Farewell, 2025!

   I’d like to invite you to join me in participating in the new year very differently than the typical modern western culture demands.
   Instead of racing into the start of 2026 like a gun has gone off and now you have to RUN, as if this is the time to push push push! Resolutions! Pressure to be your perfect self! In the darkest coldest part of the year, start doing ALL THE THINGS BETTER!—I have a different suggestion, hear me out...
   Maybe we should take a clue from ALL OF NATURE AROUND US and treat the new year like EVERYTHING ELSE ON (our half of) THE PLANET does in winter. Release and rest. This is a time for reflection and letting go of things that no longer serve us. Don’t overwhelm yourself with new habits, don’t start a thousand new projects. Give yourself an opportunity to rest. Shed your old tired leaves, lay down your burdens, reflect on what you’ve managed to achieve and whether through in the spring and summer and autumn that we’ve just left behind. Celebrate wins, learn from losses, and TAKE A BREAK. You can still do a little dreaming, think about what you’d like to start fresh with when the weather shifts to spring. SPRING is the time for starting new habits. We have the energy of the earth behind us. (Assuming you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, if you’re not, reverse accordingly lol). This isn't my idea alone, I have seen a lot of people starting to talk about this. It's such a good idea.
   In the spirit of this, I’m going to reflect on how 2025 went for me with no pressure to set intentions for 2026 that I start blasting away at January 1st.

 At the start of 2025 I had set a couple of goals for myself (like a fool, ignoring the fact that it was winter and I was not going to want to do anything for months and months, and then Unexpected Things would happen and I’d end up going on a path unplanned). I wanted to:
   1. Finish all the illustrations for Little Faun 1
   2. Finish writing Little Faun 3
   3. Make progress on illustrations for a new kids book
   4. Be able to do 1 unassisted pull up
   5. Travel to Europe to visit a friend in France
   I achieved 0 of these goals.
   YAY!!! I still have 3 or 4 unfinished Faun 1 illustrations. Faun 3 has been in rewrite purgatory all year and I’ve REALLY struggled with it. And I didn’t do squat on my own kid’s book… actually I remember now that I started an illustration and it’s like… 25% done, tucked away somewhere. Pullups are really heckin difficult, and some days I still can't do it unassisted. My passport has not been touched since I got it 3 years ago or whatever it’s been, and my France travel money fund has been raided multiple times for things that were definitely not traveling to France. Most recently, going to cut a Christmas tree. Those things are expensive?
   If you’ve been reading my newsletters you know that a lot of 2025 felt icky and heavy for me. I had an awful heartfelt struggle with some big grief and despair at the state of the world. The spring was non stop rain, the summer oppressively hot, humid, buggy. September and October were the ONLY months of good weather we had all year, not an exaggeration. I felt Seasonally Depressed all summer. Not the concoction for Getting Things Done.
   There were a lot of events I overreacted to, handled with not a speck of grace, or panicked about needlessly. Old habits haunted me. When I could have gone with the flow I flailed. When I could have been working on things I read books or spaced out or sulked in my chair. I watched too much tv—and not even anything NEW. I just rewatched Star Trek for the upteenth time.

 THAT SAID, I count this year as a big win. Why?
   Well, first off, I CAN do one unassisted pull up. Sometimes. In fact, at one point I was able to do 3 in a row! I have it on film lol. But fun fact, fitness isn’t linear for me, and if I don’t sleep well or the sun isn’t out I am not as strong. However I have consistently maintained my routine of working out! I show up every week, I am enjoying it and it’s good for my body. WIN.
   Second, I may not have made the progress I’d hoped on my books, but I DID make progress. Faun 1 only needs 4 more illustrations to be done. At the start of the year I had only 3 illustrations finished out of 15! And I know that Faun 3 is going to be so much better than it was when I finally sort out this rewrite. It needed it. And these things take time. Faun 2 is written and edited and I’m really happy with it. Progress was made, WIN.
   Though I didn’t make a new kid’s book, I did finally get to celebrate the release of the book I made with my friend Rebekah. I was able to put Wake Up Herbert on Barnes & Noble. I started reworking illustrations from Be Kind to Me for an update version coming… soon? I made a grand total of 15 pet portraits, along with quite a few other pieces for clients, and I’m starting work on a new kid’s book for a client this month! I successfully participated in Artober and along the way felt like I saw improvement in my digital art that I’m excited to bring to future projects.
   AND LOOK AT ALL THESE PAINTINGS I MADE JUST FOR FUN

   I see growth in these compared to what I was making in 2024! Two of these originals are sold and three of them I'm so proud of I'm not willing to sell them (yet).

