Muse Quest PDX

Romancing the Creative Life in Portland, Oregon

Kim Switzer

Inspiration, Aisle 5

I’ve had an especially inspiring, creatively stimulating week. First, after several years and a couple of false starts, I have a writers’ group again! We had our first meeting Wednesday night, five of us in a little back room in Anna Banana’s coffee shop. I’m so excited by this! But I’m writing at length about that in my writing blog, so I won’t go on here.
Instead, I’ll mention the time of year. It’s late July. Nearly August. Do you know what that means? If you’ve been in a store lately, and you’re anything like me, you’ve probably guessed what I’m talking about—school supplies!

I love school supplies. Pens. Notebooks. Folders and binders, calendars and planners, index cards, rulers…These make my writerly heart go pitter pat.
Why? I don’t know for sure. I know that I’ve always been excited by all of the new school supplies at back-to-school time. My mother loves school supplies, too. Maybe it’s genetic.
I think one of the reasons I get so excited by school supplies is the seemingly limitless creative possibilities in them. Imagine all the stories that can fill those notebooks! All the notes and ideas and new bits of knowledge. Picture all the drawings and doodles that can fill the blank books! It’s a blank slate, a wide open invitation to create as much as you can, to fill all the pages with your ideas.
The other wildly attractive part of new school supplies is all of the organizational possibilities. I always imagine having just the right folders and calendars and things and being very organized, having everything where I want it, knowing not only what I’m going to do with my stories and pictures now but also what I’m going to do next. I think I somehow believe that with enough index cards and calendar pages, even I can be organized. It never quite works out that way for me—I don’t think my brain quite works like that—but the chance that it might happen never ceases to inspire me.
I’m off now to add a few notebooks, maybe a little 18-month calendar/planner I have my eye on, and another stack of index cards to my stash. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be rearranging files and folders, labeling new index tabs, and generally preparing for the most creative time of the year.

Kim Switzer is an aspiring novelist and avid dabbler in various visual and fiber arts, especially embroidery, beaded embroidery, oil painting, and her new-found love--art quilting. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her boyfriend, her cat, and various incarnations of her muse. For more information or to contact Kim, you can use the
following links:

Website: http://www.mythicwriters.org
Blog: http://www.wordcolors.blogspot.com
E-mail: kimswitzer@mythicwriters.org
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Garden Views: Our Gardens, Ourselves

Recently, I was talking to a friend about cleaning up in the garden and the conversation meandered to the subject of aging; namely that we just didn’t seem to be able to work continuously from 7:00am to 7:00pm anymore, or to lift bags of soil or tubs of stones with ease, as we once could. Our gardens, and our gardening styles, must change to accommodate our abilities as well as our tastes.

She and her husband have been gardening their plot for more than 30 years. Most of our garden was destroyed when we added onto the house about six years ago, so it is relatively new. We have about the same size lots, but each of us has a very different gardening style and philosophy. What we do share in common, however, is that we want to do all of the gardening ourselves.

Not everyone does.
I recall a cardiologist I visited who was already a grandma several times over. She wanted a mature garden before she was too old to enjoy it. So she hired a local landscape architect, a petite, middle-aged, wiry woman who looked as if she ran marathons three or four times a week. Their collaboration produced an exquisite garden that seemed as if it had always been there. Small trees and mature shrubs were moved from the front yard to the back; an old, awkwardly-placed garage morphed into a three-season garden house with a working fireplace; and a side porch became a secret garden of Victorian antique wicker furniture and flowering plants, where one could observe the entire garden without being observed. Now the landscaper is still called in to do the heavy work, but the doctor putters on weekends and days off, planting her own annuals and perennials.
Other gardeners I’ve met have hired a landscape architect to design the garden and produce the plans and plant list, but then did all of the planting themselves in phases, over a period of years.
This year, I’ve gone back to my roots, so to speak, and planted seeds --- for the first time in about 35 years --- a sport of wild columbine that blooms purple, in full sun, and grew three feet wide; a few morning glories for the new rose arbor; lettuce and cherry tomatoes; etc. I’m also planning to get seeds of some heirloom tomatoes that I discovered at a tomato tasting last year. And I want to air-layer some un-labeled rhodies we bought on sale 15 years ago, and to try my hand at rooting a delphinium and a few other perennials that have gone out of style.
Whether you are staring at blank front and back yards of topsoil in a new development, or just feel the need for a change in a mature garden, make sure to put yourself into the picture, even if you hire professionals to do most of the work. Fashions in gardening come and go, but our gardens are one of the most intimate expressions of ourselves that we will ever have the opportunity to create.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com.

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Funny in Vegas- The Power of Tanyalee Davis

It's Las Vegas. Sin City. The land where prostitutes converse with Mormons on bicycles, and sometimes they're one and the same. Women here work twice as hard, horizontally, vertically, and even on poles. They work twice as hard for a third of the pay, and when they hit stages- they take on super powers to keep the tourists coming back. Over the next few weeks I'll introduce you to several of these women. Some have names you are probably familiar with- like Roseanne, or Rita Rudner. Others, you really need to know about because when the women come into YOUR town, you want to be the first in line to see them.

If you look over the horizon, then direct your attention lower, towards maybe the hip bone of your best friend...you will be eye to eye with Tanyalee Davis. At three feet, six inches tall, the woman is sexy, sassy, and will fill a room with laughter for hours. Not polite to laugh at Little People? Not P. C.? If you're worried about that, you probably have no sense of humor, anyhow. But, if you get past the fact that she's wrapped up in a small package, and most people do within moments, then you can get one of the funniest women on the planet happens to be a dwarf.

It takes a few moments for Tanyalee to get onto a stage. Usually working that fact to her advantage, she uses that time that the audience is discovering a comfort zone to play with the mic stand, bounce up from a bar chair, or even remark at the skills of the emcee. Without missing a beat, she will pounce on that discomfort and tear it to shreds. Whether it be by pulling the stockings she is wearing up over her head, proclaiming, "One size fits all? My ass!", or attempting to create a mic stand that is workable for her- the crowd shakes off concerns in roaring laughs.

For years her humor dallied with issues relating to her love life, or the plain fact that people ARE uncomfortable with her height. Her marriage to a man literally twice her size brought her to the attention of Murray Povitch, who has her on as a frequent guest. And, the marriage makes for great material- for obvious visual reasons. Marty is almost twenty years older.

Earlier this decade, whilst making her way across a street in her pint-sized scooter, a car pummeled into her. The driver told the policeman writing the report, "I don't know where she came from- she fell from the sky!" This was the beginning of an onset of medical issues, which exacerbated the genetic spinal stenosis. It was also the start of a new form of writing. Her focus is on a one woman show that has garnished rave reviews in the UK, significantly so in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Starting with that very same accident, audiences and critics are left in tears from the hysterical presentation, and the poignancy of this woman's life.

Born in Canada, now living in Las Vegas, Davis appears to be finding greater success overseas where the stigma of size, and the annoyance of Political Correctness isn't a barrier. The people who see comedy in the United Kingdom are transfixed by her humor. Tanyalee even worked with Liz Carr, a Britain based comedienne who is wheelchair bound, in a show called "Abnormally Funny People" and again in "The Brave Tarts of Comedy". The British audiences love her so much that a BBC crew followed her around as she toured there, then came here to the States to shoot the surgery for correction of part of her spinal stenosis.

At Saint John's Medical Center in Santa Monica, the cameras whir around as she underwent two critical spinal surgeries. The crew focused on the impact of certain illnesses which seem to affect only those of small stature. There are at least two hours of television to air in the fall, with a possible run in this country. For several weeks following, Davis relearned how to walk, and taught doctors, nurses, and other medical staff, just how resilient and determined she is. When she makes up her mind to do something- whether it be appear before hundreds of people on a stage in Scotland, or walk 40 yards in order to leave a rehabilitation hospital- she makes it happen.

Now Tanyalee is healing quite well, and ready to take on a showroom of her own in the town known for entertainment. With Rita Rudner and Roseanne Barr each headlining major casinos, the time is prime for the woman with eighteen years of stage experience to show the corporate moguls that this comic is a force worthy of any theater. Although she doesn't have the household name factor, this seems to be just an inconvenience. Crowds flock to her shows again and again, partly for the curiosity, and mostly because she keeps the laughter going.

Recently, Dat Phan, a winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing, invited Tanyalee to open for him at the Palace Station Casino and the crowds were so eager to know her, she ended up with many of the audience members attending the second show- which is almost unheard of in a town that lures audiences into the casino floor to gamble after any event. At this very show, The Discovery Channel taped Little People, Big World, as her friend program's star, Matt Roloff visited Las Vegas for a conference. These producers were greatly impressed by her performance, spending less time chatting with NBC's find, and more time talking business with her.

