Tag: Writing

  • Q Is For… Quit!

    Contributed by Tina Holland.

    QUIT – I know that doesn’t sound like a very positive word in month full of posts about Inspiration and Renewal.   But it is an important step.

    I’ve been reading a lot of books about time management and watching blogs on authors who are Resetting and Quitting.  Well, not the writing part, but everything else.  Two of my favorites are Sarra Cannon and Becca Syme.

    Sarra Cannon is doing a whole Reset on her YouTube Heart Breathings Channel and she speaks frankly about letting things go so she can focus on writing this year.

    Becca Syme has a book out called Dear Writer, You Need to Quit.  I haven’t read Becca Syme’s book but I do follow her Quitcast on YouTube.

    Both of these women talk about letting stuff go to focus on writing and letting stuff go.  It sounds easier said than done and it is.  It can be difficult to get rid of toxic people, unused things and useless tasks.

    Though it is hard, at times it is absolutely necessary for our own sanity and safety.  I will say for me it has always been easier to get rid of Unused things and Toxic People, but tasks – that thing I can validate with a checkmark or give myself a sticker.  I find those the most difficult, because you know, I’m getting stuff done.  But is it adding value?  Is it taking up more time than it should?  Do I love it?  I’ve started to evaluate these things more and more as I age.

    Each person must decide for themselves what they should Quit.  But I encourage you to Quit those things that don’t meet the criteria for your well-being and don’t move you towards your goals.

    We can’t move forward if we don’t Quit the things that block our path.

  • M Is For… Muse!

    Contributed by Tina Holland.

    It seems strange to look for a muse in the modern age.   I have an elderly dog that wants to hang out with me when I write.   His name is Kaiser and he’s a chocolate lab.   When my husband comes in, he will often say,  “I see Kaiser is musing” (yep he made it a verb).  This usually means Kaiser is napping in a nearby corner or at my feet.

    Another phrase common in creative circles is, “Feed your Muse”.  This generally refers to doing something to fill your creative well – You’re not doing the “thing” but you are doing a thing related closely to it, like reading (for a writer) or something you love (I like scrapbooking).  Occasionally, in these moments you will find inspiration for your current work or maybe a spark of something new.

    The modern muse can be an illusive entity.  In our modern world we have so much pulling us in different directions, it can be hard to find time for ourselves, let alone inspiration.  How do we change that?

    What I’ve done when I’ve been blocked or overwhelmed is to make a conscious effort to carve out time for myself.  For me that means no distractions – No TV, no phone, no tech at all and I settle in with a book or a craft project for a couple hours.  I don’t even think about writing, because honestly when I’m blocked, I’m too fragile.  And looking at a blank screen when words won’t come makes me feel like a failure.

    I’ve added more time to this creative block over the years and it does help me find inspiration and my muse and Kaiser usually joins me in all things so he enjoys a day without all the tech too.

  • L Is For… Leaving Things Out

    Contributed by Laura F.

    We live in an age notable for many things, and one of those things must surely be our shared obsession with “de-cluttering,” “minimalism,” “voluntary simplicity,” whatever other name you choose to give it.  The interiors held up for our admiration are those that have been stripped down to essentials: bare, airy, uncluttered.  If “decluttering” is the activity urged upon us as virtually a moral obligation, then “uncluttered” is perhaps the ultimate word of praise.

    I have certainly done my share of decluttering, some of which I heartily regret, but I have never achieved an uncluttered look in my living space, and I have no desire to try.  You see, there is a counter-balance to the gospel that an uncluttered, almost naked space leads to a healthy mind and a pure spirit.  The counter-balance is advice that I have found to be true: it is easier to pursue activities if your living space is set up to make those activities easy to jump into.  Some zealots go so far as to advocate packing your gym bag the night before or even sleeping in your gym clothes (!!!!) so that in the morning you will jump out of bed, grab your bag (or not, if you’re already dressed for the gym) and be on your way to a vigorous workout.