   I mostly busted out art at the start of the year, but that’s okay! Life is waves, life is seasons, life is up and down and rest and then rush. It’s all alright. I had some really great shows and a couple kinda lame ones. I know that though I might not have been as productive as I’d hoped, I still made progress. Win.
   I read a total of 45 books so far this year. (I also want to note that I read my own books several times over in the editing process, so I feel comfortable rounding that up to 50.) I’ve never actually counted how many books I read in a given amount of time, but I think I read more this year than I ever have before in my life. Helped along considerably by being an employee at the local used and new bookstore. It was so good to have a safe place to escape to in the middle of all the crazyness this year. And some of them were really incredible books that have become new favorites.

 I’m currently in the middle of reading The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers, and I’d guess I’ll finish at least that before the year is out. I went a little nuts with collecting books this year, thanks to my bookstore job and the discovery of Thriftbooks. I could not be happier. Here are my favorite reads from this year! NOT in order of appreciation, these are all pretty tied.

   1. Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers (This one I do want to note that I reread the whole Wayfarers Series and it is in my top ten most favorite book serieseseses of all time.)
   2. Guards, Guards! by Terry Pratchett
   3. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
   4. Gentle Chaos by Tyler Gaca
   5. Leech by Hiron Ennis
 
 Gosh, I just love books SO MUCH.

   I was also lucky enough to get to see the Blue Ridge Mountains, visit Ashville NC, and I stood for a moment in 3 states at once (Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma). So technically I went to 4 states I’d never been to before. I’m up to 16/50! Kinda cool, even if a few of those I barely saw (standing with a toe in Oklahoma for 30 seconds doesn’t really count). Maybe in 2026 I’ll finally make it to the West Coast. Did I make it to France? Obviously not. I’ve still never been overseas, or really seen the ocean. But I still traveled! How lucky! Even trips to dumpy weird places can be eye opening. I had a lot of little local adventures with my friends, too. I spent a weekend in a treehouse with two of my favorite people. What could be better than that?

   Best of all, I think this year I made some big steps to becoming a better friend to myself. I’ve been fortunate in having the help of some really wonderful people (therapists lol) and something has shifted. It’s subtle, but I think I like little Lara a whole lot more than I used to. What an incredible win.
   I spent plenty of days pouring sadness into my journal, lost and in the dark. Feeling hurt by all the things going HAYWIRE in the world. What a time to be alive. Pretty sure humans have been saying that since we could say anything to each other. I see so much happening that makes me want to become panicked and hateful, but that’s the very thing I’m seeing happen that’s causing all this madness. So I stay whimsical! I stay hopeful! And yeah, sometimes I’m very sad. But I get to share that sadness with friends who feel with me, and I get to use it to fuel my desire to lift up others with some cute little art.

   New music I fell in love with this year:
   Bonny Light Horsemen
   Golden Sun Revival by Trilling Dragons

   I do have hopes for 2026. I’m going to spend the next few months daydreaming about them and eating lots of soup. When the time is right, things will start happening. What’s meant to be will be! And wouldn’t it be great if Little Faun 1 could finally be published? And Be Kind to Me Revised could be released? And maybe I could finally see a tide pool, do a mural, or something so wonderful I haven’t even though to dream about it?
   What can you release that didn’t go like you’d hoped? What unexpected joys can you celebrate? What goals were achieved that you can enjoy the fruits of with gratitude? What flopped that you’ve learned from? This is what winter is for. Now tuck yourself in with a good read or a good game and I’ll see you in 2026.
Be well and be warm my dear pen pals, thank you for being with me,
Lara Jean
 
p.s. Another goal I had for this year: finish this work in progress in time for my newsletter. Oh, well. It will happen in its own time.

Welcome November!
2025

   Hello my darling digital snail mail pals! I hope you have a nice big cup of a warm drink and you’re feeling cozy.
   October has come and gone! In Tennessee this time of year is when the color is at its peak, and I’m looking out my window at a brilliant yellow maple as I type this. I have pumpkins on my front porch and hot tea in my mug. And a blanket over my shoulders and a heating pad under my butt, because old houses with beautiful big windows are not very warm when the temperature goes below 60F. As much as I look forward to walks in the silent, leafless woods in the coming weeks, I do dread the endless chill. But each season has its perks, and the awesome thing about this time of year is I sleep GREAT. I could sleep from sunset to well after sunrise. After a summer of restless tossing in our warm drafty house (75F is not an ideal sleeping temperature) I am a baby bug in a rug. Snug. Under 5 blankets.
   I made a lot of little doodles this month! As I said in my last newsletter, I decided I’d do another drawing prompt list challenge. I didn’t try and do every single day, and I skipped quite a few towards the end because I was busy with commissions. It was fun! I made some pieces I really enjoyed, and I feel like it was good practice with the medium that is Procreate. I found some new ways to approach how I make my digital art. Practice is like… really helpful?
   So here it is, the full collection of Artober drawings!

