So many colors in a winter sky

 

It's been a few days, with a nice, long weekend in between, and I've been away from this space for a bit too long. In an effort to reconnect, I come bearing photos of bright, wintry sunshine, and a gentle reminder to us all that these dark days are perhaps not so monochromatic after all. 

In honor of Martin Luther King, Joe and I went for a hike up to Big Rock, which overlooks the gorgeous Palouse. This was one of a few adventures we took over the long weekend, and we made it to the top of the hill just in time to catch the sun as it dipped into the horizon. 

{Note the snowy trail and dubious smile}

We've seen tiny rabbits on this hike in the summer months (someday we'll catch a photo of them), but for this walk we were struck by the utter stillness of the forest, the loud crunch of snow underfoot, knowing as we climbed through the quiet, that so many creatures are napping this time of year.

And so it is with the animals: Silent and sleeping in the winter months, still so much life breathes, burrowed deep in dreams as we walk amidst their slumber.

More inspiration to come this week, so please do come back to visit.

Tomorrow I'll share a little something I've been daydreaming about lately, and before you go, words of reflection from one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, as she remembers her beloved.

Also, here's one of my favorite Oliver poems--words to hold onto:

Don't Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world. It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the

case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

                                                         (Via Brain Pickings and Structure and Style--thank you.)

Do not be afraid by what is obscured by a tree

It's Thursday morning, precisely half-way through the month of January, and approximately 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside my office walls. Chilly, sleepy, but happy to be here. 

These are some words I found on one of my favorite sites, lunch poems. 

They are a gentle push, a knowing nudge into something a little more human and alive on this winter's morning. These come from Activity Book, a chapbook by poet & musician, Kelly Schirmann, and I'm ready to read more.

>>>>  Here's to good vibes and inspired words on this winter's Thursday.  <<<<

Cheers, xo

Emotional Excess & Creativity

The students have returned from their long winter break, and things are very busy around the University this week with meetings and appointments throughout the day. It's been difficult to steal away, but I wanted to give a little update to last week's post about setting aside writing time as part of my Daily Routines, and my hope pledge, to commit more time to my creative life this year.

Here's what I observed about last week:

The evenings after work are tough. While I did make some time to go back and read through work I've already written, making small edits and tweaks here and there, it was also the case that two of the evenings last week were devoted to other obligations--a much needed haircut, cleaning the bathroom, and a few other perfectly unglamorous, but necessary tasks.

I also learned this: I am good for an hour at most after work and then I need to be done for the day.

But, the good news is this: I wrote on both Saturday and Sunday for a stretch of time (even longer on Sunday--about three hours), and I believe I have a piece (one that's about a year old now) finally ready for submission.

And this feels very, very good.

In my ongoing pursuit of words, voices, conversations and advice about how artists find balance and nourish and nurture their craft, I stumbled upon some of the coolest pieces collected by Maria Papova, the author and curator of all things creative at www.Brainpickings.org.

Maria devotes quite a bit of page space to creative collaboration and the meditations of artists on the practice of feeding one's mind, heart, spirit, and creative energy. There's so much good stuff on this site (I'm excited to keep exploring), but one piece that really stuck with me is from Anais Nin, called, "Why Emotional Excess is Essential to Creativity." Yes! Because it is. This is a beautiful excerpt from the fourth volume of Nin's diary:

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.

Check out more brainpickings here. Hope your week is off to a happy, inspired start.

Cheers!

(top photo: www.workspaces.tumblr.com--thanks!)

Daily Routines: Part Rant / Part Plan

I've been mesmerized by this chart found in Mason Currey's book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. What I find admirable {and hopefully imitable} are the incredible blocks of time these artists devote or devoted to their "creative work." Look at all of that pink! Perhaps even more interesting is when and where the green "day job" time takes place. Some of these artists weave their day jobs into their schedules in bursts of a few hours at a time, others manage to make their creative work their full-time job, Okay, duly noted. This will be my next book purchase.

It's often said that one of the most important skills to hone as a writer has little to do with the craft itself, but the sheer discipline to devote time to the craft everyday.

And it's the real kicker of the trade: how does one call herself a writer if she doesn't make time to do it? Ouch. There's truth in this of course, but there's also the truth that no single artist is going to have exactly the same creative rhythm as another, and there may be large gaps here and there. I take comfort in this. I think it's also important to be kind and patient with one's self. There's really no other option when thinking about time, the passing of it, and the unfinished story or novel that sits, waiting for us to return...

While I'm not one who typically fixates on New Year's resolutions, there certainly is something to be said for periodically taking stock of what's working and what's maybe not working so well in a daily/weekly/monthly routine, and determining where change might take place.

