One Minnesota Writer

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-05-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

1. Surprise beneath our deck: two robin nests, one on each side of one of the main support posts. Wonder if the robins are related.

2. What we've found in our delivered pile of compost this week: flattened plastic bottle, rocks, bits of glass, a piece of metal, a wooden stake, pull tabs from pop cans, bit of plastic bags. In the past, we found a man's (we think) sandal.

3. Now that warm weather allows windows to be open, we're reacquainting ourselves with sounds of wind through tree branches, wind chimes, cardinals who just want to reproduce, motorcycles, kids playing outside, barking dogs, airplanes, school buses, laughter.

4. Life in the suburbs isn't always about the automobiles:

This guy hangs out on our neighbor's roof every day.

5. Which photo would you choose: one of a couple smiling at the camera or one of that same couple hugging each other?

Happy Friday! I'll be digging in compost this weekend. And you?

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Reconsider How You Define "End"

2013-05-14T14:08:00.002-05:00

Shift #52: Reconsider How You Define "End"

In the year since I began my "52 Ways to Shift Your Focus" series, I've loved thinking about all the ways people get stuck in their creative processes and their lives. Pushing myself to write a weekly post on this topic has forced me to reconsider how and why I write, as well as how I approach the work of others. It's been an honor to hear from readers and to bounce ideas off people close to me.

The last post in a series like this is tough to write. Do I put up a big bang of a post that pulls everything together? Do I say what I'm doing next? Do I look for other work?

Ah. Wait a minute. What I really want to do is this: reconsider how we define the end of a creative work or, really, the alleged completion of any project/task/responsibility/interest that has consumed a significant bit of time in our lives.

Creating this project has made thinking about ways to shift my focus become a habit. In that sense, this project will live in my head for a long while. It'll be there the next time I pace around and wonder why I can't sit still long enough to accomplish anything. So, for me, it really doesn't end with this fifty-second post. I am struck by the persistent idea that "the end", as it pertains to creative work, is only applicable at a writer's or artist's death. And, even then, creative work can inspire and twist someone else's art, so it may not actually be the end.

Once we put our ideas out there into the grand stew pot of creative work, someone else can ladle out bits and pieces to rearrange in their own bowls. (Hmm. It's clear I cook. Napkin?) All goofy metaphors aside, being a writer or painter or photographer is such an essential part of some people that no project is really the end. There's always more. There are stories and pieces of art that feel complete and we sign off on them, but then there's the next thing. There's the other way the project could have been done, there's the project that erupted from a spark while we were doing something else, there's the response we want to make to someone else's work. There's the way the sun catches the dew in the morning, the way the clouds move across the sky, or the last thing our kid said while heading out the door and we absolutely have to capture it somehow. There are all these bits and pieces of our lives that come together to be distilled into another bit of beauty or a realization that rings true for a community. There is no end to that.

It's somewhat serendipitous that I'm concluding this series right now, as my daughter gets ready for her high school graduation in a couple of weeks. Yes, I'm exactly the sort of parent who tears up over that kind of stuff . I've been trying to apply ways to shift my thoughts away from this being the end of Abby's childhood and toward the wide open possibilities that she will encounter at the University of Minnesota this fall. This series is not just for people to work out their creative project kinks; it's a way of being in the world. Shifting focus. Seeing "the end" as an open door. Stepping back at looking at something from another angle. And doing it again if necessary.

Aside from the fact that my future Tuesday posts will have a different title, I don't know what's next. That's a beautiful thing.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-05-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

1. Name the ghost that visits you most often.

2. The spark at the end of life: biological/chemical or spiritual?

3. In spite of the stormy destruction of her home, she rebuilt, added softness, settled in, laid eggs.

4. Where did this dialogue come from? "I got a chicken!" "I can't find my way out." "I'm stunned!" "Oh, no, I'm dying." "You have to learn to disengage." "Hold on, I've got to put my spirit back in my body." "That spider is gross. I'm naming him Grosser."

5. Dear Target: Please stop asking me if I want to save money by getting one of your REDcards. Make your cashiers stop treating me like I flunked economics 101 because I continue to refuse your REDcard even as they tell me how much money I would have saved as they total my purchases of dog food, underwear, soap, and milk. They tell me I can set it up as a debit card attached to my personal checking account! I don't want another card to keep track of while you track me.

Happy Friday! Happy Mother's Day to those who celebrate it this coming Sunday.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Stop Apologizing

2013-05-07T13:22:00.000-05:00

Shift #51: Stop Apologizing

Remember when you were nearing graduation, figuring out what you wanted to do with your life? Maybe you got advice, suggestions, offers to show you how to do this or that.

Remember who you tried to please? Why you said yes to things that didn't fit? And then, later, maybe you burst out of your own life after trying to fit into a mold that took you far away from the creative work you wanted to do because those artistic dreams were just that, dreams. Not a real job.

As adults who do creative work, we know that we have to get over that and just do what we're going to do. We find ways to make a life that incorporates the writing or art for which we have a passion with the need to pay the rent and buy food and even health insurance, if we're lucky.

