Month: August 2023

The Lucky Ones

The Lucky Ones

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Daily writing prompt
What brings a tear of joy to your eye?
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“It’s our song,” I say, and turn the volume up a bit. It’s Kenny Loggins, a man I’ve been told isn’t very nice in person but who I’ve never met, and anyway, this song is the story of my life. Sort of. The way many songs are. Mostly.

We have less than zero dollars as we drown in debt and try to figure out how to make a living when one of us is preternaturally ill and still trying to fix up our home so we can sell it, and the other is trying to mother two children under five years old while keeping up with household chores and launch a writing career.

It’s chaos.

Still, we will drop everything to listen to Kenny croon about the sun shining and that everything’s gonna be alright.

This is the song our band learned so they could play it for us at our wedding. This is the song playing in the background of so many memories – starting in childhood, then parenting, and now spousal.

We’ve earned what lovers own, and now we’re trying to earn a bit of the tangible stuff. I fear the song will lose some of it’s umph when we can afford to sing along and stumble over the “ain’t got money” part. Still, as long as we can harmonize with “I’m so in love with you, honey,” I think we’ll be okay. Either way it’ll bring a tear to my eye.

Sculpture in the Wild

Dreaming of Home

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Daily writing prompt
What does your ideal home look like?
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I’ve been dreaming of home, of place. I’ve been seeing home everywhere, in the creature carved into the shelf, in the stained glass I got at the thrift store, at the witch’s house (“The Castle” my kids called it) in Sculpture in the Wild.

My home is wherever my family is, that’s where I want to be. But my house? My house is a twenty year old double-wide, the sort of thing I was raised to look down upon but have found in truth to be quite to my liking. The roof is solid, the double-paned windows keep the below freezing temperatures at bay, and the unknown finish on the countertops is completely impervious to my rough treatment. It’s kind of perfect for me, a person who is the reason I can’t have nice things.

Still.

I dream of built-in’s, of bookcases that stretch ceiling to floor with pockets of art peaking out here and there. I dream of enormous windows to let in the light and the view. I dream of hardwood floors that don’t contain the stampeding herd of bison that is my children nor allergens. I dream of a kitchen where the food makes itself and it’s always edible…but perhaps that takes the dream too far.

For now, I live in the cookie-cutter house and dream of the day our house reflects our lives in a different way, a natural way, a custom way.

Daily Habits

Daily Habits

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Daily writing prompt
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?
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“I’m down to a pack a day,” she brags, exhaling a long stream of smoke and a longer stream of hacking coughs that leave me feeling like I’m about to throw up.

Apologies, but that’s my first thought. Something to do with how the prompt is written. *shudder*

With that out of the way, however, I have one daily habit that seems to belong in the “something I’m doing right” column, and I’m told over and over again that this is so. Despite feeling like it’s what I do because it’s my only option, I’m going to share it with you because it may be helpful.

Every morning, I wake up between 4:30am and 5am, not because I’m a morning person and not because that’s my favorite time of day (especially in winter). I wake up at 4:30/5am every morning because it’s the only time my entire family is preoccupied and doesn’t need me and I can have time to myself, for myself. For ease we’re just going to say 5am going forward. Let’s dive in.

Getting up at 5am means I get a minimum of one hour to myself, possibly a little longer if I’m lucky. It means I have one hour every day to show up for myself and my work. I quietly get out of my warm bed, throw on a sweatshirt, and clamber onto the couch, putting my feet up on the ottoman so I have a lap for my laptop. I pull on a blanket, open the computer, and start typing. I write every day for a minimum of one hour or 1,000 words. That is my daily goal and I don’t get to do any of the other things I could be doing with a sleeping household until that 1,000 words is met.

Once they’re done, however, I can then have my coffee, play some Wordle and Spelling Bee, check out other people’s posts and read an ebook. I have so many incentives waiting for me to finish that 1,000 words that it doesn’t feel like a chore, but a gift. And something about still being semi-asleep helps keep my inner-critic from rearing her ugly head and the words tend to flow out smoothly.

They say, “You can’t edit a blank page,” so I try to give myself something I can work with every day. These 1,000 words don’t always end up in the book, sometimes they become a standalone essay or a blog post or a Patreon post, but they’re never wasted.

What’s your best daily habit? What’s your worst?

SundayDutro

Cuddle Time

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Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite time of day?
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My mother allowed me a half hour of television a day. I was supposed to come home from school, finish my homework, and then have one thirty minute show. Of course this isn’t how it worked.