I now have a whole section in my website dedicated to artober art! Click the button to go browse!

 To any of my artsy pen pals who did not do artober in any way or did a couple and then got overwhelmed and feel disappointed or ashamed: please be kind to yourself. In fact, if you were feeling overwhelmed or disinterested or stressed and you listened and you backed off and let go and did the pressing things instead, you should be so proud of yourself. Learning to listen to your body and know when something is too much is a valuable skill. Sometimes just doing the adulting and resting is all you can do. It’s really okay if you didn’t have the energy to draw every day. I didn’t either. Even I felt a little ashamed of myself seeing the artists who actually made a real paper and paint painting EVERY SINGLE DAY, but that’s when I pull out the old phrase “nobody ever grew or healed from shame” and focused instead on what I DID manage to do. Like the laundry and the dishes and my job.
   I’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to The Glaze Project. Because of Glaze I could post my work without feeling sick about it. What is Glaze? It’s a program that applies an invisible filter to your artwork. What we see isn’t changed, but what AI sees ends up like tv static.
   It means my work can’t be ground up and spat out and recreated without my consent by AI. It’s completely free, too! There are people out there fighting the good fight, friends. Don’t lose hope.
   I also had the chance to make a LOT of pet portraits! THANK YOU for your commission purchases! I adore all of your pets. I know I say this every time but I just LOVE painting pet portraits. And if you want one for a gift, I’ve got openings and there’s still time! I can even do digital and Animal Crossing style portraits. (On that note, who else is feeling a resurgence of Animal Crossing yearning with the announcement of the update???)
   I can FINALLY share with you that a project I did last year is available in print! I illustrated a book for a client, and it’s now out on Barnes & Noble. This was my first ever full picture book client, and it was a blast to work on. How could a Halloween themed book not be fun?

   Happy highlights of the month: Tybalt falling out of the cat tree because he was having Too Much Fun. Twice. (unharmed). Tybalt bringing me the BIGGEST praying mantis I have ever seen (also unharmed). Mimsy getting very demanding for snuggles because of her tiny chilly toe beans. Lots of small gratitude for sunshine and blue skies and good friends, and therapy. Rewatching the BBC Narnia series that I watched probably a million times as a child but hadn’t seen in 20+ years. WHAT A HOOT.
   Big highlight: I got an immense amount of smug satisfaction out of canceling my Spotify subscribtion. Mwahahaha. The app I switched to is called Qobuz, and I have zero complaints! They pay their musicians, they have great streaming quality, everything I listen to is there, and the subscription price was actually cheaper than Spotify. And the CEO is not currently a… well, you know. There’s even a feature in the app where you can pay $5 one time and it transfers over all your playlists and liked songs for you. THE POWER. You actually don’t have to give money to monsters.
   I know that the days are not only getting shorter and darker literally, but also feel that way emotionally too. It’s really hard to have the right words to say about it. And I do want to keep my newsletter a bright relief from the relentless negativity and fear out there. So I’ll say just this:
   Consider doing something very small and very local if you are feeling icky but able. Something like a food donation or even $10 to a local food bank. I've seen my local community doing a lot of this kind of thing and it makes me hopeful. It can be a text to a friend. Maybe host a dinner party. Ask for help, and be willing to accept it. We build community both by giving AND accepting help. If we always refuse to take help, we isolate and alienate. Nobody needs that right now. Tell your friends you love them and see how they’re doing. You might not be able to hold the whole world together, but you can definitely help hold up those closest to you. That’s HUGE.
   What’s your library up to? When’s the last time you went and took some things off the shelves? Fun fact, they get funding based on use, and use counts as: they had to put a book back on the shelf for you (so just take random books down and put them in the return cart), you used the wifi (you can bring your laptop and do your homework or scroll through tumblr), you reserved a room (for free) and had a club meeting (for book club, silent reading, a craft day, a parallel play date, a writing group critique, D&D, etc), you took out a book and took it home and returned it (even if you didn’t read it), you rented a movie or a game or a tv show, you used their services to get an audio book. Did I mention it’s all free?
   Pretty small stuff with a huge impact. Not overwhelming, no need to strap a sword to your belt and rush out into the fray. Small deeds are really great, actually. So if you’re able and doing them, thank you. You’re my hero.
Until next time, hoping you are well and warm,
Lara Jean

1. How long have you been writing and drawing? When did you know you wanted to make a go at it professionally?
   Ah, let's see, a long time. One time I turned in a math test with zero questions answered and the page full of squids. I failed that test. And that class. But they were good squids. So I'm not sure I ever really sat down and decided I wanted to make a go at it professionally but math sure wasn't going to be an option. 