Still. We go along this path and life sidelines us. We have kids. We have mortgages. We have dogs who eat underwear out of the laundry basket. Charities call us up and ask us for donations and we wonder if it would be rude to say we could use a donation to keep the creative work going. People still try to fit us into a category that suits their view of what an adult life looks like.

When I was getting ready to head to college, my father offered his strong advice that I would be smart to obtain a civil service position. He was a federal civil servant himself, pleased with the job security and benefits that came with his job that spanned the Truman through Carter administrations. He wanted me to have the security he had, to have health insurance and regular holidays. He also wanted me to go to college, but that may not have been his biggest concern. He didn't quite understand how my love of books was going to translate into anything other than teaching unless I went into journalism. At least, this is my best guess of what he was thinking as I look back from a chasm of years.

My mother, too, wanted me to be secure. Doing creative work wasn't secure. My older sister, who got a fine arts degree in photography, worked in banking and law. My older brother, who once told me he originally wanted to go into architecture, ended up studying engineering and now is a real estate agent. Creative types, both of them, channeled into other work.

As the youngest kid, I decided that wasn't how I wanted my life to play out. The interesting thing about making a deliberate choice is that, even after practicing this for years, I still sometimes find myself feeling like less of an adult than my peers in the eyes of those same peers. For example, there was the fellow parent who asked me what I'm doing now that I no longer work as a health assistant at the nearby elementary school. When I told her I was on the staff of an online poetry journal and doing some writing of my own, she said, oh, you don't have a real job, then. There are those who figure that, since I sit in front of my computer in a home office, my work is certainly interruptible (which shocks me in this age of telecommuting), so why don't I answer the phone in the morning?

Those are the exact moments when I take a deep breath, squelch the urge to kick someone in the shins, and focus on how much better my life works when I do not apologize for who I am. For doing creative work. For drawing boundaries. For having a partner and kids who wrap their arms around the way each of us have different talents and make a variety of contributions both inside and outside our home.

My parents would be supportive of my life now in an old-fashioned way because I'm married and they would figure I just get to stay home. They still wouldn't completely get it. And I'm thinking about that quite a lot as my daughter gets ready to head off to college later this year. I've been trying to encourage her to try everything, to follow the path that she feels with her heart and make choices that fit for her, not the choices that fit someone else's vision of who she is. Including mine.

The real strength of a writer or artist or musician or anyone else who follows a creative path against the advice of others is the way we come to this: the certainty that we are better when we acknowledge who we really are and find a way to do work that isn't at odds with our deepest selves.

Some of the reasons I ignore ringing phones.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-05-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

1. Minnesota spring weather and boomerangs - similarities?

2. What keeps you awake at night?

3. The last group discussion I was part of focused on wonder. My mind went in the direction of wonder as awe. The hostess went in the direction of wonder as questioning. Which way would you have gone?

4. The fowl version of happy hour on a patio: the mallards who have been hanging out on our next-door-neighbor's roof.

5. Take off your watch for the weekend.

Happy Friday.

Finally.

When You Have Friends Who Blog…..

2013-05-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

In the interest of shaking up my blog posting schedule, here's a fun little exercise thanks to my friend, Oonah, who blogs at Parallel Oonahverse. She got these questions from another blogger, Amos Greig, at A New Ulster. Yes, when you have friends who blog, sometimes the posts you put up are all their fault.

Feel free to swipe these questions for your own fun.

1. If you could be any type of animal, what would you be and why?

Hoo, boy, it's easier to think of what I would NOT want to be, like a gnat that eventually gets violently swatted by someone who thinks it's the biggest pest in the world. Or a gorilla that lives in a zoo and gets to watch faces too similar to its own stare back at it. Or a wasp that sends people into a panic until they find a way to kill it.

Maybe a seagull, who gets to soar far overhead and gets to hang out near the surf all day long. That could work.

2. Is there anything you collect? If so, what?

Cookbooks, rocks, earrings, photos, pens that write without skipping.

Does dust count?

3. What is the overall goal of your blog?

An ongoing exploration of the creative life.

4. How do you feel in big crowds of people?

Depends on the crowd. If it's at the Minnesota State Fair, I love it. If it's at a science conference, I feel like a total fraud (my husband is a scientist). If it's at a punk rock concert, I keep looking around to see if I'm the oldest one there.

5. Mobile phones (cell phones) - what's your opinion of them?

Necessary and fun tool in my life. I try to be polite about its use so someone doesn't shove it in an orifice that isn't quite the right shape.

6. If you could decorate your home in any style, what would that be?

Huh. Why is that important?

Okay. Well. Clean lines, soothing colors, edgy artwork, tons of books. What do you call that?

7. Do you believe in extraterrestrials?

Seriously? Sure. We'd be silly to think our planet is the only one with life forms.

8. If you could meet any mythological creature, what would it be and why?

All the creatures Hagrid took care of in the Harry Potter stories except the big spider. Yeah, I know, that's more than one creature and it's not exactly classical mythology.

9. Would you rather stay busy or have a lot of free time? Why?

Right now, I'd rather have a lot of free time because 2013 has been crazy busy and I'm getting a little tired.

