two I would like to explore. I am a week into the sabbatical, and I used that time to get a baseline for how much I can accomplish in three months. I set goals and timelines around what I learned, which I’ll share here to hold myself accountable. I’ll also post updates about progress and adjust the priorities as needed, since unexpected challenges or opportunities may pop up; I prefer not to be rigid, and mainly want to make things that I care about, and hopefully others will end up caring about them too.
Without further ado, my sabbatical goals in order of priority:
Finish L’ve novel manuscript edits and send to agents.
July 15 – September 15
Edit my picture book manuscript, Dream, Children, and send to agents.
July 15 – September 15
Research and likely launch a small lifestyle brand.
July 15 – September 15
Write the first draft of the next novel manuscript.
September 1 – September 30
Write a comic book script for the Top Cow Talent Hunt.
September 15 – October 15
Launch a newsletter for my website.
October 1 – October 15
Research and apply to writing grants for 2023.
October 1 – October 15
Write a picture manuscript for my friend to draw.
October 15 – October 30
Connect with writers on Twitter.
July 15 – weekly afterward
Continue sending stories already out in the wild.
September 1 – weekly afterward
Bonus, if time: either edit my middle grade novel manuscript or complete the Writer’s of the Future Fiction class and write a story to go with it.
Thoughtful Feedback is a Gift
No matter what you’re making, when others help you improve your work, they deserve acknowledgement.
No matter what you’re making, when others help you improve your work, they deserve acknowledgement. And that’s what this post aims to do.
Below are fellow authors who took time away from their writing to review this site. Some of their feedback has been implemented, some of it will find its way into future iterations, and all of it is much appreciated. As a small thanks, I’d love to point you toward them and their work, so you can check out what these kind and generous writers are up to.
Adam Jarvis
Robyn Sarty
Website, Facebook, and Instagram
Sadye Paez
W.J. Kite