Her MySpace page boasts dozens of photos with family, friends, and well-known stars of comedy, stage, TV, and screen. There are listings of her upcoming shows- all booked during and prior to her recovery from life changing surgery. But most importantly, there are clips of her shows that will leave you in stitches. You can visit her at page, comment, or add her as a friend. http://www.myspace.com/tanyaleedavis

Once you find a reflection of yourself in Tanyalee's work, and words, it becomes very difficult to see her as a small person. Her heart is huge, her talent is gigantic, and her charisma is awe inspiring. Nothing will ever stop her from being anything other than a household name. And, whether it be on stage in Sin City, or in a festival in the United Kingdom, no one forgets her performances.


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Cathe Jones is the author of "I'm Just As Screwed Up as You Are- the Anti-Dr. Phil book", and "Godless Grief". She was a regular at Los Angeles Second City, the Comedy Store, and currently is a Short Bus Comic, while her husband, jazz pianist Mike Jones, opens and is musical director for the Penn & Teller show. They reside in Las Vegas with their 50 rats, 5 chinchillas and 3 cats. Kids not included. Read more!

Career Inklings from Columbia

Work and Play Fusion

The first day that I entered the grownup world of work, I wondered when I could go back to being a kid again. That was many years ago, before I learned that work and play could actually be two sides of the same coin. It was a matter of attitude and perspective. Thirty years and some (much?) grey hair later, I feel like the words from a song by Bob Dylan: “But I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.”

Everything about working seemed difficult to me back then: adult clothes, long hours, getting there, getting home, what to eat for lunch, who to eat lunch with, and on and on. I truly felt my spirits sag as my freedom floated away. Perhaps I had the wrong idea of what work was supposed to be. Maybe I didn’t know how to connect with my work. But, gradually, over the years I discovered that the secret to my success, happiness, passion resided in me.

How did I discover this? Well, jumping from job to job, boss to boss, year after year was exhilarating at first. You know, the novelty of new things. But, then it became exhausting, as in. “Hey, wait a minute! Why am I doing this again?” Finally, the moment of truth arrived and my discontent became elucidating. I realized that my problem was mine alone to grapple with and solve.

I can’t say that my discontent miraculously dissipated with that realization. I didn’t suddenly reach career nirvana or magically achieve that elusive workplace bliss. But gradually I saw that the one common denominator in all of my jobs was me. I became better prepared to shift the responsibility for my happiness and fulfillment from “out there” to “in here”.

Figuring out what I wanted, who I was and what my talents were began the slow process of awareness. In many ways I’d taken the opinions of others as gospel of my career choice. I’d continued on a path developed, designed and dictated by others, rather than listened to my own intuition. By shifting my emphasis from the external world of expectation, to the internal world of desire, the “little voice” of dissension became a barometer of the change only I could make. Gradually I mustered the courage and the skill to move toward the direction I felt suited me better rather than always running away from my current circumstances.

I’m not in career nirvana yet, but workplace bliss is becoming more attainable.

As Picasso said: “It takes a long time to become young”. Why wait? Let your “young-ness” begin today, by fusing play with your work!

Next time I’ll discuss some ways to recognize the voice that’s your own as you brave the journey that honors you, your talents and what you bring to the world.


Janet Ruck is as an escapee from the world of full-time work. As a career consultant and writer, she is consumed with helping people identify their passions, uniqueness, interests and talents to keep them from slipping into the faceless abyss of the workplace. Janet encourages herself and her clients through the use of journaling and creative self-expression as means of gaining perspective and insight into their authentic selves. She helps clients create and sustain satisfying careers by recognizing their own personal magic. Contact her at janetruck@yahoo.com.


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Failing with Style

Creative Connections
from Lauri Griffin

Have you seen the "Meet the Robinsons" movie? What struck me most was how failure was celebrated. In the movie, Lewis is a young orphaned boy. He's also an inventor, albeit a relatively unsuccessful and discouraged one. (People tend to cower and run when he turns his machines on). When he time travels into the future he spends time with a wonderful, eccentric, and creative family. He tries to fix their automatic peanut butter and jelly spreader, but instead of repairing it, he makes it explode. Think blobs of peanut butter and globs of jelly covering the dining room and everyone in it. Lewis starts to apologize, but is interrupted by cheers. People raise their glasses and toast his failure with comments about how completely and messily he failed. They saw failure as a step, not something to apologize for, or be ashamed about.

And failure can be a step to success, or maybe to revision, or maybe to something we can't see or imagine until we go through that mess. We don't usually applaud our failures though. We brush them under something, hide them away, hope no one noticed or saw. I think it's part of our instant culture that we expect instant results, instant success. So here's to failure, to effort, to another try, and to wherever it takes you.

Lauri Griffin is a published short story writer who is currently revising some longer works. She holds degrees in educational psychology and gifted education. She writes for a parenting website and is the instructional coordinator for a a literacy program. Lauri is fascinated by the many different ways our brains learn, and by the creative process. Visit Lauri's Reflections, for more thoughts on creativity, writing, lifelong learning, and parenting. Read more!

WRITING IN WHITE ROCK, BC

A writer's daily struggle for focus, authenticity, and joy

Jeanne Ainslie

Graffiti from the ladies washroom at the Cuban Cafe on Commercial Drive, Vancouver BC:
"Unnerved by you, I fall endlessly, recklessly, colliding with stars, planets & old dreams hung in the sky I like a meteor I die every black night G.S."

These are gems--the unexpected voice of a stranger compelled to announce her passion to the world. Isn't this what we writers, artists, musicians, and yes, scientists do everyday? But first one has to fall in love--fall in love with the discovery of ideas and their expression, which can be paint, words, objects, sounds. Creativity of the artist is a ritual enactment of birth. First you see the scene, hear the voice and have a compelling desire to express this to the world. And to give birth, we struggle, go broke, fall into despair, start again and again because for some reason that we don't understand, this is what we want to do, must do, and nothing else will satisfy. Read more!

Macho Creativity

Harry’s Delusion

Harry sat dejected in the cold artic landscape. “Forget it,” he thought to himself. Polar bears are meant to hunt and kill. They need to be aggressive and tough…it’s expected of them. He scrubbed out any trace of his previous creative endeavor from the snow and resumed his practice of doing push-ups to occupy his time…and mind.



He finished his first set of 2400 and then started on his sit-up routine. He hated doing this stuff but knew it to be a necessary component of the macho life. Even though his muscles were covered by thick white hair, it gave Harry confidence to know he was carrying six-pack-abs below. He could swagger. He had the equipment for it. He practiced walking around the ice hole. He was trying to perfect the John Wayne style that was proving very successful for him.

“Chicks love this,” he thought ignoring how silly he looked prancing around the ice hole. It would all be worth it…he hoped.

On the next ridge a group of three female bears watched Harry from behind an ice shelf. They chattered excitedly among themselves knowing they were having a rare opportunity to watch a young macho stud perform, uninhibited by the knowledge he was being watched.

“Oh..ahmawyee god!” Shelia exclaimed breathlessly. She was a cheerleader and appreciated athletic movement. Rhonda nodded in agreement. Eloise stood and stared in rapt appreciation.

“That’s Harry. He’s so cute. Look at him strut. Why is he going around in circles? Should we talk to him?” The giggling continued as they worked up their confidence to show themselves.

Meanwhile, Harry continued his swagger around the ice hole, unaware that he was being observed.

“Man, am I bored.” Harry thought with frustration. Sadly, he remembered the momentary joy he felt at the thought of drawing in the snow. He shut his eyes tightly trying to block out these creative and unmanly thoughts. He felt his abs again and felt slightly better…but still bored.

Suddenly, Harry saw the three females walking down the hill towards him. “Oh, shit! They must have seen me working out and practicing.” This was not good. Harry had to create the illusion that his strength and swagger came naturally.

“Hi Harry!” Eloise blinked her eyes seductively. “What are you doing?”

Harry stammered briefly. Then roared. He always did that when he was flustered. It was a defense mechanism that never failed him. The girls stepped back quickly.

“Catching seals, of course.” He replied. He struck his hunter pose. They all loved it.

“How many have you caught?” Rhonda asked.

“Several.” Harry lied. “What brings you ladies out here?”

Shelia replied. “Why, we’re just out for a walk…checking out the neighborhood…you know what I mean?” She was the aggressive one. Harry could all tell they were interested in getting to know him better. Mating season was starting soon; he knew he was on a lot of lists.