    Please do not imagine that the “you” in the preceding sentence is being used as an all-inclusive pronoun.  I have never even owned a gym bag and the thought of sleeping in gym clothes sounds as bizarre to me as the thought of showering in gym clothes.  That would save time, too, wouldn’t it?  But would it really be a good idea?

    No, let’s put all thoughts of gym firmly to one side and leave them there.  I’m thinking instead of such things as what I witnessed last Christmas, when my mother agreed to let my older sister spread out her jigsaw puzzle on our “fancy” table, one we only pull out to its full extent at major holidays.  We had our ordinary meals in the kitchen, as usual, but the “fancy” table stayed out in all its glory after Christmas dinner was over so that my sister could keep working on the puzzle.  It took weeks for her to complete the fiendishly difficult puzzle, but she finally triumphed over its challenges.  Imagine what a frustrating experience it would have been if she had had to put the puzzle away at the end of each visit and re-assemble it the next time she came over!

    Jigsaw puzzles, of course, are an extreme example, but almost any activity benefits from being literally easy to “pick up.”  Does any reader actually put a book neatly back in the bookcase after each reading session?  Who among us does not prefer to have a book handy on the bedside table or by the side of our chair?  After we’ve read the book entirely through, then it can go back in the bookcase.

    One of the greatest of sewing luxuries is the ability to leave a sewing project out on a table.  As for those people who actually have to put not only their fabric pieces but even their sewing machine away after each use, I salute their dedication but I suspect that less dedicated people would gradually sew less and less.

    I myself am a tremendous devotee of coloring books and it is a true pleasure to be able to leave a coloring book open, with a tempting array of coloring agents (pens, paints, etc.) by its side.  For me, coloring is a great way to relax.  Sometimes all I need is to color for ten minutes, or even for five, and that is enough to soothe whatever little upset ruffled my spirits.  If I had to take out my coloring book and colors each time before carefully putting them away again, my opportunities for quick “peace breaks” would be much more limited.

    In short, although plenty of people will tell you that a completely uncluttered space is crucial to mental health, I’d like to propose that sometimes leaving things out has valuable mental health benefits of its own.

     

  • K Is For… Kinetic Kindness!

    Speaking of movement.  I was fortunate to be assigned to the letter K. Hmm, so, Kinetic Kindness—I googled these two words together and found oodles of optimistic blogs, websites, teacher resources and more about movement and kindness (not always at the same time). Here’s my take on Kinetic Kindness:

    What and who is Kinetic Kindness?

    Kinetic refers to non-verbal emotional communication through movement and facial expressions. Kindness is generous, friendly consideration.

    Think of kinetic kindness as a combination of non-verbal expression of movement and being of a positive giving nature (which paradoxically will often contain verbal communication). Then I suppose we are getting into the realm of Kinesthesia. Anyway, let’s have some fun with that concept.

    Think of an encounter you have had while briskly walking, running, or bicycling on the trail with the person coming toward you. What has been your experience? Someone could offer a kinetic kindness with something as simple as a nod or a bright wave “hello.” A kinetic kindness could be your delightful pet bringing you a dirty sock and dropping it at your feet while staring lovingly up into your eyes (not sure if I’m anthropomorphizing here or not; but doesn’t that feel like kindness?).

    Why Kinetic Kindness?

    Why not? Supposing that kindness as a noun can be a stationary state; how does one offer kindness without movement? Food for thought and for another essay sometime in the future (or not).

    Ways to live in Kinetic Kindness:

    I wonder if you could offer kinetic kindness by purchasing or painting a happy painting that shows something, or someone, in motion or draw a drawing (with the intention of giving it as a gift or hanging it in a place that can be kindly shared with others) that has many bright colors and “motion.” Here’s a hint: it can be a realistic or abstract painting like this one from Wassily Kandinsky:

    or it can be a flower waving in the breeze or a bird or animal in motion like this little squirrel I sketched:

    Whatever your skill level or whatever your media or subject matter, make it m> o> v> e>_>_> across the surface of the painting or drawing then share it.  Get how that combo of concepts works?