2. What's your favorite art medium? Or do you prefer writing to arting?
   I think my favorite medium is story and I'm just trying to learn how to use words or pictures well enough to tell them. I would prefer to be able to draw 1000x faster than is humanly possible so every story I come up with could be a graphic novel. Alas I'm very slow. 

3. Tell us about Penny!!!
   Penny! Penny and the Pocket Dragon is a story I told my daughter. It's about a little girl who ends up with a very small (and very grumpy) dragon. It's a goofy fairytale with too much alliteration. There were multiple versions of it over the years and eventually I wrote one of them down. When it was finished it was clear that I'd actually written a story that existed in YOUR world of adorable mythical creatures and that you needed to illustrate it. So I begged you and you said yes and we lived happily ever after. 

4. Tell us about The Girl the Ghost and the Giant!
   The Girl the Ghost and the Giant is the first story I turned into an actual book. It's a folk tale about a giant who has to be killed to stop a harsh winter, but of course the legends are never quite right about the monsters, are they? It's strange, because when you publish you're sort of putting out a younger version of yourself, because usually there are several years between when you write the thing and when people read it. So it very much feels like letting people read my middle-school journal. My art and writing have changed a lot since then but I also wouldn't be the same person if I hadn't written that book. 

5. What project can we look forward to from you next?
   Besides Penny and the Pocket Dragon? What more do you want than tiny dragons in glass jars! Let's see, I have a really short book about Michigan salamanders that is *mostly* done. I like salamanders. I'm working on a comic about an Indian Boarding school in Michigan that I'm really proud of.  And eventually I'll be publishing the middle grade series that I've been working on for forever. That's probably the one I'm the most excited about. It's a series about a kid named Toby who's family are cryptid conservationists. So his family travels the world taking care of monsters. There's lots of sibling drama and awkward teenagers and it's my favorite thing I've written. But boy do series take a long time! 

6. Your top five favorite books! If you can. An impossible question, I know.
   That... is a rude question. only five?! Okay... I think I'll go for the top ones that have been the most influential, in no particular order. 

• 1. The Magicians Nephew by CS Lewis. This one really kicked the imagination into high gear as a kid. It's also dark and creepy and magical which is everything I want in a book. 
• 2. Till We Have Faces, also by Lewis. I remember learning as a kid that the Narnia series were the only books for children that Lewis wrote and being furious with him. How dare he write books for adults! Then I grew up and read this book and forgave him. I read this book every few years. It's a retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche and it somehow cuts to the core of what it means to be human. 
• 3. Howl's moving castle by Dianna Wynne Jones. I distinctly remember putting that book down and deciding I wanted to write stories. 
• 4. Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke, really any of his graphic novels.. I feel like Ben taught me how to make comics from these books. His way of showing characters emotions with body language, not just facial expression has been so formative for me. Whenever I get stuck with a drawing I flip through one of his books and find a similar posture to unstick myself. 
• 5. Buzzing by Samuel Sattin and Rhy Hickman. This is a graphic novel I think everyone should read. It's not only a wonderful story, but it does such a good job showing what intrusive thoughts feel like. Even though I don't have OCD like the character in this book, I struggle with intrusive thoughts from anxiety, and this book made me feel really seen. The illustrations are also fantastic. 

7. What fictional character do you identify with most?
   Fictional character I most identify with... hum. That's a great questions. Probably Jill from the Silver Chair. I'd risk getting eaten by giants for a hot bath. 

8. A piece of advice for aspiring writers and artists?
   Keep going! Spend more time working on your story than planning or talking about it. Take your story seriously enough you finish it, but not so seriously you can't take constructive criticism to make it better. 

9. If you could be a salamander, which kind would you be?
   I would be a cave salamander because it's quiet and then I'd be bright orange with spots.

10. Where can we follow you? (Below are links to her website and instagram!)
   You can follow me into a swamp. Or on Instagram and Bluesky.

Bonus question: Will you let me illustrate another book of yours, please? (Correct answer: Yes.)
Yes, but after you publish at least Faun 1. ​