Sensing their interest in him, Harry relaxed. He observed them critically: all not bad looking. Anyone would be proud to be seen with them…particularly Shelia. She was hot. Harry winked at her…she smiled back seductively. It was so easy. Thank god for those sit-ups.

But Harry felt no connection with any of them. It was more like a game than a mating ritual. As they stood together conversing as young polar bears do, Harry felt the boredom, the futility of all that he was. They just wanted to be seen with him…like some status symbol. They didn’t care about who he was inside…just what he looked like and what he could do for them. His interest waned further. Intuitively, the females retreated. Harry excused himself.

“Have to get back to my hunting.” He said without conviction.

The females nodded and moved on. Harry watched them move away slowly. He was sadder than ever. Unconsciously, he began doodling again in the snow, breathing quietly, waiting for the signs of bubbles from below.

Lost in thought, alone on the frozen tundra, Harry let his imagination roam. Quickly the doodle took form and shape. Again, Harry felt the enormous joy and satisfaction of the creative spirit that was in him. It was his dark secret. One he would protect forever but one he could chose to exercise whenever he was alone.

“What’s that, Harry?” a quiet female voice from behind startled him. She had come out of nowhere. What would he do now…now that he had been discovered…and exposed?



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Television Musings

Television Musings
Rants and Raves of a Romance Writers

Big Brother 10

What happened to the days of television seasons? New shows in the Fall, a winter break, new shows January thru April, and then reruns thru the summer. I loved those days. The only thing I watched in the summer was Padres games.

Now we have seasons of six weeks. Then we may not see that particular show for six months. They may or may not rerun. After, that show ends they immediately start something new. We have mini - seasons. And they use hooks each week to keep us returning. Also, thread through pieces to ongoing stories. Television writers are clever these days.

We have new shows beginning and ending every week. A person like me can barely keep up. But you can find ideas. If you a stuck on a story idea or plot problem turn on the television something will jell with you and give you inspiration. But be careful if you have an addictive personally like me you may become stuck on something else.

This past week we had the start of Big Brother 10 and already there has been major drama. Big Brother is about 12 (I think this time) strangers (this summer) who all live together in a big house without being able to leave. No television, radio, internet, phones, or newspapers. Nothing from the outside world.

All they have is each other. They have no privacy. And then they vote each other off. Survivor . But I think living in a house together is tougher than surviving out in the wild, in some ways. And they do it for a lot less.

The killer is the show is on three times a week. And if that' s not enough it's on every night from midnight to three am on showtime two. Plus, there's always the 24 hr live feed you can subscribe to on the internet. Yes, I could get addicted to that, But yes I do have a life.

With Big Brother I have watching since maybe the third season.

But alas I did find another new show by accident last week. My sister fell asleep and left the TV rolling after we had finished watching something else. I was working on a jigsaw puzzle and did not get up immediately to turn the set off. A reality show came on called The Gentleman's Club. They are taking what I call street thugs (they called themselves G's) and turning them into gentleman. I do see where this show could help a few guys change their lives for the better.

New episodes of the Closer, Saving Grace, Monk, and Pysch aired this week.

If you want to reach me email:
kathy,carpenter4@gte.net


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microBusiness: Doing Your Own Good Work

Lloyd Lemons

Entrepreneurship offers endless creative lessons...

About three years ago, Michael Hopkins wrote a piece in Inc. Magazine about entrepreneurship. I kept the hard copy, because I enjoyed it so much. It’s a long article, but I thought it hit the mark then, and it still does today. If you want to read the whole article the link below still works. One of Michael's 75 Reasons to Be Glad You’re an American Entrepreneur... is number 40, and probably the one closest to my heart. He says, “...entrepreneurship is a way out, a way through...”. He notes that in the New York City Family Court system, kids still choose entrepreneurship as their second favorite dream for the future. (Becoming an NBA basketball player is the first.)

Entrepreneurship, which includes microBusinesses of all types, is one area of our economic system that has open arms for virtually anyone regardless of class distinction, race, education, financial wherewithal, social values, political affiliation, size and appearance, or even the ability to speak the English Language. Entrepreneurs, even ones with minimal resources, create their own welfare. They have an idea, they set an intention, and they move forward at their own risk. They establish their own set of management rules, accept 100% of the responsibility, motivate themselves, and win or lose in the marketplace. They don’t need to be “acceptable” according to a firm’s corporate culture. They work at something of their own creation, generally something they enjoy, and according to the dictates of their own heart. They create a space in the world that, for the most part, they control, and of which, they take ownership. (Sound familiar?)

I’ve seen a recovering addict start a business with a bucket, a brush, and a squeegee. Today, he has a thriving window cleaning business. I know of a handicap woman who designs and creates beaded jewelry at her kitchen table; a business that feeds her two children. I’ve seen a college kid build computers in his dorm room, and turn it into a multi-million company. And I’ve worked with a high school dropout who turned a hammer and saw into a growing construction company. It wasn’t easy for these people, and there were plenty of naysayers, but they would not let anyone steal their dream.

Entrepreneurship, just like creativity, doesn’t require a pedigree, a handsome face, a pile of money, or an unusual level of intelligence. It doesn’t require extraordinary talent, a polished speaking voice, or connections to important people. It simply requires the overwhelming desire to improve your situation. A healthy measure of independence and a determined character will carry you a long way; and more important than formal training is a belief in yourself, a moral compass, and the desire to contribute something of value to the world. Entrepreneurship isn’t an elitist club designed to usher a select few into uncountable riches. For millions "...entrepreneurship is a way out, a way through...” a life that is not always fair, not always just. It’s an opportunity available to anyone to make his or her own mark in the world, to do an honorable work, to be self-sufficient, and to build a better life.

NOTE: I know that this blog has an international readership, and it is not my intention to focus on America exclusively. I also know that microBusinesses are "a way out, a way through" for many people around the world. Please comment on how entrepreneurship, microBusiness, and creativity have impacted your life, no matter where you live.

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Lloyd Lemons lives in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife of 32 years, Diane. He’s had many jobs in his life ranging from corporate marketing director to lemonade stand proprietor. Today he is a writer, copywriter, photographer, marketing consultant, and creative collaborator. He’s been a soloist for 25-years. He’s currently writing a book on the art of the microBusiness. To keep his head clear, and to germinate new ideas, he spends his free time as an endurance cyclist. Please visit his website “A Lifetime of microBusiness” at www.lloydlemons.com/mBiz, or contact him personally at: Lloyd@lloydlemons.com Read more!

Whisperings of the Creative Soul

Andrea Lee Avari
Healing My Procrastination

I may have stumbled upon a cure for my tendency to procrastinate……..that insidious ability to keep myself from having to venture out into the unknown of my being and to discover more of who I really am. And can’t we all create stunning roadblocks to delay us on our path to expressing ourselves?



Neil Young was interviewed on PBS the other day and talked about his gift as a singer/songwriter. It is the same gift but with different wrappings that we all have. He spoke with a deep reverence for the giver of our creativity, the Source of our inner being. His call to creativity springs from this Source whenever it is ready, not when he is ready. Never knowing when the call may come, his intention to respect that call and to answer it immediately is the driving force of his life.

Speaking of his deep desire to be available to the call of inspiration whenever it spoke to him, I heard how mindfully aware he was of the preciousness of the relationship and connection he has with the Source. Whenever he feels something moving through him, he makes the choice to honor it greatly by making himself available to its flowing process by being present.

So if the call came knocking at dinner time, he would get up and excuse himself from the table and go to his place of creativity to devote his energies entirely to the creation of his lyrics and music. (A supporting partner is very helpful here!) Whenever the call came, he answered. The only exception he could imagine would be if a family member or someone else needed him.

This conversation invited me to observe myself without judgment as to my response to my calling. I noticed that more times than I realized that I told the call to wait—wait until I finished something, wait until I was ready, wait until I felt like it…..just wait. I thought about how often I put myself last so as not to upset others or their routines.

I am like you, a wellspring of ideas about which I can get very excited. I think…..I need to write that down or at least make a note……because I can feel the resonance of the idea and the words that go with it……the concept births lateral thinking and I am brimming with possibilities of the idea and how to express it. And then I don’t get up or I don’t sit down, or something else seems much more important than a call from the Source. And I lose the impetus…..how did the idea and sequence build, what exactly was I trying to say……..? The idea is great but the means to touch into its depth has become a transitory path without the necessary grounding….the energy dissipates and I am disconnected.