    Another way to practice kinetic, well, uhm, kinesthetic, kindness is through sound. Not everyone can see a painting or a wave. Could you call out a friendly hello? Could you invite someone to sit next to you on the train with both words and a physical gesture such as a hand movement toward the empty seat (that covers auditory and visual movement)? Could you share a kindness by playing or creating or singing a song that illustrates movement. What comes to mind for you? Do you have any tunes like this on your current playlists? Jeramiah was a Bullfrog comes to mind. What are some songs that you can share that depict movement and kindness?

    What are some of your ideas to live in kinetic kindness?

    BTW I totally made up this goofy fun concept, kind of works though, doesn’t it?

    By JaeSage
    Iowa Druid and Kinetic Kindness Practitioner
    2023

     

  • G Is For… Graceful!

    Contributed by Adele Fasick.

    G Martha Graham

    G is for graceful, the beauty of movement that balances motion and stillness in a pattern pleasing to the human eye. Dancing is one of the most ancient arts. Images of people dancing have been found in India in pictures made more than 6000 years ago. Over the centuries, dancing developed in every known culture.

    Throughout Europe and America ballet gradually became honored as the highest form of the art of dancing. When I was growing up in New York, high school students could be excused from classes on Wednesday afternoons to attend ballet performances at the New York City Ballet. For sixty cents we would watch performances of traditional classical ballet and dream of becoming dancers. But even as we watched, the dance world was changing.

    Martha. Graham was the one of the people who revolutionized dance during the twentieth century. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1894, but moved with her family to Santa Barbara, California when she was 14 years old. It was in California that she first saw professional dance performances and decided to study dance. She soon became a star. During the 1920s she moved to New York where she started her own studio and school in 1926. The school that she started has been an important part of the modern dance world ever since its founding and it is now the oldest active dance school in America.

    Most dance performances staged in America before the twentieth century had been based on the European tradition of ballet dancing. Dancers wore gauzy tutus and ballet shoes that allowed them to dance “en pointe” and move about the stage as if they were floating.  Graham’s approach was very different. She developed the concept of “contraction and release” as the major style of movement. Some fans of the more familiar European style of dance considered Graham’s work a betrayal of the traditional culture of ballet. Graham herself felt that she was expressing the spirit of her time. She wrote: “No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that the others are behind the times.”

    Graham believed that dancing was an important expression of the nation’s culture. She declared that “The body says what words cannot.” Many videos of the dances she created are now preserved in the Library of Congress. You can discover them through their website. Her works continue to inspire dancers and audiences throughout the world. If you want to read more about Martha Graham and the art she inspired, take a look at my blog, Teacups and Tyrants. (teacupsandtyrants.com)

  • F Is For… Fresh Starts!

    Contributed by Laura Rios.

    As I sit to write this, I’m looking out through the patio door at the neighborhood treetops showing all kinds of colors: white and pink blossoms, the reddish color of new buds on the maple trees, and the bright new green best called “spring green”. The varied colors bring a welcome change of scenery after the starkness of winter. Nature is making its fresh start, as it does just about this time every year without fail.

    Some fresh starts, like springtime, are connected in some way to the calendar. We’re all familiar with the first of January. Many of us establish New Year’s resolutions, determined to make positive changes in our lives as we set off on a new journey around the sun. Perhaps our birthdays spark a similar motivation in some of us.

    Late summer or early fall brings the start of a new school year for most young people. If it means attending a completely different school, it’s truly a fresh start. These new beginnings can be both exciting and stressful; either way, they rarely come as a surprise, and we generally take them in stride.