10. If you would have a chance to travel to the moon, would you do it?

Given my fear of heights, maybe not.

11. What music album are you still frequently listening to now that you also listened to years ago?

How many years are we talking about? Because I've listened to Rancid's "Let the Dominoes Fall" for about three years straight. On CD and my iPod. No one has albums anymore, except a few people with a vinyl fetish. I go through phases where I listen to a lot of Pink Floyd, Doors, and Led Zeppelin. I love late 60s/early 70s rock.

And that ends this People Magazine-esque version of One Minnesota Writer. Back to you, Oonah.

Oh, and Happy May Day!

UPDATE! Go check out Constance Brewer's answers at her blog, Life on the Periphery. See, the fun just goes on and on.

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Live With Some Mystery

2013-04-30T10:57:00.001-05:00

Shift #50: Live With Some Mystery

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my mom's WearEver chili pot (Shift #48: Remembering Connections) and a friend of mine, who read that post, sent me a couple of emails about it the following day. The emails contained links to sites that had information about how old that WearEver pot is. She wanted me to have a way to find out the exact age of the pot I inherited. She was being thoughtful.

My own reaction to the emails surprised me. I had an immediate gut-level response that consisted of a deafening inner NO. No, I did not want to know the exact age of that pot. My admission that I did not know exactly how old it was had not been a cry for assistance. It was simply an acknowledgement that I did not know all there was to know about this rounded, worn pot that had found a home in my own kitchen. What I thought I knew about it was from its history within the confines of my own life. That it was around before I was born is a tangential piece of the story and not what I love about it.

If I knew the exact age of that pot, knew other history from the time before I existed, it might change the story I carry in my head. And that isn't what I want. I want the fuzzy memories, the mystery of something that has the illusion of always having been there, the emotional tug that matches what the pot held for me as a child and what it continues to hold for me now.

As I mulled that over, I thought about other objects that have a story I've assigned to them and whether the incomplete nature of those stories matters. For any number of small things that are passed down because the object itself is beloved for no reason other than the memory attached to it, a little mystery can be a lovely thing. The soft edges of a remembered meal made in a pot that seems to predate everything else does not need to be exact to do its job of acting as a touchstone.

And that's what that WearEver pot is. A touchstone. A piece of my mom that came to me. An item that allows me to wonder about things in a lovely way. A tool that allows me to continue to spin stories and pass them on.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-04-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

1. Some days, all it takes is cheesy mashed potatoes* to make things right in the world.

2. Sometimes I carry stones around because they feel exquisite between my fingers.

3. What book's plot would you like to swipe for your very own?

4. Choose a symbol for yourself. Explain/expand.

5. What do you do when you cannot sit still?

Happy Friday. Go cook something.

*And my recipe is here:

8 russet potatoes, scrubbed, peeled, and quartered

3 cloves garlic, peeled

4 tbsp butter

1/2 C whole milk

1 C finely shredded cheddar

1/2 tsp salt

Boil quartered potatoes and peeled garlic cloves in salted water until potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork (about 15-20 minutes). Drain potatoes/garlic, mash roughly, then add butter and milk. Mash some more, then add 1/2 C cheese. Mash again, add salt, mash one final time. Top with remaining 1/2 C cheese. Enjoy!

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: The Gift of Being Unprepared

2013-04-24T11:04:00.001-05:00

Shift #49: The Gift of Being Unprepared

On Monday, my son Shawn arrived at my house ready to finally, after several years, clean out his old art studio that takes up one room in our basement. There were drawings and prints and photographs that dated back to his high school years, old paints now unusable, bits of pastels, paintbrushes, rectangles of Plexiglass, frames he'd built, an empty beer bottle or two. The studio had become a receptacle for things that had no home: a Lego keychain with a wizard figure, a tin of old political buttons, a wooden train, a Che Guevara poster.

Shawn, with help from my husband Mick, ruthlessly discarded whatever was no longer useful. But they were careful to look at everything, consider if anyone else might use any of it.

And that's how Shawn rediscovered my father's old bicycle bag. I was upstairs with my daughter Abby, who had a no-school day and was battling an unusually high blood sugar (Abby has type 1 diabetes), and my focus was on her instead of my own work. I am always ready to shift gears for Abby. It's just part of the deal. Shawn wandered up from the depths of the purge to hand me this once-neon-yellow Avenir bag that my father left strapped to his bike frame when he was still riding 10-20 miles a day. Shawn had acquired it after my father realized he could no longer maintain his bike habit thanks to the stroke that robbed him of some of his balance and hearing.

I had not remembered that Shawn had that bike bag. I was completely unprepared for the rush of emotion that engulfed me when I unzipped the bag's top. Inside was a zip-top plastic bag that held an assortment of bike tire patches and a couple of bike chain links. There was a little tube of rubber cement still in its packaging with the instructions printed on the back. There was another piece of cardboard from a past package for tire patches that had diagrams to demonstrate exactly how to place tire patches. I noticed it said, "Kmart" across the bottom, and remembered that Dad loved Kmart and Walmart and any other discount store where he could find cheap stuff.