I came home from school, sat down at the coffee table, pulled out all my homework, turned on the TV and during commercial breaks, if I wasn’t jumping up for a snack, I did my homework. I always made sure to have my homework done before my mom came home, and I always made sure to turn the TV off before she came in the door.

“How was your day?”

“Good.”

“Did you get your homework done?”

“Finishing up now.”

“Did you watch your show yet?”

“Nope. I want to watch it with you.”

For it wasn’t so much that I cared about TV as I wanted to do something with her that was ours.

I can’t remember the lineup anymore, what show on which day, but there were shows we’d watch together: Family Ties, and The Wonder Years. I’m sure there were others, but those were her favorites. She’d let me pick whatever I wanted and watch it with me, but Punky Brewster and Growing Pains weren’t really her thing. I always picked a show she liked if I could help it, my greatest fear being her calling an end to this daily ritual.

As a parent, especially a single parent as she was (a feat I can, thankfully, only imagine), your time is limited but your time is all your child wants. It wouldn’t have mattered if we were laying on the couch with no television, simply being together for thirty minutes. I would have loved that. I’d gladly watch anything she wanted to watch just for the chance to be together for thirty minutes.

I try to remember that with my kiddos now. Every morning when they wake up and come out to the living room and find me typing away, I put the computer on the end table and hold out my arms. They come flooding to the couch, climbing up on either side of me. We readjust my throw blanket across all of us and snuggle up. Sometimes they ask to do a puzzle on my iPad, an app I keep just for them; but usually we just cuddle. It’s better than TV. Cuddle time is my favorite time of day.

SundayDutro

Where Did Your Name Come From?

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Daily writing prompt
Where did your name come from?
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“My parents are hippies,” I say. The easiest explanation, and not untrue.

My parents are hippies, or were…I’m not sure how that works when one is dead and the other has mellowed happily into the role of grandmother and matriarch.

The truth is much less interesting, at least to me. Mainly because I have to imagine it, as I was there but not old enough to remember myself, being a baby and all.

My father is an alcoholic, or was before he died of “Alzheimer’s related complications.” A fancy way of saying his body forgot how to function and he drowned in no water whatsoever. Because my father was an alcoholic, I can’t imagine the scene of my birth as being anything other than a moment in which he is drunk and celebrating.

When I was born you still had to name your baby before leaving the hospital, and my mother wanted to go home. She was holding me, I’m told, and my father and his best friend and his best friend’s wife were all in the room congratulating my mother and trying to come up with names for this new baby so everyone could go home and the party could really get started. (I imagine my poor mother, unaware of what she’d married into, but about to learn).

I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you who said what, but I’ve heard the story enough to know names were being bandied about for a long time. Eventually the time and the alcohol caught up and the names being tossed out were raucous, no longer serious but desperate.

“How about Tuesday? Like Tuesday Weld!”

“Wednesday, from the Addam’s Family!”

“My Girl Friday!”

“Sunday!”

And then I imagine it got a little bit quieter, a truth in the room spoken and ringing clear.

“Sunday is my favorite day.”

“There’s nothing I love more than a Sunday.”

Something barfingly close to that.

And thus, I was named. My parents were able to go home. I’m confident the party continued for one of them anyway.

When I tell people about my hippie parents naming me I shrug it off and laugh, “It could be worse,” I say, “I could be Rainbow Moonbeam!” We all laugh, every time.

Sometimes when you have an odd name, you have an odd story to go with it. And sometimes that odd story would be a bit sad and dark if told in full. Sometimes it’s a bit better to have an easy ruse.

“I love your name!”

“Oh, thank you. My parents are hippies.” Smile. Laugh.

5 Minute Stretch

5 Minute Stretch

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“pretending seems organic to you”

When she decided to start over, it was with a total and complete blank slate, or so she thought. She took nothing with her but her car, a new phone and number, which she gave no one. She essentially disappeared, changed her name, “started fresh.” And she thought she did it well.

She’d sold everything to have money to start over with, and she’d decided that rather than select a place to go specifically she would simply drive until she decided to stop. She let her music app choose her songs for her, discovering artists she never would have heard of otherwise. And she loved it.

