Hello, dear friends!

Happy New Year!

Okay, I have to confess, I love to plan. I’m a List Maker. I make out with bullet journals in public. My washi tape stash could probably stretch from Oakland to New York, and I’m unfaithful to every planner I’ve ever bought (Shiny New Planner syndrome).

I normally start brand-new years with the confidence of a toddler in a bead shop. And I end old years sitting in a deck chair, wondering why the ocean is up to my ankles and rising. My washi tape can’t save me then, unless I make a boat out of it and Post-its (which would make a good reality TV challenge, I think).

Resolutions can bite me for these three reasons:

1. I’m not in my right mind when I make them.

Seriously. The last week of December acts on my brain like alcohol used to. I CAN DO EVERYTHING! I spin around in the front yard, almost able to touch the moon. I CAN WRITE THREE BOOKS BY TUESDAY. Every year, I get drunk with the power of potential, and it goes right to my head, making me think that when the calendar rolls over, I’ll be a new me. Truth is: I’ll just still be me, but maybe a little more tired because I’m a few days older.

2. Everyone else does them better.

Have you been on Instagram lately (you should follow me there!). All those people you used to like have already lost ten pound plus they’ve increased their bank accounts by six or seven figures. AND IT’S ONLY THE FOURTH. We hate them.

3. I always pick the wrong things to resolve.

Things I said yesterday (gospel truth): “I will get up every day at 7:30 am, even on weekends.” Also: “I will write every day, even on weekends.” ALSO! “I will do yoga every day, even on weekends.” (From this you might think that I’m a lazy slob on the weekends. You would be right.)

These are the wrong things to focus on! I will fail at these resolutions! Sometimes I will get up at 4:30 am! Other times I will sleep till 10. I never write every day – I never have and I never will, no matter how much I want to be that person. I love yoga, but sometimes this softly-rounded body just wants some caramel corn and a nap.

So, as I’ve done a few years in the past, I’m resolving to stab absolutely no one. Chances are good I’ll succeed (BUT YOU NEVER KNOW).

But seriously, all I resolve to do this year is to just focus on giving myself and those around me some grace. I’m already doing the best I can. So are you (even if you feel like you’re not. You feel that way for a reason, whether it’s your kids or your schedule or your mental/physical health. That’s keeping you from doing all you want to do, but you’re still doing your goshdarn best and you should be proud of yourself).

Give yourself some grace. Some forgiveness. Some real, true love. You deserve it.

That’s the best resolution of all, and it isn’t new for 2020. (Y’all, I just started typing 19__ – that’s how far behind my typist fingers are.) If you can be just a tiny bit kinder to yourself this year, that will spread to the people around you. And that can change the world, I just know it.

Thanks for being here with me on this crazy ride through life. I appreciate you.

What are YOU going to do differently when it comes to being kind to yourself this year?

love,

Rachael

Do you need help getting your writing or revision done? Let me help! (Share this email and tell a writer friend?)

90 Days to Done Masterclass (write your book in 90 Days!) is now open! http://rachaelherron.com/90daystodone

90 Day Revision Masterclass is open, also! http://rachaelherron.com/revision

Praise from a past graduate who finished both her first book AND revisions: “Thanks to Rachael’s classes, I’m realizing my strengths as a writer, and learning how to use them instead of being mean to myself about my weaknesses and trying to force myself to be different.” -Sara

Grab your spot now – these seats sell out quickly!

PPS – Need a good movie rec? Little Women knocked off my hand-knitted socks. My feet are still cold. I loved loved loved it and can’t recommend it enough. Go see it, in theaters now! I ugly cried!

I’ve been practicing gratitude for a while now, and on certain days, I have so damn much of it that it feels like I could drown in joy. (Other days, of course, are normal, with mosquitoes and flat tires and bad choices and rotten bananas. But today is not that kind of day.)

Today my first thriller, Stolen Things, comes out.

And all I can think is: it finally happened.

I wrote the 911 dispatcher book I’d always wanted to write. My agent, who is so smart and persistent and loyal, helped me uncover what it was meant to be. It was bought by an incredible editor who got it. Behind her, she had a team at Dutton/Penguin that has completely knocked me out with their care and savvy and excitement.

Today, this book of my heart goes out into the world.

I have to admit, I’m nervous. It’s not a sweet romance. It’s not a book about family secrets.

It’s a book about the really real stuff.

BookPage says, “the book confronts a slew of today’s issues – such as police brutality against black people, #MeToo, institutional scandal and sexual orientation- with pathos and conviction. Chapters are short, emotional bursts of energy that fuel the quest for answers. Each side is given credence and receives critique.”

I love that last line. I did try to make the book show all sides, because life is messy and confusing.

Through that all, I got to show Laurie and Jojo, a mother-daughter team that I absolutely loved writing. There’s nothing like the ferocity of a mother’s love. Luckily, daughters learn that same fierceness at their mother’s jaws.

I hope you love Jojo and Laurie as much as I do. Enjoy.

📚 Buy Links! 📚

Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks | GooglePlay

(Also available at your local independent bookstore and at Target today! I swear to you, I’m going to go up to an associate at Target and say with a straight face, “Hi! Do you have Stolen Things?” And then I will wait for them to call security.)

I’m so grateful for so much, but today, I’m grateful for you. I hope you curl up with this book, that you can’t put it down, that you email me afterward and say that it made you cry and laugh and hope. This is for you.