The last thing in the plastic bag was a piece of well-used foil wrapped around something in the shape of a stick of gum. I gently undid the foil and found two Curad "ouchless" plastic strips. It struck me in that moment how much my father loved his bike, enough to carry around all sorts of things to take care of a blown tire or broken chain, but only carried these two tiny little bandages in case something happened to his body.

My father's sense of invincibility never waned. He was prepared to fix his bike, but not prepared to fix himself. It was that very refusal to see himself as frail that kept him on his bicycle until he was 88.

That little piece of foil and its contents, along with everything else in that bike bag, was not what I expected to hang on to at the end of the day. Monday was a weird day with its shifting progression, its unexpected treasures. Had I been prepared for any of it, I would not have been so open to the tide of emotions and memory that flowed through me. And this bit of writing would not have been created.

Being prepared has its advantages. But, sometimes, if we want to make art, being unprepared can be a wonderful thing. I'm so glad my father was both.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-04-19T08:58:00.002-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

Our Friday morning looked like this:

What images combined to make your morning? Which ones would you prefer to linger on for a while?

I don't know about you, but we have to dig for the happy in "happy Friday" around here today. So, onward!

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Remembering Connections

2013-04-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Shift #48: Remembering Connections

On Sunday evening, I was doing what I love to do: cooking for my family, sipping wine (Sterling Vintner's Collection Central Coast Pinot Noir), watching it rain outside, and appreciating the beauty of the almost-frozen raindrops that clung to our back yard river birch and white pines. I rummaged around in the cupboard next to my stove for a pot the right size for the large amount of broccoli I wanted to steam (for steamed broccoli with caper brown butter from my Gourmet cookbook). I settled on the six-quart WearEver pot I inherited from my mother because my five-quart pot was already in use boiling potatoes for clapshot (also from my Gourmet cookbook).

The inherited WearEver pot is the one in which my mother always made chili. I loved her chili, loved the sensation of mashing the kidney beans she used in the recipe against the roof of my mouth, loved the way the smell of chili filled our entire kitchen. I makes me sad that I cannot make this recipe for my family now; my daughter is allergic to legumes and my husband has an intolerance for beans.

That chili was one of the few things my mother cooked well. She hated to cook. It was a chore thrust upon her, an activity she did not choose.

But this pot which held such a delectable concoction of ground beef, tomatoes, kidney beans, and spices, was a symbol of her efforts to fulfill what she saw as her duty: feed our family. Cooking was the responsibility she assumed when she married my father in 1935, just before she turned 18.

Married by 18. How different my mother's life was from mine. I married at 21, and again at 33. My daughter Abby is 18, as is her boyfriend. Sometimes, I think of my mother as I watch Abby and marvel at how she has been with the same boy for over two years. I had been through perhaps six boyfriends at her age, not yet ready to make any decisions, but excited by the possibilities before me.

That WearEver pot is one of my strongest connections to my mother. It is a connection I want to hand down to Abby in the years ahead. She mentioned recently how she no longer remembers her grandmother, who died when Abby was five years old. Thinking of these kinds of connections is one way to shift how I view the world around me. Every day I can find something in my kitchen or elsewhere in my house or my life that connects me to people who are important to me, both past and present. I can call up old stories and remember what it was that made these connections important enough to last.

As a writer, sometimes I feel is is my duty to record these moments of memory that flare when I use my mother's old chili pot or put on her old Black Hills gold ring or wear perfume almost every day just as she did. It is my duty to write down what I remember of her so my children will have a record. She did not feel the call to create a record or make art from her memories. Her call was to familial duties of cooking, cleaning, raising children. I watched her try to fulfill her creative impulses by designing leather wallets, belts, and purses with the leather-working tools she hauled out every winter. By designing Christmas ornaments. By planting flowers. By taking vacation photos. I'm not sure those creative outlets were ever enough to offset her frustration at the role she thought she had to play.

Those symbols and connections to my mother, in particular, keep alive my awareness that things could be very different. The freedom to create the life I have is something for which I must remember to be grateful. And I must not waste time.

This is it.

My inherited WearEver pot. I have no idea how old it actually is.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-04-12T08:07:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

1. Liver paste makes everything easier to swallow in the canine life. What is the human equivalent?

2. Last week, travel was listed as miraculous. This week, miracles include ibuprofen, yoga stretches, luggage with wheels, snow that melts as soon as it hits the pavement.

3. Battle songs. What comes to mind first?

4. What forbidden place would you like to visit?

5. ...And one photo prompt:

in the Santa Barbara Funk Zone

Happy Friday, everybody.

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Good Scents

2013-04-09T13:22:00.000-05:00

Shift #47: Good Scents

I just returned from a trip to Santa Barbara, California, to celebrate twenty years of being married to my husband Jim Mickelson. Mick (the nickname he's gone by since grad school) and I decided that we wanted to go to a place where we knew no one, where there was ocean and mountains and good wine and warmer weather than in our own back yard. We didn't keep a schedule. We didn't plan our days ahead of time. We showed up, got a car, found the Santa Barbara Inn (okay, we did reserve a room there, so maybe there was a little planning ahead), and settled into a state of just being there. We left our computers at home. We didn't read email. We didn't post photos to Facebook. We didn't even have the radio on in the car when we drove down the coast to Ventura or up into the hills to the Bridlewood Winery.