I notice my head is full and my body doesn’t move to manifest what is in it in a reverent response to the Source of creativity. I take it for granted like an old boyfriend and then it’s gone.

I heard Neil Young’s intense love for his Source. He honors it by answering the call as a first priority. When it calls to dance, he gets up to dance with it immediately. In my heart I know that love and my intention is to live in reverence with it now. In the past I would look to put on my dancing shoes first…..now I run barefooted to answer the precious Call.

Andrea Avari, Ph.D. is an intuitive spiritual coach working with clients to balance and integrate wellness, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. She is the author of “A Hit of Heaven: a soul’s journey through illusion.” Her next book, “Letters from a Lunatic in Love: creating soulful relationships” will be available at the end of the year. Her blog is available at NatteringNabobsofPositivity/blogger.com. Her website is andreaavari.com.

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FROM OFF THE HIGHWAY

Musings in the Shadow of Georgia's Mountain
Barbara Heming.

Stepping Off the Highway

Welcome to an exploration of creative living out of the mainstream.

After four decades of urban living in world capitals and smaller cities, three years ago I stepped off the highway. Although I had never visited New Mexico, it had been calling me over a period of two years. Unable to continue to ignore its voice, I quit my job in Ohio, packed up and headed west.

The artists’ Mecca Santa Fe was my tentative destination. Less than twenty-four hours after my arrival, I knew it was a mistake. Despite the museums, the architecture, and the plaza, the energy wasn’t right.

Confused, almost in despair, I decided to visit Ghost Ranch northwest of Santa Fe. Beyond Abiquiu I drove up the hill to a mesa. On my right red rock cliffs towered in stately columns. The land dropped off to the left opening to a narrow valley through which the Chama River flowed. Hills of red, yellow and white rock glistening from flecks of mica rose from the valley floor. Pinions and junipers dotted the hillsides. My heart shouted, “I have to live here.” Although I had never lived in a high desert place and didn’t know anyone, I knew I had finally come home. Through serendipitous conversations and events, I found a cabin to rent in an old Hispanic village in a box canyon three miles off the highway.

Our hearts know the home where our creative wellsprings dwell. At times the resonances are strong; other times they are the merest stirrings of recognition. If we listen to them, we can follow the thread through the maze of our daily routines to the center where our lives wait to speak to us. What places or moments in your life have spoken to you? Have they led you to the creative stirrings in your heart? As you remember them, what do they tell you about how to live your creative life wherever you are planted today?

Stepping off the highway does not have to mean making a huge life change as I did, rather it can be as simple as taking a different route to work or trying a food you’ve never tasted or not turning on the TV as usual. Then listen. How does it feel? What does it tell you? A small change in routine can be a step off the highway to a new direction.

In this blog I will reflect on aspects of living the creative life close to nature in the high desert suggesting how those lessons might apply to artists wherever they might find themselves at this particular moment. Hope you will join me to muse in the shadow of the mountain Georgia O’Keefe made her own.

After four decades of urban living, Barbara Heming, a former college professor and fiber artist, stepped off the highway into the high desert of northern New Mexico in Georgia O’Keefe territory, where she has devoted herself to writing and creativity coaching. She will reflect on the many facets of living the creative life close to nature. Her first novel is in revision. In addition, she continues to write poetry, take photographs and work with fiber. You can contact Barbara at http://www.creativefootsteps.com/

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Notes on Urban Creativity from across the East River

Sandra Lee Schubert

Title: Out of the Box: Finding Words Anywhere.

"You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you."
- Joseph Joubert, French essayist and moralist

Where do you find your inspiration? Some people pull it deep from inside them. Others glean it from life experience. Or you can find it on the side of the road. When you are ready to express your creativity how do you do it? Do you write for two hours everyday or grab your time on the bank line? Do rules govern your creativity? In a writing workshop a participant refused to do one of the exercises because she didn’t create that way. She couldn’t write unless she did it just her way, thus missing the opportunity for exploration. A schedule can provide you with a successful framework for a writing life or it can make writing dull and ordinary. Keep to your schedule but shake the tree every now and then and see what kind of fruit hits you on the head.

Creative Writing Prompts:

Found Poetry
Found poetry is the rearrangment of words or phrases taken randomly from other sources (example: clipped newspaper headlines, bits of advertising copy, handwritten cards pulled from a hat) in a manner that gives the rearranged words a completely new meaning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry

Use Junk Mail to your advantage

Be creative and read your own Spam mail subject lines (please don’t open them – an adventure in virus-dom is not the one I would like you to take). See if any of the words or lines interests you. Or using my Spam email subject lines see if you can create some poetry or even a tiny story out of them.

A swinish
Guys, feel eighteen again!
Stop fruit down
Small cap promo mover alert
Saleslady knee hole
Finally there’s a way
Culprit erodible
Hot women doing crazy things
Sad dependent spoon
Autoregressive
Underbooked
Underwitholding
Authority relieve your strongest pain light
Spumoni taxi
Muscle bound guys become the biggest bottoms
while pole in wall is glory whole
Aching reckon apollonian declarator workplace civic

Here are my sample poems

Muscle bound guys become the biggest bottoms
Underbooked and underwitholding
Take spumoni taxi

Autoregressive
Sad dependent spoon
Culprit erodible
Guys feel eighteen again
Finally, there’s a way!

Saleslady knee hole
A swinish
Stop fruit down
Lane of careful sliding
Depends on the knee

Are these brilliant poems? No they aren’t. The point is to look for inspiration in unexpected ways and be willing to experiment and fail. Be willing to create bad writing, on the other side could be something brilliant.

Sandra Lee Schubert is a creative vagabond, a poet, writer and dabbler in the arts and online entrepreneur. She co-facilitates the Wild Angels Poets and Writers Group at the historic Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. She is also the creator of the e-course Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own. Visit her blog: http://www.writing4life.com. Email her info@writing4life.com or @writing4life via twitter.

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Funny Things in Las Vegas

Hello my name is Cathe, and I'm a comedian. (Hi Cathe). I've played around the country, and I've specifically played the western half of the US over the last 24 years. Some people see me and think, "OH yeah, I know you!" probably because I've dated most of the men in five of those western states, and odd parts of Canada. But, for the last nine years or so, I've lived in Las Vegas- Sin City- the land that the IRS won't forget. My show, "Women in Comedy" ran here for about four years, and featured some of the smartest, quickest acts in the world, including Tanyalee Davis, and Gulden... each will be household names, just you mark my words.

I write comedy. I breathe comedy. I have been on terrible television, and I've been on memorable television. The one seriously consistent thing I do as a stand-up is to assist others in accomplishing that dream. The Las Vegas life isn't friendly to women on stage, unless a pole is in front of you, perky breasts are paid for, or you happen to be Frank Marino. We're expected to talk about our private parts, our sexual exploits- and lack there of- and we're expected to be a size 3 hip with a size Playboy chest. It's very hard to walk that without some recommended stilletos, which are also required and often physician prescribed.

One way I try to push people towards that microphone is by attending just about any comedy show in town at least once- and perform in them if there is a small chance that I can do so. You see, before I moved to town, I was VERY able bodied. I could be that size 3, whom all women hate, and I could get dinner, lunch, breakfast and sometimes cars bought for me, simply because I was on stage. Just before arriving here, my body decided "That's no way to live", and promptly fell into disrepair, like the car you bought the day after the warranty expires. It's not Lupus, but it's like that. It's not arthritis, but it's like that. It's not really anything extraordinary, although most women in Cirque shows have profited greatly from this. My bones simply twist in multidirections, lock, and sometimes pop out of joint. Some people call this a gift in town, but there are only so many times when I am on stage, saying "I've fallen and I can't get up" that it really is funny. As a result, the act I had, which predominantly gave me the appearance of Gilda Radner on speed, had to die a painful death. I had to become a non-physical comic- and that means, I have to write everything I see all the time in a manner that recreates a stage personna and builds an audience, too.

Last night, for sake of description, I joined Tanyalee Davis, (tanyaleedavis.com), and some friends to see Rob Little at a fairly new club in the Fremont Street area, of the Fitzgerald Casino. When I first met Rob, he was newly moved to Los Angeles from Detroit. He had done a few open mic nights, in the hope that somehow someone would see him as funny. The guy has more energy in his eyebrow hair than I have after five cappuccinos and a jolt cola. His writing is clean- which means he uses maybe three "dirty words" per set. This is rare on comedy stages at the moment, and I blame the game, Grand Theft Auto entirely for dumbing down our language, and Texting for making it unusable. U no wat I mene?