Love,

Rachael

One year ago today, I wrote in my journal, “I am an alcoholic.”

Then I wrote, “F*CK.” You see, I’d been writing in my journal for months about how I couldn’t be one (because that’s what non-alcoholics do – ha!).

Reasons I couldn’t be an alcoholic:

1. I’d never gotten a DUI.

2. I’d never lost a thing, not a house, not a car, not a relationship, not even my phone or wallet.

3. I’d written 20+ books to critical acclaim.

4. I didn’t drink in the morning. I rarely drank in the afternoons.

5. I didn’t get the shakes on the few days that I didn’t drink.

6. I hardly ever blacked out.

7. I just really liked wine, that was all.

8. No one in my life thought my drinking was a problem (not even my wife or closest friends).

9. I could MAKE myself have just a glass or two (when I out, when I had to drive).

I was good! I was fine! I wasn’t an alcoholic! I’d told myself that for so long I almost believed it. Until I couldn’t believe it anymore.

Alcoholism came on me fast.

I’d always been a GOOD drinker. I could outdrink most of my friends, including Irish men. I loved to drink but only on the weekends. I could NOT drink if I needed to. Then in 2016, I quit my day job of 17 years, and said to myself, “Self, you’re 43 years old. If you’re not an alcoholic now, you’ll never be one! You can totes have some wine every night, like normal people do. Bottoms up!”

So I started having a glass or two of wine every night. Within 2.5 years, it was a bottle and a half (or more) every night. Every single morning I woke up and said I wouldn’t drink that night. Every single night brought an excuse that made it okay for me to break that promise. I was tired. I wasn’t tired. I was happy. I was sad. I had something to celebrate. I had nothing to celebrate. ANYTHING was an excuse. I tried to give myself rules. No more than 12 drinks a week. Nothing but wine. Nothing but beer. Nothing but celebratory Scotch and only when I’d earned it. Never drink alone.

Nothing worked. I was a boring drunk, and just drank till I got sleepy every night. (This is what I called what I was doing. But really, I was just a control freak who could time my passing out every night precisely to bedtime.) I drank a little before Lala got home from work and opened a “fresh” bottle of wine when she got home as if it were an idea I’d just come up with.

I COULD NOT STOP.

I made a solemn vow to myself in my journal to get help if I couldn’t keep my drinking to 12 units of alcohol a week (this is considered heavy drinking for women, but it was what I was okay with). A shot is 1.4 units. A bottle of wine has 10 units. I was drinking a bottle to a bottle and a half on normal nights, telling myself it was 4-6 drinks. It was actually 10-15 units per NIGHT.

After I almost tanked a work thing at a prestigious writing conference because I was too hungover to remember what I needed to do, I hit my personal bottom, but only because that’s where I stopped digging. I was emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. I was holding the whole world on my shoulders, and I hated the person I’d become. I lived in a fog of near-constant self-loathing, a self-hatred that I disguised so well that the people nearest me didn’t know who I really was or how I felt.

I admitted in my journal that I was an alcoholic for the first time at 9am on February 20, 2018. I was in my first recovery meeting three hours later. Alcoholism had come on me fast, in less than three years (or we could argue that I’d had it all along, and it didn’t bloom until I drank more often).

The first three months of recovery were grueling. The last year has been challenging. It’s not easy. But it’s pretty damn simple. I go to meetings. In between, I don’t drink (or use weed or sleeping pills, other crutches I’d used to numb myself).

And it’s been, literally, THE BEST YEAR IN MY LIFE. Not because everything’s gone right – no. A man died underneath my hands as I gave him CPR after he was struck by a car. A relative I loved killed himself. We had to go into our savings to pay the bills. I worked too much and didn’t make enough money. BUT I DIDN’T DRINK. I was present. I felt my feelings (which I didn’t recognize – I couldn’t remember feeling feelings as an adult. This is all new to me, this sitting with what’s going on and just being with it). I’ve made so many close, sweet, necessary friendships that I can’t imagine not having. I have a community of people who love me as I am, a community I love.

Most astonishingly and most importantly, I’ve come into contact with something greater than myself.

I can’t name it, nor do I want to. I certainly don’t ascribe to the idea a bearded God who watches from on high, but the universe has folded itself around me in love, and I know there’s something out there.

Meditation and prayer are a part of my daily life, giving me so much sweet relief. I use Tarot as a way to see into my subconscious, and the cards often make me laugh, like they did this morning, as I asked the cards (which I believe are ordered by that same universal Higher Power) to tell me what today would mean for me. I drew Death (a wonderful card, the symbol of complete transformation, the leaving of an old way of life behind and the start of a new one) and the Three of Cups (the card of community, celebration, friendship, and creativity, all the things I’ve found in sobriety). I laughed in joy as the cards showed their gorgeous faces.

I’m a new person.

I’m more grateful than I’ve ever been. It’s one day at a time, and the time I’ve been sober doesn’t actually matter, but I’m choosing to honor this day that reminds me of where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going.

(If you’re in need of help, please reach out to someone, to me or to another trusted person. Not a single one of us can get sober and stay sober alone. I love you. I see you. I am you. We are everywhere (you’d be surprised), and we’re holding you in the light.)

PS – I’m not actually admitting I’m part of any of the recovery groups that depend on anonymity for their continued success. I’m just suggesting such groups are out there, and that they might help some people. And maybe I got a 1-year chip from someone whose name I will not share but is a person I love. 😉