    Other new beginnings have nothing to do with dates or moon phases. These fresh starts can be brought about by the ends of something, often due to circumstances beyond our control, and they can cause major upheavals: perhaps the loss of a job, learning that we suddenly need to move, or finding ourselves newly single. It’s natural to feel adrift in such times and face these enforced fresh starts with some trepidation. Maybe we nurse some self-pity. Where to start? Might we glimpse some positivity in these situations so that we can find a little excitement and less dread in such cases? After all, when one door opens, there is usually another one that opens somewhere else. It may be up to us to figure out where that is.

    Or maybe we simply feel compelled to make some changes. Possibly we’ve decided we don’t like what we’re doing, what we’re eating, how we look or how we feel. Luckily, we are largely in charge here, and all we need to do to begin anew is to put one foot in front of the other and set out on a new path.

    As we search for the next open door, or to pursue a road untraveled, it can be helpful to view new beginnings in a positive light. Fortunately, we don’t have to do this alone. Many wise people have pondered this very subject, and maybe you’ll find some pearls of wisdom in their words. Here then, in no particular order, are quotes intended to lend support if you’re facing a fresh start, large or small.

    So, set all that old baggage down and let the past serve only as a memory from which you’ve learned. Take a deep breath. Ready… set … go!

    “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” – L. M. Montgomery

    “The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.” – Arnold Bennett

    “Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” – Daphne Rose Kingma

    “No, this is not the beginning of a new chapter… this is the beginning of a new book! That first book is already closed, ended, and tossed into the seas; this new book is newly opened, has just begun!” – C. Joybell

    “Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be.” – Marsha Petrie Sue

    “It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

    “You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” – Mary Pickford

    “Although now one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard

    “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” – Plato

    And finally:

    “The beginning is always today.” – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  • C Is For… Create

    Contributed by Tina Holland.

    Create – It always brings the image of something new and fresh.  That image holds for the story as well.  I have always found the early stages of writing the most exciting.  Spending time with my characters, learning where they live, and what they do, generating back stories for them, and so forth.

    The early days and sometimes weeks are the easiest.  What is not easy is when I hit that first wall.  What do I do then?  I create something different, I play with crayons, I try and figure out a new dance, I garden, or plan a space in my home.  Sometimes I even create another story.

    It may seem counterproductive to create another world with new characters, new rules, and new everything, but I would argue why not.  If the goal is to be on the page and in my case published page, why not get as much of that early story out before I run out of creative energy?  I find shiny object syndrome much preferable to writer’s block.  I guess technically I am blocked on one story so why not create something else?

    Eventually, I find my way back and finish, until I reach The End, I embrace my process.

     

  • B Is For… Beginner’s Mind!

    Welcome back to Day 2 of the A to Z Challenge, Dear Reader, and the letter B!

    B Is For… Beginner’s Mind!

    What does that even mean?

    A beginner’s mind is a curious one. They know they don’t know, and so they stay open to new information, ideas, things, people, places… I could go on. Point is, a beginner is someone who is new, and who knows they are new; because of that knowledge, they become teachable.

    When we allow ourselves to be beginners in this way, we give up the need to control the situation. After all, we are beginners, and we aren’t IN control, and so we relax and allow things to happen and unfold naturally. In turn, this allows our stress response to calm down and gives us a chance to experience something without all our preconceived ideas getting in the way.

    Sometimes we can sneak into a state of Beginner’s Mind when we move very fast into something. For example, “I think I’ll do the A to Z Challenge.” Rather than stopping and examining the idea, we allow it to take us, and we think, what shall we post for A? and for B? and so on until Z and the challenge is done. By allowing ourselves to be beginners (after all, we’ve never experienced April of 2023 before), we allow ourselves to BE. This “in-the-momentness” allows us to be completely present in the moment, which is where, they say, enlightenment lives.

    What about you, Dear Reader? In what would you like to be a beginner?

  • A Is For… Again!

    Contributed by Laura F.

