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‘Feel-Good Stories’ Category

  1. How to Eat an Elephant: A Rare Glimpse of an Artist’s Success

    April 23, 2013 by admin

     

    Today I received an email from a writer whose novel will soon be published by the Pronghorn Press, which last year published my Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood.

    To share in this writer’s raw excitement and arrival in hard-earned book publication is nothing short of exhilarating.Spring Mill 035

    Dawn Wink shares her journey to publication with an openness that is entirely beautiful – beautiful because in her tremendous accomplishment she exposes the hard and messy process of writing and her own jagged edges that, in effect, forced her to turn to her craft.

    She is human. She wrestles and tugs to create beautiful art in the midst of an upended life. And when she succeeds at it, she wants her whole world to know.

    How can that not be inspiring?

    “Meadowlark was the book that should never have been written,” she writes. “Too much happened in my life as I wrote. Too much upheaval, too much transition, too much pain. And yet, I couldn’t stop writing. Like Gretel following the bread crumbs, I stumbled through the forest of my life, focusing on that next bread crumb …”

    In Dawn’s journey I am reminded of three things:

    1)      Writing is and can be such an act of discovery.

    2)      A life story can hold tremendous, mind-boggling power. If you have a strong story to tell – be it yours or someone else’s – the words must find their way out. Even when you don’t think you can go on, even when the noise of life is so loud you can hardly think straight, the story wriggles itself free. And, as Wink learned, the power of story can be a writer’s biggest ally during times of personal hardship. “I believed in Grace and her story,” she writes, “when I had lost all faith in my own.”

    3)      Times change, and circumstances change. We are tested by many hardships in this thing called life, moments of intense heat in which we, like hot iron, are bended and shaped. We won’t be in the furnace forever. But those trying times are the nuggets that test our true character. Writers count these times as gold for their craft – moments and emotions that provide foundations for creating riveting stories.

     

    Now, as Wink finds herself “in a place of family, stability and home … a place where I can at last settle in deeply to love, live and write,” she is able to reflect back with a sense of celebration.

    During a recent upheaval of my own – a new book out right alongside my second child being born – I clung to my mom’s persistent wisdom. How do you eat an elephant? she’d say. One bite at a time.

    As writers, we have to keep on keeping on. There will always be too much. Too much going on. Too much to worry about. Too many balls in the air. But we have to put our heads down and charge ahead in the business of artmaking, one bite (or one sentence) at a time.

    At its base, Dawn Wink’s journey is a story of beautiful persistence. If you’re a true writer, you can’t ever give up. You have to want your words to succeed so bad you can’t take your eyes off the prize. You have to obsess over it and sweat over it and cry and pound your fists. And when you break through into the light of a hard-won success, you have to wholly and entirely celebrate it.

    Well done, Dawn. And best of luck as Meadowlark soon finds its way into the hands of readers.

     

     

    Category Books, Creativity, Feel-Good Stories, Inspiration, Life, Life Stories, Place, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  2. Seeking Story in Tradition

    November 21, 2012 by admin

    Tradition.

    It’s an idea we all find ourselves coming back to this time of year. Be it falling into the comfort and warmth of old traditions or seeking joy in starting new ones, we all crave the same thing: something to celebrate.

    I find it intriguing the way years come and go, how some holidays are busy and exuberant and bouncing with life while, in other years, they are quiet and mellow, low-key. One only has to map the ups and downs of life through a single holiday to see how time works: how people come and go, how places transform, how we, ourselves, grow up.

    My strongest Thanksgiving memories will always center around my Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Wyoming, the place where, for so long, Thanksgiving took place with no questions asked. I write about it in Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood, this way:

    “Thanksgiving has happened at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s every year for as long as I can remember. The tradition runs so long and deep that no one questions it, even with the family tensions that ripple quietly just beneath the surface: Grandpa’s reckless ways and Grandma’s bitterness – driven, I think, by loneliness – the way he and she seem to like each other less every year, the fact that neither one of them has ever shown up for a school play or a band concert.

    Grandma and Grandpa sit at opposite ends of the table, paying no attention to one another, while my parents and I and my great uncle John fill the spaces between them. I scoop up big helpings of my mom’s turkey and her Swedish corn pudding. I pass on Grandma’s mashed potatoes and gravy because the gravy is an awful brown, and like every other year, I fear she has salted it with a rabbit carcass. She served fried rabbit on the first Thanksgiving my mom spent with them – no turkey. Mom, a wholesome girl from the Midwest, cried.”

    The memories are rich, but so, too, is the story.

