I Can Do Hard Things

Including writing a book ✨

The past month-and-change have been a whirlwind of travel. We jetted off to the mountains of ABQ to see my husband’s parents, I spent a week in Paris researching a future children’s book (more on that trip soon-ish!), and there were multiple drives to various cabins for family gatherings. Krzys took my oldest wild-thing on a Colorado ski trip and my kind neighbor plowed our driveway when I couldn’t pull the stupid cord-thingamajig on the snow blower hard enough.

Spring in Wisconsin is a place to escape. It’s slushy mud-speckled boots; it’s 40 degree days being slapped in the face with sudden snowstorms; it’s a thick gray wall from sky to road to dirty backyard. We’re a postcard in July but a hellscape in April.

But, as I reminded myself consistently the past few months, I can do hard things.

This has become a bit of a mantra to me the past few years.

At one of the above-mentioned cabin weekends, we were toasting marshmallows for smores and I off-handedly mentioned to a friend that I’ve, um, never toasted a marshmallow. When we were kids my dad always did it because #firesafety and now that I have kids of my own, I’m always on graham-cracker-and-chocolate-preparation-duty while my husband does the toasting. This is my first marshmallow I’ve ever toasted, I mused, and she looked at me as if I’d said I’d never tied my own shoes.

That was, of course, a completely ridiculous thing to say. But it was also true. I was a very spoiled kid who got married very young and somehow missed out on some life skills, always depending on someone else to do Hard Things for me. I’ve also never mowed a lawn or shoveled a driveway. My mom told me last year that I’ve been folding my towels wrong my entire life. I only recently learned you’re supposed to clean the inside of your washing machine. (I’m not completely helpless. Lest you think I am some diva of the highest order! Only of the medium order!!! I bake my own bread and speak on large stages and own a business and travel internationally with my children and have written whole entire books! I just don’t feel like I know how to Be A Grown Up while doing any of those things.)

So lately, when I’ve had to do things that I’ve never previously done, I just repeat out loud to myself, quietly, “I can do hard things”. Sometimes it’s small things, like changing the batteries in my kitchen scale, and sometimes it’s big things, like being honest when honesty is back-breakingly difficult.

I was meeting a few other friends for dinner later that week, and parking was a nightmare. The only spot I could find was one that required me to back into it. I have also—big surprise—never backed into a parking spot. Ever. But I was running late, and my friends were waiting, and I really, really, really didn’t want to park 15 minutes away when there was goat cheese bruschetta waiting for me. I have a back-up camera. It couldn’t be that difficult.

“I can do hard things,” I told myself all determined-like. And I backed into that parking spot, with my giant 2019 Toyota Sienna, like a flipping ninja.

My latest middle grade book was a Hard Thing.

To be honest, I sold this book on…vibes. And the vibes it had were spectacular! A summer camp book, but with theater kids! Musical lyrics! Sunscreen! Nike shorts! Scripts and campfires and fireflies!

But Good Vibes do not a book make. And I realized when I sat down with a (very) rough outline and what was essentially a Pinterest board of an idea, I didn’t actually have meaning.

I’ve written many times about my distaste for message-books. If an author sits out to write a book convincing a kid of something, they’re going to see through that faster than they can scroll on TikTok. So I don’t mean that I didn't have some moral to convey, or some POINT I was trying to get across. I mean I had no idea who my main character was, or what she wanted, or what meant anything to her. And that made for a whole lot of coffee shop sessions where I had 2,000 words of rambling garbage while listening to YouTube videos of Dumbledore’s office.

I’m not sure if it was the relative success of What Happened to Rachel Riley or the fact that I was trying to write a summertime book in the dead of a ridiculously cold winter or that I was writing a book I’d already sold.

But the writing process of this book (out in summer 2024!) was really, really hard.

It took deleted chapters, reworked plots, and endless long drives to come out with anything close to meaning. As glamorous as my job seems at times, and I’m aware that it does (research trips to Paris! A barista who knows my name! Book launch parties!) this book reminded me that doing the work is just that. Work. It felt like backing into that parking spot. I have to do this thing. And just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean that I’m not capable of getting it done.

Sometimes art just flows out of you, and the words are almost like a magical extension of your fingertips. That’s how it was to write The Kate In Between, and The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County. Those processes were clear and straightforward; I knew the characters incredibly well and what happened next in the story seemed so clear.

But this untitled-as-of-now-musical-theater-summer-camp book, about friendship and washed-up-has-beens and being brave in the face of anxiety? It was not clear or straightforward.

So as I sat with my vibe-y book, my fireflies and firepits and friendship bracelets, all tan arms and bug juice—I wrenched out something that looks like a plot. And stakes. And meaning. I did a Hard Thing. It was a messy process, the type of art that leaves you feeling disgruntled.

I am, however, proud of this book.

Because the main character? She, too, has to do Hard Things. And ironically, it was the process of writing her that made her come alive. Her doing her own Hard Things was what gave the book meaning. I’ve probably never felt more connected to a character, and I can’t wait for you to read her story.

It’s now in my editor’s hands, and I’m happy to be out of summer camp for a while until it’s time for edits.

Now onto the marshmallow toasting.

If you’re confused about the timeline of my upcoming books, I don’t blame you; I continually forget which year it is and which day things are releasing. Plus, publishing timelines are as reliable as the weather reports during Wisconsin’s springtime. But I’ve been a busy girl:

Up next: The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County comes out 3/12/24.

On deck: The book I write about in this newsletter (Bug Juice meets High School Musical) comes out in the summer of 2024.

Currently writing: My middle grade book on the French resistance (hence the recent Paris trip), which comes out in the summer of 2025.

In Rachel’s corner of the world, I got the chance to visit a local middle school a few weeks ago, which is always a joy. Just a reminder that I’m already booking school visits for next year. Rachel surpassed 100 reviews on GoodReads. I also found out she was The Dawn Society’s April book month pick!

This is incredibly random, but I’m obsessed with this profile of fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson. I saw online that fans of his took offense, and I’m just, what? I would LOVE for someone to write 4,000 words on what a weirdo I am. We take ourselves too seriously.

And lastly, a book I’ve loved lately for…

Kids: I will never not love the Brambly Hedge mice, and this time of year in particular makes me yearn for Primrose’s rabble-rousing adventures. We have the complete collection.

Middle graders: No Matter the Distance by Cindy Baldwin was so captivating. I recently found myself nodding along to an Instagram post from Afoma where she spoke into feeling a little less-than-impressed with middle grade lately…and as an MG author, it pains me to say I’ve felt the same way. (There’s nothing worse than opening up a middle grade read and knowing on page one what ThE mEsSaGe is going to be.) No Matter the Distance completely reinvigorated my love for the genre—and it’s in verse! Gah!

Adults: I found myself curling up most mornings with a hot cuppa & Create Anyway by Ashlee Gadd. This one speaks to making art as a mother, something I’m (obviously) incredibly passionate about.

Thanks for reading along!

-Claire-