One of the things that stays with me the most from this trip is the smell of the ocean air. There's a fresh salty something that marks coastal locations, the smell of the ocean and washed-up seaweed and fish, that permeates everything. It smells utterly foreign to those of us who live in the middle of the continent. I love that smell, love calling it up in my memory to go with the few photos I took on our trip.

The smell of ocean air makes me happy.

There were other smells that struck me. At the various wine tasting rooms we visited, there was a musty, oaky, sour mix of smells from all the different wines that passed through. There was the complicated scent of the wines I swirled in my glass, for which I have never learned to detect individual notes. There was the light sweet scent of the yellow wild flowers that grew en masse along the path near the Carpinteria Seal Sanctuary. There was a mingling of food scents along State Street in Santa Barbara's Old Town; we detected Indian spices, steak, Italian delicacies, and fish.

All these smells call up specific images. They are powerful memory prods.

As I think about the work in from of me, about the ways stories grab the reader or how poems connect with a special audience, the use of scent as a prompt for writing or art is one I have used many times. Scents are primal tools that can instantly put us in a new frame of mind.

Just last night, I read a section from Gretchen Rubin's book, Happier at Home, about this very thing. She writes about using good scents as a way to influence how home feels. I was intrigued with her description of ordering scents from an online site, Demeter Fragrance, that specializes in unusual scents of things as varied as soap, grass, snow, and salt air. Would I order the salt air scent to call up Santa Barbara in the middle of next winter? Would it be anything like what I experienced? I did look around their website, completely amused to find something called, "Zombie for Him," and, "Zombie for Her." Not ordering that, thanks.

If I simply look around my own home, there are plenty of scents that I could use to invoke memory, change my mood, nudge my creativity. In fact, the first thing I went to find while thinking about this today was the seaweed soap my friend Oonah brought with her from England when she visited us last fall. It's not quite the scent of the air in Santa Barbara, but it does call up that coastal feeling as well as warm memories of friends who shared my private space for a little while.

Good scents. Got any of your own?

Carpinteria Seal Sanctuary

Mick in Ventura

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-04-05T07:00:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

1. A room with a view - my view is the Pacific Ocean. What's yours?

2. Travel is miraculous.

3. What would you leave behind right now, if you could?

4. The last words on your lips were…..

5. What mystery would you leave unsolved?

Happy Friday from not-in-Minnesota this week.

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Memorize a Poem

2013-04-02T14:53:00.002-05:00

Shift #46: Memorize a Poem

Yes, today's blog post is partly inspired by the fact that April is National Poetry Month where I live. It's also inspired by the sense that I sometimes have of a poem which feels so connected to my own experience that I wonder if its author has been watching me. It's an eerie and yet comforting thing to read something that so resonates that it feels likes it's a part of me.

But I seldom memorize poetry, even though I love the feeling of reading something that amazes me. I did mostly commit Raymond Carver's Late Fragment to memory when my father died, because that was one of those poems that got to me and it was short. That's right - even though I read poetry, I'm not inclined to memorize long stanzas of anything. First of all, I have a memory like a sieve. Second, there's so much out there that clamors for my reading time that I'm hesitant to stop long enough to memorize any one thing. Unless it's short. And I'm in need of seeing those words in my mind again and again. Late Fragment fit those requirements perfectly.

So, I've been thinking about that tendency to not memorize poetry and, perhaps, it's time to make an exception. As an editor, it's easy to get caught up in reading poem after poem in rapid-fire fashion because there's work to be done. That spills over into rapid-fire reading for relaxation, which is kind of an odd concept. I don't allow myself to really sink into anything long enough to go beyond that first flush of, "Oooh! This is good." And that's a shame.

Memorization forces a slowing down. It offers a way of absorbing the writer's words into the reader's life so that they can be called up whenever and wherever they fit. Memorization offers a breath of life to a poem and a shift in the experience of that poem.

A poem memorized solely for the sake of enjoyment rather than some course instructor's requirements is a beautiful thing. Try it. See how you can make those words feel like they belong partly to you.

And what am I going to memorize today? Jim Moore's Today's Meditation: Happiness, from his book, The Freedom of History. It's short, of course.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-03-29T09:02:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

This week, I was inspired by a mindfulness exercise called The Game of Five from the website, Pocket Mindfulness. The idea is to notice five things in your daily routine that you usually don't notice. Things that go unnoticed are just the sorts of details I love to use in my own writing. So, here are my five things for today, so far anyway.

1. The way the morning newspaper is right there on the front step most mornings, neatly bagged in biodegradable plastic, and how I think of that most when it's not there.

2. How the simple act of brushing my teeth after waking makes me feel like I am now ready talk to someone else.

3. That moment of silence in the house when everyone else has left for the day and I have not yet begun my own work. Sometimes that feels terribly sad and I rush to turn on morning news to fill that void.