    This is a story of tradition. What is yours?

    Later on in this piece, I share what still hangs on as one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories:

    “A cozy quiet hangs in the Thanksgiving afternoon: the ancient dishwasher hums through its cycle, the coffee percolator brews weak Folgers coffee for my mom. Soon, my grandmother will call for a game of hearts and we will gather around the Formica table, pie in hand, for a long game of steering clear of the Old Biddy.”

    I want people to see themselves here. I want them to resonate: with the tension, with the details of tradition, with the desire to bring the familiar to life.

    This Thanksgiving, we will celebrate in a new way, with a family that is not ours in a state where our roots are only temporary. It will be my oldest son’s fourth Thanksgiving, my youngest son’s first. Still, I will make Mom’s Swedish corn pudding in the CorningWare dish. I will bring it to the house we have visited only a few times, an act of both sharing an old tradition with new friends and hanging on to something familiar for the holiday. Will we eat cranberries out of the can? Will there be sweet potatoes? A card game after the meal?

    I don’t know. But I do know there is plenty to celebrate, from the warm memories of the past and the people who are no longer with us to the new friends we’ve made, the new life we’ve created and the new traditions that will blossom from it.

    This holiday season, I encourage you to seek the story in tradition, whatever that means for you.

     

    Category Family, Family History, Feel-Good Stories, Home, Inspiration, Life, Life Stories, Place, Writing, Writing Life | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,, | 1 Comment

  3. Why Conversation is the Bread and Butter

    October 3, 2012 by admin

    Tough. It’s a word I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, as I find myself in conversation after conversation with wonderful, inspiring people over what it means to be tough.

    Wyoming leaves, Copyright 2012 Kate Meadows.

    The past two weeks in Wyoming have been an awesome hurricane of readings, book selling, interviews and writing workshops. Coming up against those Sublette County mountains – my mountains, I am proud to claim – is nothing short of spectacular. Experiencing a Wyoming fall in all its glory was a blessing unmatched – it’s only fair to say I get homesick when the quivering leaves of a yellowing quaking aspen put tears in my eyes.

    Selling a book, this piece of art that has been so close to me for the past four years, is a tremendous and rewarding feeling, it is. But the best part? The best part has been being in conversation with people, real people with dynamic lives and hearts tuned into what really matters. Real people with lives much different than mine. Real people with unique perspectives of what it means to be tough.

    I think of Ashta, the 69-year-old woman from West Virginia who I met in a Jackson Hole bookstore. One day away from her 70th birthday, she told me how she planned to celebrate her special day in the Tetons, her sister and son by her side. She likened “tough” to “strong,” thinking on the term from the perspective of a woman, a mother. That we draw strength from the most unexpected places sometimes.

    And there’s Paul, who walks with a cane now and recalled his days driving cattle with my grandfather before sunrise on an old local ranch. He’s lived in Sublette County his whole life, save for one month, the month he was born so many decades ago.

    And there are the two women I met at the Rock Springs library who own property up near Sublette County’s Warren Bridge. One of them was taking her grandson bowling the afternoon I gave a reading. Still, she made time to stop in and buy a book. The slight woman who has lived in Rock Springs since 1946 and loves to collect as much information, hear as many stories as she can about the region where Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood takes place.

    These people, these conversations, are the bread and butter of what I do. I write, yes, but writing would be meaningless without people to share it with.

    At its base, writing is about communication. My reward for writing is the communication that gets returned, those individuals who stick around long enough to go a bit deeper, who take the time to share with me their own perspectives.

    Part of life’s beauty is the way we meet each other at our various points along life’s path, the opportunities to share our unique views with one another.

    The book sales have been outstanding. Exciting, rewarding, completely worth smiling about. But those conversations? They are the real icing on the cake.

    So? What’s your perspective? How has the concept of “tough” played out in your life?

    Category Books, Creativity, Feel-Good Stories, Home, Life, Life Stories, Place, Writing, Writing Life | Tags: ,,,,,,, | No Comments

  4. 10 Things to Love About Fall

    September 18, 2012 by admin

    Across the country, fall begins to creep, soon to burst with its telltale phenomenal color. Starbucks is out with its signature fall drinks. Stores are displaying Halloween merchandise. Leaves are beginning to fall.

    As I come home to Wyoming to launch my book, Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood, I am overcome with nostalgia and awe, both at nature’s blazing show and at the little ways my parents have ushered this remarkable season into their own home, my childhood home.