As a writer and the occasional crafter, the question of how to find balance between the work I do for money from 8-5, and the work I do to for me, is one I face everyday. It's true for me that when I work on my stories and make a little headway, or particularly when I start something new and feel the first few lines pulsing on the page, a narrative slowly unfolding, sometimes three, four hours of writing tucked under my belt--this is when I know through and through that I've done my day's work. I sleep better, I feel lighter, happier, and more peaceful. I feel like me. When I write, I know that I'm nourishing a very important part of myself, which is a way of honoring who I am.

What is also true, is that at the end of a work day at my 8-5 job, I don't have much left in me for creative output. What I crave is a glass of wine, reading my current book group book, catching up on my favorite blogs, and most importantly, eating food and sharing my day's stories and experiences with my partner. And this is just fine. It's wonderful in fact. The balance of my current workday can easily be broken up into the following pattern: wake up, work, exercise, work, come home, unwind, sleep (hopefully). One could look at my pattern and say, "Yes. That's what it means to be a contributing member of society. You do those things in that order." Fine and good.

But something big is certainly missing for me when my creative time is absent.

Our daily rhythms are essential to our sense of well-being. When key elements such as sleep or food or say um, creative release, are thrown off or are suddenly removed, we often don't feel like ourselves. We don't recognize ourselves in the sequence of our own day, which can be a very, very disheartening experience.

Sometimes I imagine it like this: If someone were to hold a mirror up to me at any given point throughout the day, how many times would I see my reflection and say, "Yeah, totally. This is me. This is what I do. I love this," and how often might I respond, "Oh, yeah. This doesn't really feed me, you know, spiritually, creatively, or otherwise, but it's what feeds me. I earn money for this."

All of this to say that when I really take stock, it's evident to me that weekends and holidays, and anytime maybe in the middle of the night when I'm not sleeping (because perhaps I'm restless and feeling as though my day's work isn't quite done), are all times when my creative self needs some time. And this isn't simple. Truthfully, I'm kind of a busybody, and when I've been at my desk for long stretches of time during the week, what I crave less than anything, is more time at my desk, even if it's for writing this very important-to-me thing.

But alas, this becomes the challenge: How can I add some additional writing hours to the week so that I'm feeling just a little more balanced? Drastic changes aren't easy to follow, nor are they very sustainable, but what about an hour in the evenings? What about three hours on Saturday? Maybe three hours on Sunday?

Maybe just start with an hour on the weekends and see if I can turn it into three? This might be a manageable task just to see what carving time out does to my sense of well-being as an artist/writer. I'll keep you posted (and keep myself accountable) here in this space, and as far as timeline?

In true new year spirit: I'll begin today (as soon as I'm home from the day job).

Please feel free to stay tuned for updates & a very happy Tuesday to you!

(thanks to Colassal and calmingcalamity.tumblr.com)

Do You Doodle?

When I'm gripped by a surge of inspiration, driven to the page by creative impulse, the results usually find their form in a slender string of lines--usually a scrawl of messy cursive. I try to jot the words down as quickly as I can, so as to remember their order and sequence, sometimes inside a tiny notebook that I keep on hand, or in one that rests beside me on the nightstand. And if these items fail to surface, I'll settle for the back of an envelope, the flip side of a bank statement, if I'm in a bar, the requisite whiskey-soaked napkin will suffice.

Regardless of their exact location, lines come and land on the page in mere seconds, and after that, it's up to me to decide what comes next. Are they worthy of more attention, or was the jotting down of them their sole purpose? If it's a longer piece I'm writing, perhaps they fit in somehow? Or, if they're entirely nonsensical, but the syntax is just right, maybe it's just a tiny amusement I file away under, "Jokes I tell Myself." One of my friends calls it "scribbling," and I like that. It takes some of the pressure off, in a way.

But for artists whose creative expression comes in shapes other than horizontal lines, while they may refer to their work as "doodling," the end result can often be awe-inspiring and sometimes startlingly beautiful.

When I taught English, I would sometimes notice the occasional student sketching a small drawing in the corner of a notebook. Rather than feel annoyed that said student may not be paying his or her full, undivided attention to whatever I was saying, instead I would find myself curious--sometimes to the point of distraction--to see what they were drawing. Doodles are inspiring. They rise up from some part of ourselves that feels free of imposed constraints, expectation, or the need to produce something worthy of an audience. Doodling, just like jotting lines, feels necessary. I've read several articles arguing that doodling can in fact help a person focus and aids in the learning process by opening different pathways in the brain, particularly when lots of information is being processed. So perhaps it is best to leave the doodling student to her craft.