You'll see Rob on TV, and think, uhm, there's a large weird kid who can't sit down, up there. He's similar to Chris Farley that way. But you'll hear an almost "Is he from San Francisco?" sweetness to his voice because he is a throwback to the little kid in school who always had either a goo-goo-cluster on his chin, or some snot running just under his nose. He comes across as innocent, and nearly Cowardly Lion-like on stage. Over the last fifteen years, his writing has developed well, maturing from just doing jokes about mom, to doing life-long routines. And, he makes everyone laugh- hard. Yet, the only sexual references he makes come from the chat about caring for Seniors, or reliving a song by Carrie Underwood. Just doesn't make that his focus, which makes him so much better than most who attempt Vegas stages.

I will post more about what comedy is, how it works, and why people write well or not-so -great. You'll have new names to check into at your local clubs or colleges, and perhaps if all goes well, you may even see your friendly gimpy gal from Las Vegas waddle on up to do a set. I'll finish with a true story about George Carlin who died just days after I saw his show here. I don't think the two events are related, and George said as much in his act that night.

He show goes: "Two guys met each other in the street and one says, 'Joe died.' And the part that pisses me off, and the part that makes me crazy is hearing the other guy say, 'Joe died? But I just saw him yesterday!' Well, I guess it didn't help then, did it. {pause} Just saw him yesterday? That's the most useless description ever."

That writing and timing was so perfect when I learned of his death not 72 hours later. All I could think was "I guess it didn't help then, did it?" The line of the is the line of his life. See the comedy you can now. Because tomorrow, there may not be that chance. Be the comedian you want to be now because tomorrow, if someone says you died, wouldn't it be better to do it at an open mic than in reality? More on Vegas comedians and stages soon!

---
Cathe Jones is the author of "I'm Just As Screwed Up as You Are- the Anti-Dr. Phil book", and "Godless Grief". She was a regular at Los Angeles Second City, the Comedy Store, and currently drives from Vegas to LA to perform, while her husband, jazz pianist Mike Jones, opens and is musical director for the Penn & Teller show. They reside in Las Vegas with their 50 rats, 5 chinchillas and 3 cats. Kids not included. Read more!

MONDAY MORNING MOTIVATORS: Slay Your Creativity Dragons

By CJ Lyons and Margie Lawson


GETTING IN THE ZONE from Margie

Optimize getting into your writing zone by selecting an activity to do before every writing session. You will prep your unconscious to get into the zone.


Force yourself to limit your time by setting a timer for five to ten minutes. You don’t want to infringe on your writing time.

Try one of these get-your-body-moving quickies:

1 — A stretching routine

2 – Yoga mat work or Yoga ball

3 – Walking outside or on treadmill

4 – Hula hoop, jump rope, or do a head-stand . . .Your goal is to prepare your mind for the writing session.

When your timer goes off, you’ll be primed and ready to write. Later in your writing session, if your mind feels mired in mud, set your timer and get moving again. You’ll boost your energy and your creativity.


As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a national bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller." The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, is due out January, 2009. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net


Margie Lawson -- presenter, psychotherapist, writer -- lives at the top of a Colorado mountain west of Denver. Margie merged her two worlds, psychology and writing, to develop psychologically anchored editing systems and techniques that teach writers how to write page turners. A former college professor, Margie works as a psychotherapist, writes fiction and nonfiction, and presents full day master classes for writers internationally. She'll address helping people access their psychological strengths to slay their self-defeating dragons. Go to http://www.margielawson.com for more information.


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SCENES FROM AN FLOATING LIFE: AN ARTIST'S VIEW OF SHANGHAI

Christina Shmigel

The 18th century Chinese poet, Shen Fu, left behind his job as a unsuccessful civil servant to live what he described as “a floating life,” retreating into his cloistered garden to enjoy his wife, reading, designing and writing. My own floating life as a “trailing spouse” has me in Shanghai, a vast city, hectic and vibrant and in the midst of radical change. As a sculptor I have always been inspired by the places in which I live but never more so than here where my making is mostly about making sense for myself out of a place so culturally different from any I have ever known. From Shanghai, I’ll be writing about the amazing ordinary things I see every day – recycling men hauling loads so beautifully stacked a sculptor can only be envious, hardware market streets w/ an array of materials whose possibilities far outstrip my imagination, chaotic accidental compositions of fluorescent plastic washing bowls stacked at the dry goods stalls - and about the process (or struggle!) by which those observations get transformed into my work.




Shanghai is at least two cities, the city that was here before the foreigners returned (because there is also the city that was here before the foreigners left) and the much-hyped city that is coming into being everyday. Ex-patriate or local, all of us inhabitants negotiate between those two cities everyday and their interstices is what all of those who visit, and many of those who make art here, aim to capture. The fun’s all in the contradictions: the futuristic pinnacles of skyscrapers looming over the enclosing walls of a traditional Chinese garden or the street sweeper with his bamboo broom taking a break to scribble into his Blackberry or the stooped old woman, on a low stool warming herself in the sun, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a text you are pretty sure she wouldn’t be wearing if she could read English, maybe “Life Is Short Live It Blond” or “Bust Connection.” It’s the ideal city in which to heed Julio Cortazar’s observation: “When you concentrate your attention…in the void between two objects…then at that one moment, you see reality.”

A week ago Friday, I went into the emerging city to see Mining Nature, the inaugural show at James Cohan Gallery’s Shanghai space. It’s the first gallery here to showcase the artists that dominate the international art scene, and for me it comes as a great boon; it’s just so thrilling to again see work with this kind of conceptual density and presented so professionally. For me, the most moving work in the show, was Bill Viola’s Oak Study, a 30-minute video created from 24 hours of footage shot from a single point of view of a single CA oak. At a glance, the image on the screen appears fixed but if one watches for a bit, it changes minutely all the time. Emerging slowly from pre-dawn, at first a still silhouette, eventually the oak’s leaves glow green and begin to tremble in the breeze. As the day progresses,
the sun, in companionship with the camera lens, fractures into a star of light shining from between the tree’s branches until its very brightness dematerializes the tree into…well, it would be a spoiler if I told you so I’ll just say that by the end you are fully rewarded for being attentive to the passing moment.

On my way to the opening, walking to the metro station, I passed thru the large public park that is the center of our part of town and squarely in the old city. Our neighbors, whom a local visitor once described as “still living in the old ways”, come to the park to escape their tiny one or two rooms. They gather in groups to do various things that you’d never see in an American park - rousing conductor-led choral singing, athletic ballroom dancing, calligraphy drawing with water & brush on pavement, tai chi & fan dances & badminton, walks taken backwards and trees being hugged and caressed and patted - all done with a gusto and lack of irony that I never fail to be heartened by.

On this particular day, escaping from the blazing heat of the street into the cool dark cathedral of the park’s unpruned trees, I stopped to watch an old man at his practice. (Another boon here: one is released from the prohibition against starring by the fact that there doesn’t seem to be one here.) The old man with his gleaming bald pate, dressed in an immaculate white t-shirt, perfectly pressed khaki trousers belted high up on his belly moved his arms slowly thru the arm positions of ballet.

The park and its players arranged themselves as though scenery flats: almost upon him, a group of middle-aged dancers moving awkwardly out of sync to their scratchy dancehall recording; behind them, rows of park benches with their various occupants; still further back, silhouetted against the light, several overlapping rows of ballroom dancers, moving with unexpected fluidity from left to right and back again to an inaudible tune; behind them all, framed into odd ovoids by the arcs of tree limbs, a startlingly vivid green lawn. So much movement, so much stimulation, so many competing energies, but the old man moved thru his positions as if there was nothing there at all and I stood in his stillness for quite sometime before rushing back to the city.

Next day, same walk , one more t-shirt, orange with black type: Time
Is Imaginary. I’m not making this up.

Christina Shmigel is a sculptor and installation artist currently practicing in Shanghai, China. You can see her work at www.shmigel.com and at www.brunodavidgallery.com and you can contact her at shmigel@olin.wustl.edu.

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Appreciating the Process: What he has to show for it

Grasping Wonder with Slippery Fingers
Creativity and Children
by Ginger Carlson, MA Ed.





Every week, my son spends a few hours at the home/studio of an amazing professional potter. It's an experience I wouldn't give up or trade for the world. There, with expert instruction, gentle guidance, and intense freedom, they (my son and the few others kids in the group) create with clay. They sit around a table, handbuild, sometimes throw on a wheel, laugh, have momentary bouts of feistiness, and learn together. They sculpt and form and build what only children who still listen effortlessly to their creativity can. They bring imagination, care, problem solving skills, and creative abandon to their projects. They make vessels, masks, tiles, clocks, puzzles, games, abstract sculptures, and of late some of the most ingenious marble mazes ever created.