4. How we don't run out of hot water even when we have house guests and everyone takes a shower before 9 a.m.

5. The deliciously warm feeling of sheets that come right out of the dryer, cleaned now that our house guest has left. And the way they smell, no longer mingled with the scent of someone's sleep.

What have you failed to notice lately?

Happy Friday. Happy Easter, if you celebrate it.

photo from morguefile.com

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Let Someone Else Ask About Your Work

2013-03-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

Shift #45: Let Someone Else Ask About Your Work

It's a bloghop!

Today's shift in focus is a little different. I was asked by fellow writer and editor Oonah V Joslin if I would like to take part in a bloghop that she was tagged in and, without thinking very long about it, I said yes. The idea with this bloghop is to answer questions about my writing and then tag another writer with a blog so they can do the same. Readers can hop around to different blogs and see what other writers are doing, what inspires them, what they think matters.

I hadn't planned on using this as part of my 52 Ways to Shift Your Focus series, but then I thought about how having someone ask me about my work might change it. The questions that come from someone else are questions I don't choose. Therefore, they might make me think differently about what I do.

Oonah's a good person to nudge me in a new direction. We've worked together on Every Day Poets since 2009 and met face-to-face for the first time last September when Oonah and her husband Noel visited Minnesota. They live in Northumberland, so it was no small feat to get all the way to my house. In fact, that visit made me think about Minnesota in different ways as I considered what to show them during their time here. That sparked a couple of posts on this blog, including, Shift #21: Be A Tourist in Your Own Town, and Shift #22: Read Your Stuff Out Loud.

So, it's only natural that Oonah's inspired me again. Below are the bloghop questions that Oonah sent me, with my answers. And, don't forget to visit her blogs, Oonahverse and Parallel Oonahverse.

1) What is the title of your next book?

Well, my own work includes occasional poetry, flash fiction, and articles on the craft of writing, none of which is compiled into a book yet. I do run a blog called One Minnesota Writer - Oh, hey, that would be this blog you're reading! - that focuses on the creative life, including a series I've been working on called, 52 Ways to Shift Your Focus. I've had fantasies about expanding that into a nonfiction book. You know, it worked for Gretchen Rubin and her Happiness Project.

There is an anthology that I'm involved with in the works. I'm one of the editors for the Every Day Poets anthology series, and we are currently working on The Best of Every Day Poets Three.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

The EDP book is part of a series that showcases the best of what we've published within a given year.

For my 52 Ways series, that idea came from boredom. I needed to shake up how I did my work and I thought, well, probably so do a lot of people.

I'm also someone who regularly writes about the minutiae of everyday life. I'm very interested in how the everyday can be elevated to a larger sense of appreciation or surprise. I look that for when I'm reading work submitted to Every Day Poets.

3) What genre does your project fall under?

The EDP anthology is, of course, poetry. And, being an anthology, the poetry comes from all sorts of categories.

The 52 Ways series falls under self-exploration or something like that. Please don't make me say "self-help".

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Wow, would someone actually make a movie about a Minnesota editor/writer? Okay, I want Sandra Bullock to play me.

5) What is a one sentence synopsis of your work?

Find the extraordinary within that which is in front of you and stand on your head while you're at it.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The Every Day Poets anthologies are published by Every Day Publishing and they are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

The 52 Ways series has been in the works for a year now. It's not done yet.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

If I think about the 52 Ways series, it could compare to a number of writing books out there, with influences from works like Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way or Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. Those are books I've returned to often in my development as a writer. But, really, I haven't seen anything exactly like what I'm working on. Yet.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The sheer need to look at things differently to keep evolving as a writer.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

The 52 Ways series, hopefully, encourages people to find their own ways to look at their art differently or to see the world through a new lens.

The EDP anthologies, to circle back to that, are all about short, excellent, and accessible poetry. Forget about all the stuffy verse that you may have developed a healthy dislike toward in high school or college. Find out what is currently on the minds of working poets.

And now I am off to find other bloggers to tag. Stay tuned.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-03-22T09:14:00.000-05:00

Your weekly offering of art/writing prompts.

1. Take the nicest character you know and find their evil side.

2. My ideal road trip would not include dress-up clothing or boats.

3. Once the graduation party is scheduled, you find out how many people's schedules collide and how many people are graduating across the country.

5. Do things out of order.

4. Who notices first when you switch your life around - the people who are happiest for you or the ones who need something from you?

As always, Happy Friday. Enjoy your first spring weekend...unless you're on the other side of the equator.

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Familiar Stories, Alternative Viewpoints

2013-03-19T07:30:00.000-05:00

Shift #44: Familiar Stories, Alternative Viewpoints

Lately, I've been thinking about how retelling stories from different points of view changes the narrative message. Fairy tales, specifically - taking something familiar and beloved, like Cinderella, and retelling the story from the stepmother's point of view. Or retelling it from the prince's point of view. Or maybe retelling Goldilocks and the Three Bears from Papa Bear's point of view. In fact, could there have been a spider in the corner who saw the whole story unfold and whose rendition makes the original narrator unreliable.