    I walk into a house where a wood stove has already kindled its first fire. The kitchen smells of warm pumpkin and spice in the wakes of burning candles. Fall decorations color every room: scarecrows and wagons and brown and orange figurines with straw hats, placemats shaped like maple leaves, Mom’s favorite. I am so overcome with gratitude – both for the opportunity to be back in my hometown and for the chance to experience this fall season that, now living in California, I so desperately miss – that I feel it in my chest. My throat nearly tightens at the sight of a Swedish aspen with leaves the color of fire. Because I am in love here. I miss the change of seasons so much.

    As I prepare to share snippets of my own childhood here via book readings and writing workshops, I reflect on fall, the season I love so dearly. Here are 10 things to love about fall:

    Pinedale, WY, 2012, Kate Meadows.

    1)      The brilliant color of the changing leaves

    2)      Crisp air, which, compared to summer’s heat and humidity, is somehow energizing and fresh.

    3)      The way a noticeable transition in season can spawn motivation to revisit goals or launch an inspirational transition in your own life.

    4)      The cozy comfort found in warmth: pulling out a sweatshirt that has sat on a shelf for months, rediscovering a trendy scarf, sitting by a wood-burning stove

    5)      Scented candles: pumpkin, apple crisp, cashmere woods. Warm aromas.

    6)      Favorite fall foods. At our house it’s homemade apple cider, sweet potatoes, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

    7)      Pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks.

    8)      Football. Sunday nights. Monday nights. Thursday nights. (Although I have to admit, “Thursday night football” just doesn’t have the same ring as “Monday Night Football.”)

    9)      Rakes and piles of leaves to jump in. At my parent’s house in Wyoming, the back yard is THE grounds for this. And I happen to have a soon-to-be three-year-old who, assuming we can find a rake, might soon just find himself in leaf heaven.

    10)   Tradition and family. You know. Halloween. Thanksgiving. And all of the stories surrounding these days that over time will knit special memories.

    What do you love about fall? What traditions surround your family this time of year?

     

    Category Books, Creativity, Family, Feel-Good Stories, Home, Inspiration, Life, Nature, Outdoors, Place, Writing | Tags: ,,,,,,,,, | 1 Comment

  5. Slow Motion?

    August 7, 2012 by katemeadows

    I forget how the pace of life slows in the breathy moments of adjusting to a new baby. Moments – on life’s grand scale, that is what they are, fleeting ticks of the clock that will pass in and out, and life will go on. Already time is moving fast – our Elijah Owen is almost two weeks old, and my husband, my sweet and giving husband who has poured himself out in servanthood this week, will be returning to work soon.

    Time. One of the many paradoxes of motherhood. How can the minutes slug away and fly by at the same time?

    Life resumes here. Slowly we must ease ourselves into a new normal. There are sad moments and confusing moments, funny moments and ecstatic moments. I look back on little Eli’s birth with a sort of muddy joy. Always I will remember how Bryan and I played gin rummy as we passed away the afternoon hours in the big hospital room, pausing for contractions as they passed. I will remember how the doctor came in and broke my water with what had to be chop sticks, saying something about speeding the process along. She was in and out of our room so fast, and the rush of hormones and fear overtook me, and I remember thinking (not for the first time that day) how odd it is that an act or a thought done out of routine or convenience for one person can be something entirely momentous and huge for another.

    I remember how the evening hours of July 25 passed so quickly, so fluidly, both Bryan and I thinking our baby would be here within the next hour, every hour. How, at 8:00, her hurried down to the hospital cafeteria to grab a bit and hurried straight back, knowing his son could be here at any time. How I finally started pushing at 10:30 that night and how, at a quarter to midnight, I had to stop, because it was time for the doctor and the doctor was in the room next door delivering another baby. How four babies came that night within 15 of each other, and how we were third in line. Eli was the only boy born in the hospital that night.

    And he came, beautiful and wet and big. His body was hot and alien on my stomach. I couldn’t see his face at first, but I didn’t care. He came. He was here, and that’s all that mattered. He made a July 25 birthday by two minutes; he was born at 11:58 p.m., 8 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches long. And when I did see his face for the first time – smoke blue eyes and tiny pink mouth and shock of dark hair – I cried. Because he was mine, and he was beautiful.

    Now the days pass, some moments quietly and other moments chaos, as what once was a family of three gets used to being a family of four. A million questions linger and yes, sleep is a sweet sweet thing. But this job of parenthood is in full swing. It’s intense and tough and messy. But it is worth every minute.

    Welcome, sweet baby.