It's a funny thing. Because after all this time of so enjoying the experience of it, I've just realized (when asked by a friend to see some of the things he has made) that "what he has to show for it" is limited to the cute little spotted rhino (above) that fits so nicely in the palm of his hand and a few small other things still waiting to be fired and glazed. He has spent hours, weeks, and months creating. He has brought thought, ingenuity, and passion to what he has made. And at the end of nearly every session, he takes his work and returns it to its original state, a hearty lump of clay. Or, he works a piece of clay until it has been pounded, sculpted, layered, or molded into oblivion, and he decides in the end that he's moved on from wanting it. On occasion, he asks to have it "saved" and the piece is wrapped to keep it moist, and he returns to it again and again, each week maybe adding another small detail. A few times, things he has made that he did want to fire fell apart before getting to the next step, or broke in the kiln during the bisque firing.



Just the other day we were invited into another potter's studio for his scouting group. The potter was set to do a lesson for the kids. She started to ask the kids questions. Where does clay come from? What is slip and why do we need it? How would you start to make a pot or cup? Why might a ball explode in the kiln? He had all the answers and brought a humble confidence to the class. He was praised for his knowledge. Yet, he left the experience saying that he didn't like this class, because he didn't get to choose what he was going to make, and he had to glaze it even though it wasn't done yet. Kids need to be able to be freer than what adults let them be, he said. Why don't most grown-ups know that, Mommy?

So glazing day is coming up, and he has just a few pieces. And he couldn't be happier about it. He doesn't compare himself to others or take a tally of number of pieces. He stays in the moment and he is personally proud and introspective about his work. Just yesterday, he said to me out of the blue, "I'm pretty good at making pottery." And went away with a thoughtful look in his eyes.

So it seems, sometimes what you have to show for it, what you can physically hold in your hand, doesn't at all represent what you really do have.

Ginger Carlson, MA Ed, is a speaker, education consultant, and the author of Child of Wonder: Nurturing Creative and Naturally Curious Children (Common Ground Press 2008). She leads creativity-building workshops throughout the US for parents and educators. Please visit her at http://www.gingercarlson.com to learn more, see her blogs about living creatively and cooking with children, or sign up for Wonderwise, her free newsletter. Read more!

MAD about Movies

EXPANDING WHAT'S POSSIBLE
Mary Ann de Stefano

As young girls, my little sister Louise and I could often be found sitting in front of our big console TV, just as we are in this photo. In those days, there were few channels to watch, but on weekends at least one station gave the whole afternoon over to old movies. Many cold winter days, when our mother couldn’t send us out to play, we fed on popcorn and classic films.

Rapt, we soaked in stories and images that became inextricably mixed with our real life experiences. So mixed, that decades later, my sister can say one word -- Mamselle -- just as it was spoken in the lesser-known Bette Davis movie All This and Heaven, Too, and the sound of it will dredge up a whole raft of attitudes and memories we don’t have to speak about to know we share.

Of course the themes of many movies we saw went way over our young heads, but even so, the movies made an imprint. Fred and Ginger, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and other Hollywood stars were our teachers. We learned about greed from the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, evil from the Night of the Hunter, honor from Casablanca, religious zeal and hypocrisy from Elmer Gantry, romantic love from scads of films, and much more.

We didn’t take movies all that seriously at the time. We didn’t feel their stories seeping into our bones in ways that would affect how we grappled with life's big questions as we matured. Movies merely enthralled us. Little did we know that they were artfully drawing us into thinking, feeling, and synthesizing a world well beyond the limited one our small town, little house, and busy parents could offer us.

And that’s the value of art, storytelling, the movies. They prod us to explore ideas, emotions, and meaning that our own physical experiences may not encourage. They invite us to create deeper relationships with the world, with others, and with ourselves. They open us up to possibility.

Hours and hours of movie-watching probably warped us in some ways. Perhaps I believe a little too much in love conquering all, happy endings, and tough guys with mushy hearts. Perhaps I am a little too naive about the power of good over evil, and too disappointed adult life doesn’t hold more occasions for evening gowns, tuxedos, and art deco settings. People hardly ever break out into song on sweeping staircases.

Sometimes they do, though. Once, in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, I heard a woman, high above the rush hour bustle, break into song on the marble staircase. Her operatic voice filled the cavernous space and brought commuters on the main concourse to a standstill. It was just the sort of magic moment that you might think could only happen in the movies -- but this was reality.

Anything is possible.


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Mary Ann de Stefano posts about film’s life lessons and other pleasures of the cinema. Her childhood fascination with classic movies on a flickering TV screen delivered glimpses into adult life that led her to believe the answers to all life’s questions could be found in movies. When she’s not at a multiplex theater, an alternative cinema, or home watching movies, Mary Ann is a writer, editor and writing coach doing business as MAD about Words. Named for a play on her initials and passion for writing, her company also nurtures creativity through workshops and the Lounge -- a free networking website for writers. She writes short fiction and personal essays and lives in Winter Park, Florida. Read more!

THE FORBIDDEN MYTH

Finding meaning and purpose through story

Michael Mahoney

Story is everywhere.

When we talk to our friends, our family, our partners, sharing our day or our plans for the future: it is story. When we listen to the news, read, surf the Internet, watch TV, listen to music: all is story. Science and religion are two different ways of telling stories about how the world works. And when we think, our thoughts to ourselves are perhaps telling the greatest story of all, the one that constantly redefines us, from one fleeting moment to the next.

A thought has no power unless you attach a story to it. If I say to myself "I did not write today", the statement in of itself cannot harm me. I can have the thought and then simply watch as it floats on by without meaning. It's nothing more than a fact, something that took place (or did it?). But if I attach a story to it, the thought changes, gaining power over me with every new detail.

I might add, for example, that I did not write today because I was too busy. Okay, so what. Well, maybe the story I tell myself is that I was too busy because I had a crazy day at work. I might simply accept this story as beyond my control and move on. But even this is an attachment to my original thought that says either I am powerless to change my day or that I am okay with my lack of writing because I have come to accept each day simply as it is.

But what if the story I attach to the thought is something like "I did not write today" because I am a terrible, lazy piece of !#$@!. The mind will quickly race to validate any story that you attach to each thought. I begin to think of all the reasons why this story is true. I begin to remember strange, self-flagellating occurences from my past to validate my sense of complete failure at life, like middle school gym class. Or maybe I fixate on the entire evening I spent watching a Real World marathon. The less rational the better, because stories are like celebrities: the more ridiculous they are, the bigger they get, until they warrant their own spoofs on YouTube. The story doesn't care about its content, only that it you continue to feed it so that it can grow until it's power is so complete that it becomes your very own personal religion.

By remaining aware of the stories you attach to your thoughts, you can learn how to separate yourself from them -- giving yourself a feeling of tremendous relief and the ability to shape your life and your creative pursuits the way the authentic YOU want them to manifest, rather than the way your ego tries to shape them to its own demands. This can also be tremendously helpful when listenening to others because it forces you to hear what they really say instead of the projections we place on their words. How often does "You look fantastic!" quickly turn into "So what are you saying, that I used to look like the back end of a walrus?" That's just one story of many, trying to tell itself like a ghostwriter without a contract.

Know your stories, and you can rewrite them to have the endings you want in every aspect of your life. What stories do you tell yourself now that you'd like to change? Where else do you see story in your daily life and thoughts?

Next post, I'll be looking at the role of the Trickster in myth and story, and it's cultural impact in the new movie Batman: The Dark Knight.

__

Michael Mahoney is a fiction and screenwriter, creativity coach and international direct marketing copywriter living in Cape Cod, MA. With a background in Jungian psychology and mythology, Michael is particularly interested in the way in which story can be found in every area of our lives, from spirituality to our politics. You can contact Michael by sending an email to mdmahone123@yahoo.com. Read more!

MUSINGS AMONG VALLEY VINEYARDS

Seeking Clarity in a Tangled World

By Kelly Pollard

Rising Above Rejection Depression

How is it that writers, who are often the most sensitive types, must build the thickest skins?

For the last year, I’ve crafted, tweaked, reworked and slanted queries to send to literary agents in hopes of selling my first young adult novel. I count myself lucky when a response actually appears in my email inbox; many agents are too busy to even respond. They tell eager writers that if they don’t respond within three months, than just assume rejection. And out of the rejections I have received, I’d say half of them were encouraging, if you could label any kind of rejection of something you’ve toiled over for the past three years as encouraging.