This is a technique that's been used by many writers to get to a new way of telling a bigger story (who's read Wicked or watched the television series Once Upon a Time?) and it's a great technique for shifting our own little points of view as we sip coffee and read newspapers in our kitchens in some relatively safe spot in the world. We keep digesting news and stories in our habitual ways every day without much thought about the other sides of those stories that are handed to us. It's easy to get lazy.

As critical thinkers, which writers and artist have to be in order to produce any work that's worth a damn, this kind of exercise is both fun and good for us. This is one way to create an alternate universe for these familiar tales. It's also a technique we can use to expand our body of work by building on what we've already done.

For example, I had a piece of flash fiction published at Postcard Poems and Prose that was written from the point of view of a woman whose partner cheated. I really liked that story (luckily, so did a few other people) and I could stay in that story a little longer by writing it from the point of view of the partner who cheated. I could do it all over again from the point of view of the mistress. And I might have two more pieces of flash fiction, or I might spin one of them in to something longer. I could also spin one into poetry instead of fiction. The story is a universal one and all those point of view possibilities offer their own twist. Which one could be the most interesting? Which one would allow me, as writer, to poke into a persona that is usually unacceptable? Which one would offer me the fun of being really "bad"? Could I successfully write a story that is morally ambiguous? Could I spin it off even further and create a witness that did not appear in the original work?

In an earlier blog post in this series, I discussed character development in a similar sort of way, by looking at how to approach family stories from the point of view of another family member. If you want to look back at that post, see Shift #16: Complete Characters. That post is a little more about understanding character motivation, but dovetails nicely with today's idea.

Possibilities. If we don't immediately accept the viewpoint of the stories we're given, there's no telling what our minds can come up with. Go turn a familiar story on its head.

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: spring break

2013-03-12T17:34:00.002-05:00

One Minnesota Writer is on spring break this week, as her daughter, Abby, who is a high school senior, is actually home for a change. That is an event worth stopping the presses for (or suspending blog posts, as it were).

See you next Tuesday!

First Five Fragments for Friday - Photo Fragment Friday

2013-03-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

It's Photo Fragment Friday! Enjoy.

Nothing better than an odd assortment of images out of context, right? I dare you to fit them all into one piece.

Happy Friday.

AND SOME PUBLICATION NEWS.....

Fellow writer and overall creative person Dave Morehouse recently put together a team and launched Postcard Poems & Prose, which has a unique way of presenting art and literature in one package. I had the pleasure of being published as author of one of their top three flash fiction submissions for their March contest. You can find my piece, Red Sky at Morning, here. And, later this month, fellow Every Day Poets editor Oonah V Joslin will have one of her poems published on the site. She has already published a few things on Postcard Poems & Prose, so have a look at the past publications.

But wait! There's more! Postcard Poems & Prose is currently running a spring poetry contest, details here. Dave has made it clear that quirky bios and links to your other published works or your website are encouraged. Go check it out ASAP.

All photos by KCMickelson.

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Show Your Empathy

2013-03-05T10:47:00.000-06:00

Shift #43: Show Your Empathy

Previous posts in this series have talked about pulling weeds (Shift #7), removing obstacles (Shift #10), cleaning out the house (Shift #13), and giving something up (Shift #40). There are bits of all those posts behind today's shift in focus as I think about items to donate. I need look at what I can share or give away, and that requires empathy. It requires pulling things out of my pile of possessions that would do more good in someone else's hands, shoving aside the obstacle of attachment, and remembering how lucky I am to have what I have. I can give up a few minutes of my time to collect things that someone else can use right now, instead of letting these things languish in my home.

Yes, this is all very nice, you may be thinking, and this is all very peacenik-happy-what-else-do-you-have-to-say. Fair enough. Here it is: if we don't constantly hone our empathy, I believe our art and writing becomes more and more self-centered. It becomes closed in, less aware of the world, less inviting to someone else. Who really cares about what we have to say if we have no sense about how someone else feels?

I know my own tendency to zero in on what's going on inside my own house, the need to keep things organized and orderly and smooth. And I know how grouchy I get when things get rattled. So, yesterday, after a bumpy morning with a kid who overslept and missed the bus, another kid whose own life is less organized than he'd like and thus needed my help, and a brewing snowstorm that was destined to throw everything off later, it was quite a good thing to receive a thonk on the head. The thonk arrived in the form of an email from my daughter's high school reminding parents that there is a food shelf in need of items that go beyond food to baby items and backpacks and school supplies. They need stuff now, before spring break makes that food shelf inaccessible to part of the student population who uses it. The length of the list of needed items startled me. I was only vaguely aware of the food shelf's existence and did not know that diapers and toiletries and laundry soap were part of the offerings.

And this is right under my nose. What kind of a person am I that I've been ignoring this need while grumping around about a few bumps in my writing schedule? And how much of that lack of empathy shows up in my work?

That school email wasn't the only reminder I received. I also noticed a friend's posting on Facebook for clothing donations for women coming out of abusive situations. There was another need, one in which I could so easily take part. Do I wear everything in my closet? No. So why am I hanging on to all of it? Just in case? Really?

