Dear friends,
I usually put my newsletter content together during the week, and then I sit down to write this message last. So I had everything else ready to go, and I had planned to write an encouraging message this morning, about making slow-but-steady progress as a writer. But that doesn’t seem important right now. Not much does, to be honest, except the people I care about.
As I’m sure you’ve seen on the news, fires are raging in Los Angeles, one of my favorite and most beloved cities. It is a nightmare. I’ve lived in California all of my life, and unfortunately, wildfires are a thing. But usually, when I hear about them on the news, it’s during wildfire season, it’s one fire, and it’s in more remote areas, away from homes. Not this time. There are five fires burning in LA County, three of them major fires. The fires erupted quickly, strong winds continue to fuel them, and they’re taking out entire neighborhoods.
Several of my friends have been evacuated from their homes, with little or no time to take any of their belongings. One friend is in a shelter, waiting to find out if her home survived. One friend is unable to sleep because the fires are all around her, and she doesn’t know how soon she may have to leave. Another friend is watching and waiting to see if she’ll have to evacuate her parents from their home near Pacific Palisades. The people I love are seeing their friends, families, and neighbors lose their homes. They are watching on the news as their childhood neighborhoods and the places they love are consumed by fire. It is unimaginable, and it all happened so fast.
We are having unseasonably warm weather here in California, without rain and with high winds. I heard on the news last night that the winds are expected to die down over the next few days, until Monday, which would give firefighters a chance to get the fires under control. But so much has been destroyed already—entire little towns, with their grocery stores, their schools, their churches, everything gone. And this morning, the Los Angeles Times reports that two new fires broke out last night—a brush fire in the Hollywood Hills and a structure fire in Studio City, where one of my dearest friends lives. And the winds have not died down—winds with gusts up to 100 mph are fueling the fires and are expected to last through at least tomorrow.
So please forgive me for this off-topic note. I can’t bring myself to write about personal goals or the pursuit of success right now. Because who cares? Seriously. Does it matter whether I ever get an agent or whether my book is ever published? In the big scheme of things, friends, it does not. All that really matters in this life are the people we love.
The poet Robert Frost said, “In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.” But sometimes, it’s important that we not go on as usual. Sometimes, we must stand still. So that’s what I’m doing today. Standing still. We’ll get back to it soon.
XOXO
Leanne
P.S. It can feel helpless when our loved ones are impacted by disasters. If you’d like to help, one way is to donate to the American Red Cross’s Disaster Relief Fund. This organization tracked my son down at his post with the US Marines when my mother passed, and they brought him home. I will be forever grateful for this. The Red Cross has open shelters in Southern California for those displaced by the wildfires.
“In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on. In all the confusions of today, with all our troubles … with politicians and people slinging the word fear around, all of us become discouraged … tempted to say this is the end, the finish. But life—it goes on. It always has. It always will. Don’t forget that.”
—Robert Frost (1874-1963)
WEEKLY ROUNDUP:
Monday Blog Post: I Found My Literary Soulmate: I encourage you to find yours too.
My California: Water Baby: This lifelong Californian thought she knew all there was to know about water and beach culture.
New on The Blog: Now What? An old blog post from the past reminds me to continually refocus on my Plan A.
NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
A heads up: I have some exciting things in the works for 2025, but this means I have a more limited number of openings for one-on-one book coaching this year. If you’re ready now, or if you’d like to snag a spot for sometime later in the year, or if you’d just like to talk about whether and how a book coach might help you with your book, shoot me an email: leanne@leannephillips.com.
SOME THINGS FOR READERS
The 39 Most Anticipated Books of 2025
(Shannon Carlin for Time)
The 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2025
(Charley Burlock for Oprah Daily)
Readers’ Most Anticipated Books of 2025
(Cybil for the goodreads editorial team)
SOME THINGS FOR WRITERS
Am I Giving Too Much Away? Publishing Essays Related to Your Memoir.
(Allison K. Williams for The Brevity Blog)
Writer’s Block Is Good News and Other Surprises
(Video: Dennis Palumbo at Radford Studio Center for Sisters in Crime Los Angeles)
The Key Book Publishing Paths: 2025-2026
(Jane Friedman for Jane Friedman)
Hybrid Huzzah: Opinion and Rebuttal to Jane Friedman’s Key Book Publishing Paths, 2025-2026, from the Queen of Hybrid
(Brooke Warner for Brooke Warner)
SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU SMILE
5 QUOTES (a mini course in starting a new year)
“January is the month for dreaming.”
—Jean Hersey
“January. It was all things. And it was one thing, like a solid door. Its cold sealed the city in a gray capsule. January was moments, and January was a year. January rained the moments down, and froze them in her memory ….”
—Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt
“No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left.”
—Charles Lamb
“Lots of people go mad in January. Not as many as in May, of course. Nor June. But January is your third most common month for madness.”
—Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
“I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end.”
—Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Leanne Phillips
Writer | Book Coach | Editor
leannephillips.com
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Sending hopes that this is under control soon. Such devastating loss. So sad.
I love that Robert Frost quote, Leanne.
Thinking of everyone (and everything) affected by these fires.