2024: The year of Tiny (or: My year of standing naked in front of everyone)

I love this time of year, this in-between week. Christmas Day has happened but the fairy lights are still up, the new year is yet to begin, and the languid summer days make me feel like I'm in transit with plenty of do-nothing time to pause and take stock of all that's happened in the past 12 months. 

For me, 2024 was all about Tiny. My new book was published by Hardie Grant in late July, after two and a half years of writing and rewriting, thinking and rethinking, learning how to actually write a memoir and finding my voice. And, like building my tiny house, Tiny was a labour of love, only more difficult and more solitary. 

When my advance copy arrived in the post, it felt strange and almost anti-climactic. How could this thing made of paper and ink, a thing small enough to hold in my hands, possibly contain all the love and angst I'd put into it? 

On top of that, how could something so pretty and neat feel so... scary? Ahead of publication day I felt nervous and a bit shaky, having been so vulnerable and open on the page. I was about to step onto a public stage and stand naked in front of everyone I know and don't know. So I called a couple of writer friends for moral support, and reminded myself that everyone has stories, even if they don't share them with strangers. We're human! Also, this is what writers do: we share our stories, to make sense of what happened to us and maybe shine a light for others on a similar path. 

Into the world 

Still, I held my breath when Tiny was released into the wild. And exhaled at my first book launch in Sydney, in early August, where I was drenched in love and support. The same happened at my Brisbane launch a few weeks later. My travel media friends, in particular, were amazing. 

Then Tiny started receiving fabulous reviews, including in The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald (see pic) and Books + Publishing, a big industry publication. Edited excerpts appeared in The Guardian and Sunday Life. 

I talked about Tiny on radio and podcasts, and at author events. (My publicist at Hardie Grant was also amazing.) People I hadn't been in contact with for years - school friends, people I'd worked with on magazines 20 years ago - reached out to say how much they loved Tiny or how much my story resonated with them. 

That's the thing about writing a memoir: publishing is the goal but also a beginning, the moment your story becomes its own entity with its own trajectory out of your control, reverberating as people read it and want to talk about it. That's the magic of story.  

I was also invited to narrate the audiobook version of Tiny (now available on Audible and for free via the BorrowBox library app) which gave me new respect for voiceover artists. This involved spending three days in a studio in Melbourne (my first flight in four and a half years!), reading aloud into a microphone and, much to my surprise, NOT losing my voice. (Big thanks to the wonderful team at Bolinda for this incredible experience.)

New tiny home place 

The other big thing that happened this year was that I moved my tiny house to a new location. It's an odd feeling to move house by moving your actual house. The night before the move, I lay in bed thinking, "This time tomorrow night I'm going to be exactly where I am now, here in my bed loft in my little house, in a completely new place."

Instead of hiring removalists, I hired a guy with a tractor to tow my tiny to its new spot. (After spending a couple of months preparing the new site: creating a gravel pad for my tiny to be parked on, putting in a power and water connection to the main house, dismantling my deck, packing moveable items...)

It all went remarkably smoothly. A few neighbours stood on the footpath to watch and wave as we left the old site and my little house on wheels, which hadn't moved since we'd finished building it three years ago, did exactly what it was designed to do. 

I'm still in the same northern NSW town I've lived in for 10 years (this month is my 10th anniversary!) but instead of living in a busy driveway I'm now on the edge of a green field, surrounded by trees, facing north and out of sight of the road. It's peaceful, I have lovely landlords, the bird life is incredible.

After setting up the tiny, rebuilding the deck and getting everything shipshape inside, I'd planned to go camping or do a post-book road trip. Then I realised I really wanted to get to know my new tiny home place - where the sun rose, which birds visited the trees around me. 

There was so much light! Winter sunshine beamed in, warming my tiny. At night, before going to bed, I'd stand in the middle of my grassy backyard and look up at the stars, so bright in the absence of any street lights nearby. 

It was like the homely hibernation I did after the build, and it was winter after all. I read (here's my 2024 reading list) and baked and sewed and sat in the sun and swam. I was nesting. 

It's summer now but I still love sitting at my bench with the gas-strut window open - or out on the deck in the cool of early evening - listening and looking at all the living going on around me. 

The End

I think I've finally arrived at the end of this tiny house story, the one in which I designed and built (with much help) a home of my very own, let go of someone I really loved, then wrote about it all. The end of another journey around the sun seems as good a time as any to draw a line underneath it.

I'll continue living in my tiny, of course, and this story will always be with me because it rewrote me in so many ways, but I'm looking forward to living some new stories in the new year and beyond.

And although the world is a mess right now, in so many ways, there's still much to be grateful for, and to look forward to. May 2025 be joyful and meaningful for you, and bring you some peace you weren't expecting to find. Thank you, as always, for keeping me company here. Happy new year!

Tiny: A memoir about love, letting go and a very small house is available at bookstores across Australia and New Zealand in print, and as an ebook and an audiobook (you can even listen for free via BorrowBox, the library app). From mid-January 2025, it will also available in the UK, with the US release planned for later in 2025. 

Tiny, the book!

Some of you might remember my previous post, way back in the mists of time in blog terms (aka six months ago) in which I mentioned that 2023 was for me the Year of the Memoir, the year I turned my terrible first draft into a manuscript worthy of sending to my publisher, Hardie Grant. 

Well, that manuscript has become an actual book - I'm holding an advance copy in my hands right now - and it'll be in bookstores all over Australia and New Zealand (with overseas territories to follow, I believe) next week, Tuesday 30 July. Very excitement! 

If you don't remember the post, here's a recap: my book, now called Tiny: a memoir about love, letting go and a very small house, is about my experience of building a tiny house on wheels, to live in, with my partner "Max" as (spoiler alert) our relationship was falling apart. 

It's full of joy and observations about the strange new world I inhabited for eight months, the world of construction and building materials, a world that had its own language, and I related to much of it the way I would have related to a long trip to a previously unknown destination: by taking notes and photos and trying to make the most of this once in a lifetime experience. 

Tiny is also full of struggle and anxiety and sorrow about the falling-apart relationship. And life lessons galore. Writing about it all - using words to make sense of everything that happened - has been one of the most difficult and most satisfying experiences of my life. 

Here's a sneak peak of the cover (above) and the back cover blurb (right). I've done a bit of media so far, and so far it's all been wonderfully positive. Still, I'm nervous. The book is so raw and personal. So having my story - including some of the pics I took with my phone during the build - out in the world feels both wonderful and strange. But mostly I'm excited to share my story and I hope it resonates with people, and connects us. Humans are hard-wired for story after all and I think there's a real hunger for real, authentic stories with all that's happening in the world right now.

For updates about book launches and signings, go to my No Impact Girl facebook page, which I update on a regular basis (that's also where I posted weekly updates during the build, if you scroll back to 2020-21).

Want to buy a copy of Tiny? From Tuesday 30 July, it'll be available from bookstores across Australia and New Zealand, and at these online bookstores. There'll also be an audiobook version, narrated by yours truly (another new experience; they just keep coming!). Thanks, as always, and happy reading/listening!