So, today's shift in focus will result in a very concrete action that clears some space here, helps someone there, and softens my voice just a little.

DO A KIND THING

If you are interested in donating to a food shelf, but have no idea where to start, there are food shelf directories online.

Here is one for Minnesota: http://www.hungersolutions.org/.

Here is a national food shelf directory, thanks to Feeding America: http://feedingamerica.org/foodbank-results.aspx.

If you are interested in cleaning out your closet (women), here is a link to Dress for Success: http://www.dressforsuccess.org/whatwedo.aspx.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-03-01T09:28:00.000-06:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

1. Five things I love about March: spring break, Easter candy, silly St. Patrick's Day celebrations, the way the air outside smells, planning a new garden

2. Five things I hate about March: dirty melting snow, wet shoes, wet dogs, snow that's too heavy to shovel, the way everything feels gray

3. Five movies I would watch again: Pulp Fiction, Dirty Harry, Argo, A Knight's Tale, When Harry Met Sally

4. Five books I love: The Fifth Book of Peace by Maxine Hong Kingston, Lightning at Dinner by Jim Moore, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

5. Five places I've visited: Helsinki, Finland; Sioux Falls, South Dakota, U.S.; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Westport, County Mayo, Ireland; St. Albans, Hertfordshire, UK.

I love counting five things off on my fingers. Happy Friday! Inspiration is at your fingertips.

Photo I took on Croagh Patrick, County Mayo, Ireland in the summer of 2005.

52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Consider Frankenstein

2013-02-26T13:38:00.001-06:00

Shift #42: Consider Frankenstein

Recently, I had a conversation with my daughter's boyfriend Joe about the word, "ghoti." "Ghoti" is an alternative spelling for the word, "fish," that has been around since the mid-nineteenth century. It uses bits of letter combinations from other words that have the same sounds as the assorted parts of, "fish," then strings them together for something that looks completely different but is still pronounced, "fish." (See the New York Times 2010 article, Ghoti, by Ben Zimmer, if you're curious.) Joe put forth the idea that no college instructor would question a student who uses, "ghoti," instead of the standard, "fish," in a college essay.

I politely disagreed. The choice to use a less-recognized form of any word is certainly open for examination. What is the deeper meaning of that writer's choice? Why the need to use something not generally understood? There's a fine line between flaunting obscure knowledge and solid choices that move a piece forward. I went so far as to call, "ghoti," a Frankenstein of a word.

This morning, I was still thinking about that conversation. And Frankenstein. So, of course, I Googled, "ghoti," for the second time this year, and found that I'm not alone in my Frankenstein reference for alternative spellings (see that New York Times article referenced above). Then I decided I needed to look at Frankenstein, the novel, again and downloaded a copy onto my Nook. I immediately forgot about the whole ghoti incident as I immersed myself not in Mary Shelley's novel but, rather, the academic introduction in the version I bought. The introduction discusses Shelley's life and influences, Romanticism, the origins of science fiction, feminism, and other assorted ideas.

By the time I looked up from my Nook, my thoughts had moved on to how we craft anything and everything. We have so many bits and pieces that we stitch together to make a piece of writing, a painting, a photo composition. The influences from which we draw for our work every single day are not always things we notice. Yet, one tiny thing, like an alternative spelling, can send us on a research expedition that ends up somewhere unexpected. Somewhere that offers an epiphany about our own creative process.

But only if we pay attention to the possibilities. Only if we follow the loose connections an a journey away from ourselves.

What small thing is lingering in your mind right now? Look it up. Follow the unexpected connections your mind makes.

First Five Fragments for Friday

2013-02-22T09:40:00.001-06:00

Your weekly offering of writing/art prompts.

Today, I swiped fragments from this morning's edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Citations are at the very bottom of this post, just in case you'd rather not know the context if you use the prompt.

1. The resistance caused by this flexing of the tread generates heat....

2. An online hookup with a sleek, ego-centric studmuffin ends with the....

3. The newcomers meet suspicion in the pueblo...

4. ...Kingman once hit a ball so high it went through a roof air hole and never came down.

5. We'd apreciate it if you were satisfied. Thank you for your cooperation.

Happy snowy Friday from the white-blanketed Midwest.

ONE MORE THING:

While you're holed up waiting for the snowplow to go by, consider this poetry offering from Bay-area poet Janet Butler, who kindly sent me a copy. Her new chapbook, Upheaval, is available from Red Ochre Press. The poems are short and intimate, perfect bits of passionate observation for a wintery day or, really, any other kind of day in which you crave tightly-written poetry with a voice that crawls right inside you heart. You won't be disappointed. Check out this link for more information and to order a copy.

Citations for today's fragments, all of which appeared in the 2/22/2013 paper edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
1. New Treads in Fuel Efficiency by Stuart F. Brown, New York Times.
2. Yossi remains closeted by Colin Covert.
3. Charge of the Literacy Brigade at Cuban Film Fest by Colin Covert.
4. Adieu, Old Dome by Richard Meryhew.
5. Minneapolis Residents: Are you really satisfied? by james lileks.