Got 15 Minutes? Make Something.

I took an online course from creativity guru Eric Maisel last year. The focus of the course was coaching other writers, but I was so in need of a motivational kick in the pants as a writer/artist that I elected to coach myself while I took the course. For me, the most useful exercise during the twelve-week course was developing the practice of devoting fifteen minutes to a creative project, several times a day -- in and around the other responsibilities I had at the time.

What I learned during this exercise is that even when you're half-mad at your partner because his job means a move you don't want to make, and even when you have work to do to pay the bills that isn't all that engaging at the time, it turns out that if you can devote at least two or three fifteen-minute sessions a day to your own creative projects, you will find the energy you need to move forward.

During this time of relative chaos I was able to make amazing progress on a book proposal about the freelancing life (okay, it got shelved but I plan to reignite the project this winter) and I was able to sketch the sweet view out of our upstairs bathroom window in Ames, Iowa -- a view that I had savored for the five years we lived there. I was so pleased to be able to capture the essence of that view that I forgot to be sad about moving that day.

Fifteen minutes can do wonders. Try it: make something.

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Mobile Office Report from Eastern Iowa

Since moving to small town in Eastern Iowa a year ago, my husband and I have adopted a mobile-office Friday routine that wraps up our work week and gets a jump on the weekend. Dubuque has become one of our favorite destinations. Not only Iowa’s oldest city, Dubuque is possibly also one of its most beautiful – and arguably one of its most genuinely creative.

Several weeks ago on a sunny early-fall day we loaded our laptops and bikes into our van and trekked the 45 miles to Dubuque, population 57,000. Coming into the city from the south on Highway 61, the majestic cliffs on the left and the river valley announce the geological shift from the gently-rolling terrain of eastern Iowa to the more dramatic, deeply carved river valleys, known as the Driftless Area of northeastern Iowa and northwest Illinois. Factories along the river give the city a rough edge, but there’s also a wabi sabi charm as you move beyond the smoke stacks to the gold-dome of the Dubuque Country Courthouse and the many old-fashioned church spires of this historically Catholic area.

We set up our mobile offices at Jitterz, a downtown coffee shop where three 20-something male customers sang in gusty falsettos to “We Built this City,” coming over on the speaker system. I began sketching out a plot for a novel whose idea had come to me the week before. When I worked myself into the corner of an illogical plot thread, I took a walk-n-stretch break and meandered to the news rack at Jitterz, where a free copy of Dubuque365 beckoned. This weekly report on the area’s artistic and cultural events has caught my eyes before with its snappy feature articles and colorful ads.

Just a quick perusal of 365 confirmed that the creative class is alive and well in Dubuque, as evidenced by an ad for an art exhibit being offered by Voices from the Warehouse District, as well as mention of such organizations and events as the Dubuque County Fine Arts Society, the Dubuque Museum of Art, Dubuque Fest (an art festival held every May), Riverfest (a fall festival), Brick Oven Studio (art center and gallery), and 5 Flags Civic Center.

After a couple hours of work, we walked out to our van and pulled out the bikes. Destination: Dubuque Arboretum and Botanical Gardens on the northwest side of town – about 30 minutes by bike and very uphill. Once there I sat in front of a prairie stand and sketched some Black-eyed Susans, while Chuck headed for the Japanese gardens.

While I sketched, I thought about this city of which I am growing so fond. The creativity here is organic – wild – with studios growing in the cracks of old warehouses and tucked in crumbling brownstones. I’d guess that more residents of Dubuque are engaged in more creative enterprises than residents of most cities this size. The two artists I’ve met from this area – poet/printer Peter Fraterdeus and painter Wendy Rolfe – certainly embody the spirit of which I speak. I’m guessing that the grass-roots creative vibe evidenced by so many in Dubuque is part of the reason that this Mississippi river town was voted the “Most Livable Small City” by the United States Conference of Mayors.

I thought too about the wonderful freedom I enjoy as a freelancer writer and editor to take my office on the road like this – and to enjoy the company of my mate on Fridays. He’s not a writer, but his job also allows him a certain degree of flexibility. Our income isn’t as high as some, but with a life this that allows us to combine with and play so seamlessly, who cares?

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Has Mother Nature Caused the Crash?

Could it be that Mother Earth has somehow willed the economic crash? Maybe this ground zero financial disaster is nature’s offering – a golden, just-before-the-tipping-point opportunity for us to align our consumption toward preserving nature more and despoiling her less. We all know that Nature needs fewer plasma screens and more vegetables grown without chemicals, but now maybe we’re going to have to really listen. Maybe she’s asking us to simplify a la the Voluntary Simplicity movement even if it’s not quite voluntary, and embrace the Slow Movement even though we love the Fast Track. Maybe Creation wants us to reconnect with our creative selves (write a song, draw a picture, dust off the guitar) more often and rely on adrenaline rushes and shiny new toys less often for that sense of being alive.