Doodlers Anonymous, or DA, is blog-home for doodles, interviews, and themed-submissions, and it was started by OKAT and Hugo Seijas, who are also both self proclaimed doodlers. Artists like Gemma Capdevila, whose work is shown below, mix together whimsy, humor, and sometimes a bit of the absurd in their sketches, and many of them are stunning. It leads one to question where the line truly rests between doodles and, well, the other side of doodling?

So dreamy, right? 

Check out more gorgeous doodles here and here.

Also, how doodling helps you pay attention. 

And the 2014 Word of the Year Is...

Vape, according to Oxford Dictionaries, but there were some interesting runners up, including bae (similar to one's romantic boo, perhaps?) and one of my personal favorites: normcore:

-core (from hardcore) has been a remarkably productive suffix for decades, most commonly being used to christen a new extreme or intense music style. More recently it has become semantically diluted so that it means something akin to “non-mainstream”, and has broken away from music to embrace film (think mumblecore).  Although examples of its use can be found as far back as 2009, 2014 is the year that normcore shot into the popular consciousness. Referring to a trend in which ordinary, unfashionable clothing is worn as a deliberate fashion statement, normcore has already been declared “over” by fashion blogs and magazines. However, language doesn’t tend to work quite as quickly, and therefore normcore the word still remains very much alive in the vocabulary of English.

Passé, maybe, but it was a mere three or four months ago that my boyfriend introduced the term to me, and I flipped. It all clicked in that moment: the resurgence of Birkenstocks over the last few years (which I adore), and not just that, but Birkenstocks with socks--the stuff of my youth! Add the nondescript windbreaker and sky-high blue jeans--not the high-waist skinnies we've seen for some time, but the ones that fit a little baggy all over--GAP jeans circa 1990.

Think Seinfeld and Friends. Mom and Dad. Over-sized sweaters, gray sweatshirts, and a rejection of the idea that fashion be painful in any way. In fact, it can be less fussy and fanciful; it can embrace the body rather than restrict it. The criticism, I suppose, is that this type of fashion suggests to the world that one just doesn't care, and while this look can certainly toe the line, I'm not convinced that an overt disregard for style is at the heart of normcore.

I mean, check out some of this loveliness:

I personally love any look with stripes, camel coats, or chunky blue sweaters. (I know I'm not alone in this.)

Ah, normcore. May it be a word and a look that follows us well past 2014. And for more word play and previous word winners, read on, my friend. 

(Photos: www.ellecanada.com/blog , www.blog.lonewolf.com)

Reason for the Telling

I'm one of those people who carved out a couple years (the last years of my twenties, to be exact), pushed the pause button, and hitched my wagon to a life of writing (and teaching writing). I was pursuing my MFA in fiction during this time, and more than anything, my goal was to strike at the heart of good story telling--to locate that dubious secret woven through certain narratives (we all know the ones), which spark bright with hilarity and carry just beneath their lines a particular density--the opacity of loss, something utterly human and true. I care deeply for words. I'm irked when they're tossed into sentences without care, and I don't mind spending the better part of my day pondering their sequence. In fact, I think it may be the most useful way to spend the hours as any.

One of the questions often raised in our writing workshops, the whole group of us seated around a large oval table as we dug into the lines of a student's story was, "Why now? What's the reason/occasion for the telling? Why this day and not last week?" It was a question intended to probe us writers and the particular author in question, to consider what the real drive behind the story was--what was essential about the specific moment the story began? The details matter, so does narrative tension, dialogue, showing/not telling, all of which hinge on the exact moment we encounter the characters. It's easy to start a story too soon; it's even easier to stick a character in a scene that does nothing to advance the story. So often we just want to see our characters sit in a bar and drink whiskey--and why not? We give our fictitious friends opportunities and experiences we often wish for ourselves.

I finished the program in 2011 (loved it, and will surely talk about it here more, sometime), taught English for several years after that, and I'm now working at a university as an academic advisor. I'm also striving to find any and all time available to feed my creative curiosities, roam the out of doors, and love on the people I adore.  I find myself wondering now, as I begin this blog, what is the reason for the telling here? What is my purpose, my aim, what's with my timing? I'm still considering the answers to these questions, but certainly one of my primary goals is connection: connection with other bloggers and writers, with readers, with new communities, and with my own thoughts--as often as I can get them down on the page. What a gift these spaces are to a writer, and I truly am thankful for a well-established venue in which to share.

Mostly I want in on the fun, and what better time to start than now?