She paid attention to signs telling her how much further til the next gas station, but otherwise ignored everything, even her speed thanks to her car’s speed control. She watched trees fly by, deserts, mountains and lakes. Building, buildings, buildings. Stretches of nothing but corn or wheat. She slept at rest stops, woken every few hours by a big rig pulling in or a cop telling her to move on.

“Why call it a rest stop if you’re not gonna let me rest?” She screamed at one officer, then ducked her head, ashamed and apologizing.

She was becoming someone new, pretending; the pretending becoming organic, natural, so that she no longer knew who she was trying to leave behind. Or why.

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from Blow Your House Down, by Gina Frangello.

5 Minute Stretch

5 Minute Stretch

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“if you proceed, you will change things”

The choice is simple, she imagines, I go forward or I don’t. I take the risk or I stay safe.

The fortune from her uneaten cookie leers up at her mockingly: If you proceed, you will change things.”

No shit, she thinks to herself before sighing.

What’s the worst that can happen, she wonders. If I go forward with this plan, if I take the risk, I could fail. And that will be a little embarrassing, sure but is that it? I’ll lose a little money, too…roughly a couple hundred bucks…which I can’t exactly afford right now. Still….

She rubs her hands across her eyes, her forehead, back around to her neck. Taking a deep breath she contemplates when happens if she doesn’t move forward: she’ll always be stuck in a job she hates…even if she changes jobs. There’s no such thing as a job she would love. She knows this, she’s tried tons of them, has friends in jobs she’d never considered or even heard of in some instances. She knows she’d hate their jobs too.

That’s the thing that gets her moving, not the possibility of failure, but the fear of never having tried to create something other than what she already knows is waiting for her. She’s a coward.

And yet, everyone calls her brave. She tells people what she’s doing, more out of nervousness than pride; and every last one of them tells her how brave she is. She laughs, if they only knew…

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard.

Dreams

Making Dreams Come True

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My dreams are starting to come true and I’m pinching myself to be sure I’m awake.

The thing is, my dreams aren’t just magically coming true, I’m working my bootie off to make them happen. But because all the work is paying off, which seems like magic, it’s easy to think this is all happening to me, or for me, and not because of me. And because some people have been asking me what I’ve been doing to get where I am now, I thought I’d share.

Social Media

Social media is the biggest time suck ever. If you’re writing or doing any sort of creating really, you can’t afford to waste time on social media. Read that again. You can’t afford to waste time on social media. You have to have social media though. Have to. So, pick your least dreaded poison and get cracking. I started with Facebook because I already had a personal account and knew how it worked and was already on there twice a day (or more) anyway. Pick a social media that compliments your work if you can (ie: visual artists = Instagram, writers = Threads, etc.)

You are going to create a business profile, even if you have a personal profile, and you are going to make your business profile legit with a recognizable picture of you and all your pertinent contact details. And then you are going to make a note in your calendar or whatever you use to keep track of your daily tasks: social media twice a day (minimum).

And then you’re going to engage: post and comment, follow and like. Whatever the tools of the social you picked, you’re going to use them. Find and follow every creator that you already know and love. Then start seeing who engages with them and follow them, too. You’re going to make a minimum of two posts a day: once in the morning when you get up, and once at night before you go to bed. I suggest you also put up a post in the middle of the day, when you break for lunch or to stretch or what have you. Bathroom breaks are an excellent way to multi-task.

Genuinely engage. Don’t be grudging or depressing or negative. Be you at your best…and at your worst: as long as it’s real.

Website

Create a free website using any of the many free tolls out there. I used WordPress because at the time it had the most integrations, the least glitches, the best conversion to multiple devices (phone, tablet, etc). Use the same profile picture from social on your website (consistency is key, especially when you’re just getting started). Your website should reflect your art as best as possible. And try to blog a minimum of once a month, though once a week when you’re getting started is best. This is going to be a crazy long blog today…most of mine are shorter, as are most peoples free slots of time. Make sure there is a way to contact you and eventually you may want to have a newsletter signup, but that can wait in the beginning.

Resources

Google resources for people in your craft. I live in Montana and I’m a writer so when I was trying to find resources I did tons of different searches using different terms, ie: writing retreats in Montana, writing workshops near me, grants for writers, etc. Then start looking into those resources. Are there any that interest you? Even if it’s something you can’t afford right now, track all the possibilities…especially the ones that seem impossible. Use a spreadsheet or a list or something to track all these things, and try to add to the list as you hear of new opportunities.