Okay, maybe it’s naïve to suggest that the earth is metaphysically causing us to base our existence on creativity over material consumption. Still, trusting in the earth’s wisdom to right itself shines a little hope on the situation.

I heard Sandra Steingraber speak last week at the University of Iowa. Steingraber holds a Ph.D. in biology and a master’s in English and is the author of a book of poetry (Post-Diagnosis) and two acclaimed books on the environment (Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood). She told the audience that when she was a graduate student at the University of Michigan in the 1980s, she made a bet with a graduate student in economics on which system would crash first – the economic system or the environment. Each chose his/her own area of study, the economist because of the deregulation going on, and Steingraber because of the lack of teeth in environmental regulations.

They were both wrong, she told us: it turns out the systems are crashing at the same time.

Steingraber went on to explore some of the elements common to both systems. Both are large and complex, with far-reaching causes and effects. (An example in the ecosystem is the proliferation of large plasma TVs that require as much electricity as an average fridge. More electricity means more coal being burned, which causes more ocean acidification, which causes the collapse of coral systems.) Another element common to both systems is that with less diversity comes more danger. (Mergers in financing mean more catastrophic losses; agricultural monocultures mean potentially larger outbreaks of pests.) Both systems have an underlying addiction to oil. Both tend to be dominated by positive feedback loops. (Economic panic and fear create more panic and fear. Melting permafrost releases methane, which causes more melting permafrost.) Finally, in both systems, regulatory apparatuses have been dismantled – or never existed in the first place.

One difference between the two crashes, Steingraber asserted, was that business writers have “made the economy visible” in a way that environmental writers still have not made as environmental issues visible. “We don’t have a steady stream of data like the Wall Street ticker,” she lamented. She wondered who would become the ecological equivalents of Paulson and Bernanke. Who will rally the world into an integrated set of policies that will help decrease pollution and the use of fossil fuels that are clearly warming the planet? (She was too humble to name herself but did mention Bill McKibben and Paul Ehrlich – names familiar to environmentalists but still unknown in many households.)

I don’t have the credentials to rally the world about the environment, but I do hope that the silver lining in the economic uncertainty is that as a society we’ll shift away from currency to creativity as our raison d’etre.

And in the spirit of making the environment visible on this day in Eastern Iowa, I offer these observations of Mother Nature: Okra plants are still blooming even though the leaves are beginning to yellow. There may be a few more of these lovely little vegetables to pick and eat. Purple ashes are not native to Iowa but they’re everywhere in the towns and cities and they’re at their peak in the southern tier of Iowa, all luminescent yellow, peach, orange, and plum. Some of the early-turning maples are beginning to fire yellow, orange, and red. Geese can be seen flying overhead and on the ground, combing harvested soybean fields that look like the naps of tightly woven, grey and brown sweaters.

And big blue stem grasses are waving purple arms in prairie patches across the state, unbothered by the Dow Industrial Average.

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What Makes a Good Writing Group?

Sitting with my writing group in the Iowa City ped mall last month at an outdoor cafe under a locust tree, watching the sky turn pink at the gloaming, I was thinking that the craic was good, to use a line from Van Morrison's song, "Coney Island." ("Craic as in the Irish term for "fun or abandonment, often in the context of drinking or music.")

After we discussed the piece for the night,we branched off into a more general discussion of why we write (to make order out of chaos, for catharsis, for understanding), why we blog (to reach out and connect from our writers’ solitude; to write something more focused for an audience than journal entries; to build a platform for the eyes of agents and editors; and maybe above all, to build/assert/confirm our identities as writers), why My Space appeals to some and blogs to others (MySpace for extroverts, blogs for introverts?) and, finally, how to live (Hope: move to England to write and house-sit for B&B owners; Jennifer: manage her way through a separation and single-parenting; Marji: watch her nest partially empty; Kate: indulge in her love of herding-dog tournaments; me: make the freelancing life work at least another year, to retain flexibility for the arrival of our first grandchild).

The conversation ebbed, the sun receded, the sky turned indigo, and I kept thinking of another Van Morrison line from the same song: “Wouldn’t be great if life was like this all the time?”

What makes a good writing group? Maybe it’s about strong, opinionated people who occasionally get touchy with each other (we’re all sensitive writers, after all) but know how to make it right. Maybe it’s about time – we’re seven years and counting. Maybe it’s about the glass of wine we enjoy when we’re together, or the great café food or the dishes we bring when we meet in one of our homes. Maybe it’s about meeting in Iowa City and walking the same streets as Flannery O’Connor once did, or Kurt Vonnegut, or Jane Smiley. Maybe it’s about honesty in criticism, generosity in praise, celebration in publication.

Whatever the reason, the craic is good with my writing tribe.

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Sometimes It Works Like It Should

Getting published doesn't have to be so difficult

"New Lives" is a recently published essay of mine that has kind of a sweet little history to it. For one thing, writing it was cathartic as I came to terms with the empty-nest sadness I experienced after our sons left home for college. For another, it was relatively easy to find a publishing home for the essay. Just a couple of days after I submitted it, the editor emailed a warm note of acceptance and appreciation. Once in awhile, getting published seems almost effortless.

