Do it (or don’t)

A journey in creating some boundaries / Issue 1,208

Oh, hi friends!

Today my new book Do It (or Don’t): A Boundary-Creating Journal is out in the world! 

This is the culmination of a nearly five-year project.

In December 2018, an editor named Madeline Jaffe emailed me after reading this newsletter and said the publisher Abrams was looking for a writer for a motivational journal.

Even though I was in the middle of the BMI Workshop and working as an editor at Money and freelance writing for many places, I thought: 

Yes. This is something I want to do.

I wasn’t totally sure how to do it at first, but thought: It’s new, and I like new projects.

Do It For Yourself proofs from December 19, 2019.

Skipping over some steps: I wrote it, and Tessa Forrest illustrated it, and Do It For Yourself was released on September 8, 2020. (Here’s the newsletter from that day.)

Then it was immediately backordered everywhere and out of print for months, but we (I) tried to block out that memory.

People seemed to like Do It For Yourself! It’s actually in its 11th printing!

I miss Porg!

So, quite unexpectedly, with the help of my new agent Haley, I ended up with a book deal to write not one, but two more journals.

These little blurbs are a whole thing in the publishing industry.

Time passed. I thought and I procrastinated and finally…I wrote.

Do It Today came out on October 11, 2022, illustrated by Tyler Spangler. (Here’s the newsletter from that day.) I am proud of this one. I felt like it had even more of my heart and encouragement. It even has a story about my beloved Grandpa Cotti.

Dear friend Jane Frye documented my unboxing of Do It Today last October.

I got to work with my new editor Zack Knoll (who stopped by my podcast last year and talked about his enviable inbox system). 

More time passed.

Last year, while I was casting around for ideas for the third journal, I was in the shower and suddenly it came to me: 

DO IT (OR DON’T)

It needed to be about boundaries. About discerning yes from no. About how to figure out — actually, demand — space for what is most meaningful to you. About how to ask other people for help, too. About setting boundaries for rest, and what resting actually feels like. About respecting your ideas. About being decisive and then standing in your decisions. 

You are doing. Or you are not doing. Which is it? 

A glimpse of the many, many iterations of making a book.

It’s funny — I don’t like confrontation and I like to see all sides (hi Libra!) and I wouldn’t call myself a boundary-less person, and yet…certain parts of my life were definitely lacking structure, aka boundaries.

This journal — with beautiful illustrations by Jasmina Zornic — was the one big thing I created last year, in a year that was filled with a lot of creative wallowing and water-treading.

I didn’t know which direction I wanted to go in next, but thought: Maybe writing these short essays and prompts and throwing what remains of my creative brain into this journal will help me. And by doing that, maybe it will help someone else.

Editing the second proofs of Do It (or Don’t)

And you know what?

It did help. A lot. 

Because I committed.

Committing with your full self always takes you somewhere new.

I hope Do It (or Don’t) helps you move forward with your own meaningful life changes and important work. You deserve a space to tell your stories, encourage yourself, and take a moment to breathe. 

Here are all the requisite links for publication day! 

• Buy on Amazon

• Buy on Bookshop

• Buy on Abrams

• Buy at Books Are Magic (my favorite Brooklyn bookstore)

I would love to hear what you think, and if you could please leave a little review on Amazon, that’s an enormous help in getting other people to find it.

This is my last journal, btw. The trilogy is complete!

I already dinged up my new copy, but that just means it’s being used!

But the learning is just beginning.

Life is strange and unpredictable.

One email can lead you down a four-year path.

One newsletter can change your life.

One gathering can spark connections for decades to come.

But everything starts with a decision.

As I write in Do It (or Don’t),

I wish you fewer moments of debating your choices and more moments of getting what you desire.

I wish you clarity and bold boundary lines.

Most of all, I wish you would do it — or don’t.

The future, as always, is yours. 

Thank you for your support during all these years, my friends.

I wouldn’t be here without you.

PS — If you have any questions about writing, editing, publishing, the journals, this abbreviated publishing timeline, or anything else, please leave a comment and I’d love to answer them!