    When I was in school (long ago now), a classmate claimed that anyone who went a full year without having sex automatically became a born-again virgin.  I won’t comment on the validity (or invalidity) of this claim, but I want to connect it to something I heard from another classmate in another context.  She remarked that one of her professors had told her that he envied students who still had the experience of reading Anna Karenina for the first time ahead of them.  Of course, it would be possible to substitute any book for Anna Karenina.  There are videos on Youtube by booktubers who lament that they have forever lost the ability to read – oh, the Harry Potter series, to give one example – for the first time.  How did they lose this ability?  By reading the series, of course.  The first time, it appears, is always the best time.

    But is it true that we each get only one first time?  Recently I’ve re-read a few books and I was astounded by what a “first time” experience each of these re-readings was.  No, I don’t mean that my increased maturity, greater experience, and expanded consciousness :>) led me to new and brilliant insights into what I was reading.  I wish!

    I understand that there are people who proclaim that enduring a painful breakup/becoming a parent/undergoing a serious illness/[insert important life experience of your choice here] has given them an entirely new perspective on their favorite books.  That is NOT what I am describing.

    What I mean, somewhat embarrassingly, is that the books I was re-reading seemed entirely new to me because I didn’t remember a dang thing about them.  Oh, PRIOR to picking them up again, I would have said that I remembered them.  I could have named the major characters and identified significant aspects of their personalities. I had a pretty solid grasp of the plot, or at least I thought I did.  I had vivid recollections of one or two particular incidents.  I wasn’t expecting any surprises.

    But it turned out that on a sentence-by-sentence, page-by-page, scene-by-scene, chapter-by-chapter basis, I had one surprise after another.   Eventually, the surprises ceased to surprise me because I no longer had any expectation of recognizing anything I read.

    Now, admittedly, these were all books I had read years ago.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected them to seem familiar upon re-reading.  Nonetheless, despite being in what a lot of people apparently consider the fortunate position of being able to read the same book “for the first time” twice, I’m not sure that I consider it quite so fortunate.  After all, what does it mean to tell people I’ve read a certain book if I have so little memory of it?  What does it mean to tell MYSELF that I’ve read that book?

    I wonder now whether I should turn to another “A” word”: annotation.  I’ve never been one of those people who mark up their books with all kinds of underlining, highlighting, and marginal notes.  I’m used to reading books that I’ve taken out of the library and libraries prefer that patrons return books in the same condition they found them.  But I do own some books, including quite a few that I’ve never read.  If I annotated those books as I read them, would I have only one “first time” experience with them?  Would I retain more memory of the books once those books have returned to the shelf?

    Despite what booktubers might wish for, despite what that professor envied his students for, I think I’d rather be an experienced reader instead of a perpetually first-time reader.  Maybe it’s time to make highlighters and other annotation tools my new best friends.

     

  • Yes Is For… Yes! Say Yes!

    Yes!

    I said it. Yes, I’ll do the A to Z Blog Challenge this year! Yes!

    Am I glad that I did?

    Yes!

    Am I glad that I asked the folx who come to our weekly craft gathering, A Good Yarn Craft Salon and Makerspace to do it with me?

    Yes!!!

    Did we create something amazing?

    Yes!

    Did we do more than we thought we could?

    Yes!!

    Would we do it again?

    Yes!!!

    There’s something magical about challenges – National Novel Writing Month, Month of Letters, the A to Z Challenge, Month of Letters, the A to Z Blogging Challenge… They focus our attention on what we can DO. Not on what we are reading, or consuming, or scrolling. But what we, as ourselves, individuals, just you and me, can actually DO – write, or make, or speak, or say, or move… And by doing that, we remind ourselves of our inherent birthright: we are meant to be creative.

    I’ll say that again: we are meant to be creative.

    And when we, each of us, make something, just for a moment, we are reminded of our inner power and sometimes, even, a spark of our own inner joy.

    And that, my friends, is why I continue to do challenges. Not because they’re challenging, though they are; not because they’re kind of silly and made-up, because they are; but because, for the duration of the challenge, I’m reminded that I can DO this. And together, WE can do this.

    One more day of the challenge, friends; check back tomorrow for Evey who will take us home with Z Is For… Zombies!