As a freelance writer I'm becoming more savvy about where to submit my article ideas and finished essays. In the beginning I was unrealistic, submitting my material to magazines without scrutinizing their pieces for styles, content, and intended audience. Like many beginning writers I thought that if I could just get one break in a well-regarded publication, I'd be on my way. But it doesn't work that way for most of us.

After some painful rejections I started submitting from the ground up -- from local and state newspapers, to regional publications, to specialized national publications, to more widely distributed publications. Now, before I submit anywhere, I do a careful analysis of the publication's content. Are the articles and essays personal or more journalistic? How much research seems to be required? How long are the pieces? What writing styles seem most prevalent?

I've also begun to acknowledge that some pieces belong in literary journals and magazines rather than commercial magazines. This can be a tough thing to admit to yourself as a freelancer. When you're trying to make your living this way, it's the commercial market that pays the bills; you can have a hundred essays published in that many literary journals and not make a cent on any of them. However, if you look at your published pieces as part of a portfolio that shows the range of your skills, the published-but-unpaid essays can play an important part in snagging future writing work, including book contracts.

After I finished "New Lives" several years ago, I promised it out loud that I would find a home for it. I knew this might be tough because the essay was long and didn't exactly fit the mission of most women's magazines, whose articles tend to me more factual or how-to oriented. When I read about Mom Writer's Literary Magazine, I knew that could be the perfect venue for my piece.

Luckily, the editor agreed. My mission is accomplished: the piece is out, my empty-nest sadness is gone, and I have another published piece in my portfolio.

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Why We Want to Create

Why do we want to make things, anyway?

“C.G. Jung once described creativity as an instinct. If I do something creative in a day, I can sleep well. I’m relaxed. But if the practical world of traveling and family and obligation prevents me from doing something creative – if I can’t make anything – I feel tired and sick and somewhat depressed.” –Thomas Moore in “Finding Life at Work” in Spirituality and Health, March/April ’08.

I came across this passage recently and it reminds me of what a friend who edits tests for a living once told me: “Writing fiction helps me stand things. If I write an hour in the morning before I come to work, it helps me cope with the rest of the day.”

In The Dynamics of Creation, British psychologist Anthony Storr says that artists create to arrive at a sense of order in a chaotic world, to keep depression at bay, to seek status and prestige, and other psychological reasons. But perhaps the best reason, he concludes, is that some of us are simply blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with a creative restlessness, or a “divine discontent” that makes us want to create something. This artistic discontent is useful to society because others need art, music, books, etc. for entertainment, comfort, and catharsis.

What a perfect equation: some needing to create, others needing the catharsis of the creation. If we’re resisting our own creative restlessness, maybe we should stop fighting within ourselves and do what we are programmed to do?

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Wildness in the City

Inviting Nature into Urban Areas

An Iowan named Roger Gipple, a retired farmer and environmentalist who lives in Des Moines, established “The Agrestal Fund” a few years ago. The fund is managed through the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation and was created for purposes of instigating a conversation about wildness in Iowa. (“Agrestal” means “not domesticated or cultivated; growing wild in the field.”) Gipple’s seed money has sponsored essay contests about wildness and has co-sponsored interdisciplinary conferences on the wild at Iowa State and the University of Iowa.

I interviewed Gipple couple of years ago for an article I was working on; he told me that as our landscape continues the shift toward fewer large tracts of unspoiled nature and more urban areas, we will need to learn to value those small places of “wildness” in the city, like flowers growing between the cracks of sidewalks and raptors dwelling in urban trees.

Since that conversation I’ve become even more sensitized to intentional invitations from cities toward nature and even the stylized, artificial echoes of nature. For instance, I love the new Millenium Park in downtown Chicago – especially the concrete and steel stream meanderings through the park along a prairie stand of native plants. You could see this creation as almost a parody of the miles of tallgrass prairie that used to blanket the Midwest. I choose to see it as an homage to what once existed – and maybe a blueprint or archetype for nature, should she ever have the chance to prevail again. There’s a similar stream near the new Des Moines Public Library; it too touches my heart.

And then there are those larger, wilder areas within or close to cities, like the lovely Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and my most recent find: the pristine Crystal Springs Reservoir near San Mateo that my husband and I discovered while in California last November. Our trip to Yosemite during that trip west was fabulous and grand, but it’s those natural areas close to our urban areas that serve us on a more daily basis. They certainly feed my soul, anyway, as a writer. I try to get into some kind of natural space, however wild or tamed, on a daily basis because that’s where the muse visits me most often.

In Iowa, there are many spaces on the fringes of towns and cities. A couple of my favorites are the Woodpecker and Squire Point trails near the Coralville Reservoir in Iowa City and the River East trail on the eastern edge of Ames.

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