Dream

Create wild bucket lists and vision boards. Add every single possible thing that brings you joy. Create reward lists and goal lists. Create a wins list! One person I’ve met literally celebrates EVERY win and reminds themselves to celebrate those tiny and big wins every year. Take a free calendar and mark down every milestone in your journey on the day you do it so that you can celebrate it every year (ie: three years ago today I went on my first Writing Retreat, etc.).

Do

Now comes the hard part: do. You need to do something with this website, this social media, these lists of resources and dreams. No one is going to come knock on your door and ask if they can make all your dreams come true. It’s up to you. So pick one of your resources, even if it’s one you think you’re not ready for or can’t afford, and make contact. Find out how much it is, find out if they have a sliding scale or give a scholarship or have a payment plan. Keep track of everything you learn about each opportunity. Make note of any other programs or opportunities that are mentioned and follow up on those as well. Find something to aim for and determine the path to achieving it.

Craft

And don’t forget your actual craft. If you’re a writer you need to log hours writing. You can’t edit a blank page. You can’t publish a sentence that hasn’t been written yet. Get to crafting and do it every day. Every artists does this part differently but every successful artist gets the same result: tangible product. Yes, dreaming and reading and walking and scrolling are all part of your craft, but they’re all the behind the scenes bits that no one can pay you for. You also must create something tangible to work with and eventually sell.

Whatever your practice is, make it happen every day. Sick, raining, grumpy, doesn’t matter; show up for yourself and your craft every day. I get up every morning between 4:30am and 5am and I write a minimum of 1,000 words while the household sleeps. It’s the only time I can create completely undisturbed, and even then I sometimes get interrupted by a kid that wet the bed or a dog that needs to be let out to chase a deer. Create your time, create your space, and create your minimum acceptable goal for each day and then DO IT!

Irons in the Fire

And now, the last thing, and it may feel overwhelming but it’s huge: you’ve got to have a lot of irons in the fire. For example, as a writer I need to publish and because I’ve never been published I’m a risk and an asset. I wrote a bunch of short stories before changing trajectory to write my memoir on miscarriage. In the meantime those stories need a home, so I started sending them out for publication. When one was rejected I’d send it somewhere else. When a publisher asked me to send them something else to look at, I did. Always keep things out in the world no matter what your medium.

Always be researching the opportunities available to you and apply for them. At one point I had an application in to a Grant Program, a Writing Workshop, a Foundation Prize, and a few other things all at the same time…it was a lot to juggle and a lot to have constant high hopes for. It’s also a lot of things that can all say yes to you and your craft at the same time and be a huge windfall that gets your creative ball rolling.

There’s some barfingly true quote from a hockey pro that’s something like: you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Take the shot. Always.

Breathe

You’ve got this. You can do it. The only people unsuccessful at this are the people waiting for it to happen to them. If you’re making it happen, it will happen. The Universe gets behind you, or god, or something. Whatever you want to call it, it’s powerful. And keep in mind, if you’re pushing really hard for something and it’s not working, you may be pushing for the wrong thing. Back off a bit, start pushing for something else. Sometimes a door is closed because it’s the wrong door. Do your best, and then be willing to do your best again, somewhere else.

Remember to breathe, cause it’s gonna be an amazing roller coaster and you don’t want to miss the ride.

5 Minute Stretch

5 Minute Stretch

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“a skylight over my bed”

It’s something I’ve always wanted, something my brother had growing up: a skylight over my bed. In my brother’s case, we called his room The Moon Room, because he could see the moon through his skylight. I don’t remember it myself, only hearing about it all my life, a sort of memory for me through the stories of others such that it becomes hard to untangle the truth from the fiction.

At any rate, I’ve always wanted a skylight over my bed, a way to see the stars at night, the moon. Only I don’t want a little skylight, the common skylight seen at massive warehouse DIY stores where the employees wear blue or orange and don’t have any better idea how to do things that I do, but are trained to listen for key words and then direct you down an aisle.

What I want is custom. What I want is a room of glass, a room where everywhere you look you see the outside, so much so that the outside comes in, so much so that I’ll regret it in summer and in winter, the punishment of letting Nature into such close proximity.

Someday, maybe.

Until then, I go outside for my fix of stars. The white swath of The Milky Way Galaxy which I can both see and recognize that we’re somehow a part of. A conundrum, like memories and stories. Like a skylight that was never mine, that I don’t remember but have always wanted.

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from Waltzing the Cat, by Pam Houston.