“I loved your writing style, but the story didn’t capture me right away.” Agent A.

“Although the story is intriguing, I feel it is overwritten, but I’m sure another agent will feel otherwise.” Agent B.

These short notes fill a folder of my yahoo account and gather as proof that I have been building up layer upon layer of that thick skin in order to survive and either send out another batch of queries or dive headfirst into the next manuscript.

Being a writer, I need to write. The business letters and concise synapses shove the muse from my office and I often wonder if I’ll realize the moment has come when I should print out the manuscript and file it away as that first manuscript that may never see the light a day. Maybe BLUSH is destined to be my organic lesson in the art of skin thickening and book plotting.

BLUSH queries still float about the publishing world. And since the last ‘nice’ rejection, I have tiptoed into the next project and compartmentalized the completed book to a tiny pocket of my brain. The water is warm from where I compose this first draft that haloes out from my center with infinite possibilities and another batch of writerly dreams. As I sit to compose a new chapter, I don’t think about query letters and agent blogs with faint clues as to if they have picked up my partial or full manuscript for a brief scan. I’m lost in my new story and floating on its dreamy waters.


Kelly Pollard is a freelance writer and aspiring novelist working on her second young adult novel while navigating the world of literary agents and publishing houses with her first novel "Blush", about a teen living with a cyberbully posting rumors about her on a social networking website. Kelly is also mother of two energetic boys under five who lives in the Livermore Wine Valley. Find more of Kelly at www.twoboysintwoyears.blogspot.com. Reach her at kelpollard@sbcglobal.net. Read more!

MICROBUSINESS: DOING YOUR OWN GOOD WORK

Lloyd Lemons

Just what is a microBusiness?

Here’s my stab at a simple definition. “A microBusiness (mBiz) is the smallest of all businesses, created by a self-reliant person (who often considers herself a survivor), for the purpose of making a living and making a life, and whose goal is not necessarily wealth and worldly goods, but rather a sustainable enterprise that can provide for the comfortable wellbeing of the owner and her family.”

We are the smallest of small, but we are an incredibly important part of the American economic landscape. It is estimated that there are more than 24 million microBusinesses in the U.S., representing 18% of all private employment and 87% of all businesses. Historically, microenterprises have been considered the backbone of the U.S. economy.

I’ve been an mBiz owner for nearly my entire working life—and for me, there’s nothing better. If you’re a creative person, or a self-reliant worker, chances are you’re a microBusiness owner, or want to be. If you’re going to be successful at it, you have to enjoy what you’re doing, and believe that what you’re doing is authentic and worthwhile. Following are eight ideas that I believe are essential to a sustainable mBiz. I hope you’ll agree.

What a microBusiness should be about

1. It should be about bending the world a little to fit your purpose, by doing something you truly enjoy.
2. It should be about creating your own radical expression of individuality.
3. It's about being a catalyst for your own ideas, and not a facilitator for someone else’s.
4. It’s about personal freedom, largely brought about by the integration of working and living.
5. It’s about having the freedom to pursue possibilities.
6. It’s about spending your time representing things that you truly care about.
7. It’s about unlimited learning potential in an unobstructed environment.
8. It's about living your life purposefully, charting your own course, and achieving success measured by your level of contentment.

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Lloyd Lemons lives in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife of 32 years, Diane. He’s had many jobs in his life ranging from corporate marketing director to lemonade stand proprietor. Today he is a writer, copywriter, photographer, marketing consultant, and creative collaborator. He’s been a soloist for 25-years. He’s currently writing a book on the art of the microBusiness. To keep his head clear, and to germinate new ideas, he spends his free time as an endurance cyclist. Please visit his website “A Lifetime of microBusiness” at www.lloydlemons.com/mBiz, or contact him personally at: Lloyd@lloydlemons.com Read more!

CREATIVE INTENTIONS AND THE ART OF FINDING FOCUS

Beth Morrow

Finding Creative Balance

Living a fully realized, creative life requires a special set of skills nurtured over time and with careful introspection. Finding beauty, making meaning, establishing your own unique pattern of interpreting the world is not a simple or instant process. Once the creative mind is unleashed and aware of its potential, however, the constraints of the logical world around us seem to slowly dissolve, replaced by limitless possibilities, intriguing ideas and exciting visions that inject hope and inspiration in our daily lives.

But the very reason the creative mind feels such freedom and potential in the mundane is the very same reason the world can become a prison: lack of balance. Too many ideas and the creative mind feels overwhelmed and scattered; with too few ideas, the lack of meaningful action can cause a meaning-making crisis where futility can grab hold.

Breathing life into your unique brand of creativity is a delicate balancing act between two diametric opposites: dreaming and doing. Spend more time dreaming—of plots, of color swatches, of photographic angles, of future earnings from an adoring public who can’t get enough of your work on their walls or shelves—and too little time actualizing your ideas paralyzes the mind, creating a sense of overwhelm and panic. Excessive dreaming manifests itself into excuses, apathy, inertia and even depression. On the other hand, too much action and not enough meaning behind your work, in the form of artists and authors with too much on their plate and not nearly enough creative time in which to do their ideas justice by fully fleshing out the work’s meaning, is a precursor to burnout and latent negativity toward your craft.

When the joy of creative expression disappears, so too does the impetus to create. The best way to avoid finding yourself at the bottom of the emotionally creative spiral is by creating a process of introspection toward your work. On a regular basis, treat your creative self to a reflective session. Sit quietly, breathe deeply, thinking on the creative endeavors currently in your life and how you are applying yourself to them. Notice how you feel toward all your projects and involvements. Do not be afraid if you realize you want to spend less time on those that drain your energy or leave you listless for others. If a project is your livelihood and you feel uninspired by it, try viewing it from a different approach. Think about the joy with which you began the creative process, then bring it new life by taking action on it where you find the most compelling emotion.

Bringing your craft and vision to life inside your creative heart first and through your actions second will not only provide the balance your creative soul needs, it will reawaken the passion your creative mind craves.

Beth Morrow is an author, teacher and creativity coach from Grove City, Ohio who blogs daily about the challenges and triumphs of the creative life at: www.writer-in-progress.blogspot.com.

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Visit me on the web: www.bethmorrow.com
My (almost) daily blog for writers: www.writer-in-progress.blogspot.com
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MAD HOT JOURNALING

Susan Borkin

Has Your Journaling Practice Wilted in the Summer Heat?

Remember that journaling project you were going to start this summer?

It’s not too late!

Just ask the 350 enthusiastic journal keepers who attended the Power of Writing - Journal Conference last month in Denver, Colorado, for inspiration. Under the watchful eye and skilled leadership of Kay Adams, founder of The Center for Journal Therapy and producer of the conference, journal writers attended over fifty different workshops, plenary sessions and keynotes.

The most difficult part of the conference was in having to choose which workshop to attend. It was a hard decision when the candidates included journaling luminaries Christina Baldwin, Tristine Rainer and noted writing researcher James Pennebaker.

On a personal note I found the experience of the conference both exhilarating and profoundly moving. Having made a career out of coaching, writing and speaking about journaling since prior to my 1978 thesis publication of “Journal Writing as Self-Therapy” I became aware of the importance of creating community. For those of us who love journaling and everything related to it, we may find that sometimes by its nature, journal writing can isolate us. But don’t worry, I’ll be keeping you posted on all things Journalized!

If you didn’t make it to the conference, don’t want to wait until the next one scheduled for 2010 or even only want to do Journaling Lite this summer, here are some tips to re-vitalize your writing:

** Get outside! Enjoy the weather, get to the beach, park or your favorite walking trail. Take your journal, a small notebook or a little sketchpad. Write down five things you have never seen, heard or smelled before.

** Try “cross training” in your journal. If you’re used to using a keyboard in an on-line journal, get a notebook and a packet of colored pens. Or if you never write poetry, try writing a 17-syllable haiku two times this week.

** Take that trashy beach novel you just finished and write your own ending!

Need more ideas? Write to me @ susan@susanborkin.com and request the article “Ten Tips to Jumpstart Your Journaling.”

I invite you to join me in the development of this blog “Mad Hot Journaling,” as we explore the world and community of journaling---what’s new, what’s hot, ideas and tips and what’s important to you about journaling.

Visit me at or write with your comments and thoughts to susan@susanborkin.com.
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FROM YONKERS TO THE BRONX: A CRISIS OF MEANING AND AESTHETICS

Denise Beck-Clark

Sunday evening of a day that I couldn't help but think of as "a great beach day." But, when I thought that this morning, as I sat writing at my computer, I had to remind myself, as I have on so many recent days, that I haven't really gone to the beach in years. Going to the beach is something I did in my youth, and yet I still have the knee-jerk reaction, during the summer, to think of days as good beach days or not.

Another revelation I had recently is that now, at the ripe age of fifty seven, I'm no longer so sure summer is my favorite season. Don't get me wrong: I Love Summer! But it also brings along with it a certain melancholy, a sadness, that I can't (or don't?) take advantage of it. While I am creating meaning for myself by helping people with psychiatric problems, and by writing my books, stories, and poems, other people are out doing what I think I should be doing: swimming, sailing, hiking, sightseeing, traveling, and just in general enjoying the warm weather.

It seems as though the meaning of summer as I knew it as a child is etched in my brain, as it's taking me so long to rid myself of it. To rid myself of the sense that I'm missing something, that I'm somehow not doing what I should be doing, while I am doing all the things I really should be doing, as mentioned above, in the form of my day job and my early morning, night and wee hour jobs. Is it possible to really do everything? One has to have a super sense of time management to be able to manage that. This is something I have to admit I lack. As it is, the bags under my eyes give away the precious lack of sleep that I choose to live with. How else to have meaning in my life when there are only twenty four hours in a day? When I made the life decisions to have a child, to be a social worker, and, followed the life calling of being a writer, I also made the decision that I'd give up things like jumping up on a balmy July Sunday, and instead of going out and having a great day (as the TV meteorologists nauseatingly insist!) I stay inside and do what needs to be done, and occasionally, in small doses, enjoy something less meaningful, like the weather.

So in the end, opting for meaning wins. But there's always a small, and often not-so-small, ache in my heart, that I'm missing so much aesthetically. Fortunately, outside my window where I write are trees, and as I am now, I can watch them blow in the hot summer wind, and I can watch how the summer sun lights up some of the branches, and if there's a thunderstorm and the sky turns dark I can watch that too. And even great good fortune is having a terrace, from which I can feel the July air, and at night, I can watch the moon in all its phases, and even see some stars.

Meaning, aesthetics? What's more important? To me, the answer is both, but meaning is the cake and aesthetics is the icing. Thus, tomorrow, though it may be a perfect day for the beach, I'll go the Bronx, and sit in my noisy office under the el, watch the cinderblock building being constructed across the street, and park my car in a urine-soaked garage. But before I go I will write, and while I'm there I'll improve some people's day, if even just a little. I'll derive my meaning for the day, even as semi-consciously I'll mourn that I'm not sitting in white sand, inhaling salt air, and swimming in the sea.

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Denise Beck-Clark has lived five plus decades in and around the New York City metropolitan area. She is a struggling, published writer, and a dabbler in photography and drawing, who derives meaning from her art, as well as from her work with the mentally ill. The struggle these days is about having it all: meaning, as well as an aesthetically rich life. Denise can be reached at Sisyphus199@aol.com.
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WRITING NEW YORK

A Writer Takes on Grad School and New York City… and Lives To Tell About It

Deonne Kahler

Not that there’s anything wrong with spreadsheets.

I moved to New York from Taos, New Mexico two weeks ago, and suddenly it feels like I’ve gone from Just Visiting to Actually Living Here. I can pop out of the subway and walk in the right direction versus having to turn around halfway down the block, I’ve quit looking both ways before crossing because most streets in Manhattan are one way, and bedtime has shifted a few hours later to true New York night owl style. Perhaps most tellingly, I’ve quit cooking almost entirely and have started accumulating takeout menus like business cards at a mixer.

Up until now I’ve been in vacation mode, traipsing willy nilly all over the City, not thinking about my classes – and the challenging work they’ll entail – that start at the end of August. That is, I wasn’t thinking about them until I went out with three of my new classmates and one woman, over white wine and Thai chicken, started asking me all about my novel as in, you are working on one, right? And you’re ready to have it critiqued in workshop, right?

Picture me, fork raised halfway to my mouth, eyes deer-in-the-headlights wide.

Um, I am working on a novel if working on it means opening the Word file every couple days, reading a few paragraphs, then closing it again. I’ve been feeling unsure about which way to go with it – novel or linked stories – plus the writing I’ve done lately has been as uninspiring as a spreadsheet.

I managed to mumble an unconvincing Oh yes, working on a novel, of course, then suddenly became fascinated with the carved radish on my plate. The conversation then turned to the giant reading list we have to “be familiar with” in preparation for oral exams, plus the fact that one of our professors is an especially tough grade-giver. (Grades? For some reason I thought it was more of a pass/fail situation, but nope, there are actual letter grades just like in my undergrad years when I had, ahem, a less than stellar academic record.)

So at that point I did what anyone would have done – I went out in the parking lot and sucked on an oxygen tank.

Let’s just say that vacation is over and reality has arrived, but that’s okay. I love to write and know I’m going to love being in school again. Getting my MFA in New York has been a dream for so long, a few moments of panic aren’t going to diminish my experience. Unless of course the oxygen runs out.

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Deonne Kahler has been a freelance writer for seven years, and decided it was time to move to New York and get her MFA. And really, why not? Contact her at deonne [at] deonnekahler [dot] com, or check out her blog at www.lifeonthehighwire.com.


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"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Catherine Aird

Yep, another writer with a blog:

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MACHO CREATIVITY

Wynne Stevens

Harry's Dilemma

The frozen arctic landscape was cold and inhospitable…bleak and barren to the eyes of a foreigner. But to Harry, an arctic polar bear, the scene before him instilled a sense of belonging and pride. He never tired of watching the endless expanse of pure white snow rising in the distance to form massive hills and ridges. He watched the ever-changing texture of the snow cover, molded and shaped by constantly changing arctic winds.

Harry had lots of time to observe his surroundings as he spent hours every day sitting near that telltale hole in the ice he instinctively knew to be an air hole for the many seals swimming below. He knew they would eventually have to breathe; he waited patiently watching the hole for the first signs of bubbles.

Harry was alone in his quest for dinner. He sometimes spent all day waiting and watching. These lonely times provided many opportunities to reflect on what it meant to be a polar bear. He was taught that from the beginning that polar bears are the biggest and fiercest of all bears…they fear no other creature. He knew his status in the tribe depended on toughness, competitiveness, physical abilities…all the characteristics of animal strength and dominance. Harry aspired to be all those things and more. And he wanted to please his parents, of course, for they were the ones who first inspired him with his greatness. He was also terribly aware of his peers and how he stacked up next to them. And, most of all, he saw that the strongest had their choice of mates. This was very important to an adolescent polar bear.

So Harry became all these things and more. He was naturally big (pushing half a ton!), was pretty athletic. He walked with a bit of a swagger. The girls loved him; his parents were so proud. How fortunate Harry was to be blessed with such genes!

But Harry was troubled…unfulfilled…restless and anxious. He gazed into the frozen horizon and was so taken by the beauty of the light – the way it constantly changed as the sun moved across the sky. Tears of appreciation formed and quickly froze as they fell. He marveled at the thousands of sparkling lights dancing before him, reflections from ice and snow crystals…how they changed, furiously beckoning him to follow them to another world. Harry wondered about that world. He felt inspired…touched by a force he couldn’t understand but somehow knew to be real. And, with these thoughts, he felt ashamed. He was not a real polar bear…he was a fraud. Polar bears should not feel such emotions.

In spite of his shame, Harry began to draw images in the snow. He felt compelled…overpowered, in fact, to express his feeling somehow in a concrete format. Slowly his claw formed a symbol that represented an emotion, an observation…a creative thought. That, in turn, led to another symbol and, before he knew it, Harry had expressed a feeling that was dying to get out…to be shared. Momentarily, Harry felt incredible joy. He had somehow connected with this beautiful force that surrounded him and, in the process, connected with himself. There is so much more to life, he thought with great peace and joy. Quickly Harry obliterated his creation with a wave of his massive paw. No one can see this! Somehow I must contain these feelings, this blissful state for, if I’m discovered, I’ll surely lose the status I’ve worked so hard to acquire.

And so Harry lamented his dilemma – how to maintain the integrity of his polar bear manhood in the personality and soul of a sensitive and creative being. He longed to find other outlets for the passion of life stirring within him but was deathly afraid of being discovered and thought of as being less than polar bear-like.

I was like Harry. My priorities were upside down. For a large part of my life, I ignored the music inside and focused instead on maintaining the manhood image…the shell of protection and deceit. The quest for acceptance was king and I suffered as a result…as did others around me. Next , maybe I’ll take a closer look at Harry’s dilemma and examine how he might break free of the tribal bonds of conformity.

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