    Category Family, Family History, Feel-Good Stories, Home, Life, Life Stories, Motherhood, Parenting, Writing | Tags: ,,,,,, | 12 Comments

  6. The Gratitude Journal

    June 21, 2012 by katemeadows

    Recently, I took out my journal and jotted down three things. It had been a hard day. I was beyond exhausted, the pressures of both motherhood and writing pushing in on me from all directions. I felt less than accomplished at both roles, as mother and writer. I could have sat with my journal and poured out my heart and soul, allowing salty tears to drip onto the page as I went.

    But I didn’t.

    Instead, I took five minutes to write down three things I was thankful for:

    -Oreo ice cream at Baskin Robbins

    -a big hug from my son in the morning

    -an especially moving comment on something I had written that had touched someone else

    It was a gratitude journal, of sorts.

    “Thankfulness is a thread that can bind together all the patchwork squares of our lives.”

    These are words from a little snippet on gratitude I keep on my nightstand, a handout the leader of our church’s youth board felt compared to share with the board members, of which I am one.

    “Difficult times, happy days, seasons of sickness, hours of bliss – all can be sewn together into something lively with the thread of thankfulness … We make the choices that turn us into bitter or grateful people … It is a discipline to choose to stitch our days together with the thread of gratitude.”

    When I wrote down three things I was thankful for, more came to me. I could have kept going. The sun. The green grass. The smell of a freshly mowed lawn. These things can be simple. A hug from someone you adore. The taste of something on your tongue.

    God doesn’t shower us with tremendous surprises and gifts every day. But oh, how He constantly works in the little things – the small beauties and precious moments that surround us each day.

    And how easily we take those little things for granted, or sometimes fail to notice them at all.

    It’s easy to get caught up in our failures, the thousand things a day we don’t accomplish. But if we take the time to look, almost always we can find something – even three somethings – to be thankful for, each and every day.

    *What are you thankful for today? If you made a list of three things, what would they be?

     

    Category Family, Feel-Good Stories, Ideas, Inspiration, Motherhood, Parenting, Writing | Tags: ,,,,,, | 7 Comments

  7. The Power of Authenticity in Story Telling

    June 4, 2012 by katemeadows

    Recently Michael Hyatt – writer, speaker and Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers -  wrote about the 3 Characteristics  of Marketing: authenticity, generosity, and storytelling.

    I latched on immediately, because of two words: authenticity and storytelling. (Generosity isn’t bad, either.)

    These words go hand-in-hand. Why?

    California Pacific Coast, Copyright 2012, Kate Meadows

    Because storytelling reflects authenticity. Together, they point toward a larger purpose: building relationships.

    This is Hyatt’s point with the new way of marketing, as well. Rather than the rude and impersonal marketing that interrupts – Hyatt mentions a car commercial that is several decibels louder than a particular television program he is tuned into – the new marketing hinges on building relationships, on looking outward and considering others.

    When was the last time you heard a good story? Where were you and what were you doing? Who was talking, and why was that person talking?

    About six months ago I wrote a draft of an essay about being pregnant for a second time. The essay was raw and dang painful in some places because – I admit – pregnancy is not easy for me. I started to write in order to make sense of the myriad emotions cycling through me, and to somehow communicate those emotions to an audience larger than myself. I wanted to explore the complex themes of motherhood and identity, and perhaps figure out where in that wild mix I fit.

    Writing is my way of telling stories. It is a way of reaching people on a deeper level and a way to be real with them. I don’t ever want to be some canned person who responds, “I’m good,” every time someone asks how I am doing.  I want to connect on a deeper level.  I want to be real.

    We tell stories because they matter. We tell stories to preserve memories, etch a heritage, leave a legacy. Telling stories is a form of communication that goes deeper than the “How was your day” or “What’s the weather like” conversations. Real life stories dig beneath the surface to paint a picture of greater meaning, real emotion.

    Good stories have staying power.

    Category Feel-Good Stories, Ideas, Life Stories, Motherhood, Parenting, Writing, Writing Life | Tags: ,,, | 7 Comments

  8. Sharing our Life Stories: A Deeper Purpose at Work

    May 17, 2012 by katemeadows

    Every day, it seems, I text members of my family with little stories about what my two-year-old son is up to.

    Why?

    Well, because they’re cute stories, for one. But in each little vignette that I share, a deeper purpose is at work.

    Copyright 2010, Bryan Meadows, Branched Oak State Park, NE

    Sharing these life stories – some of them mere touching moments – communicates to my family how my son (someone very near and dear to them) is growing, and how we as a family are interacting.

    I treasure these stories, to knit our own chain of memories together as a family that is learning and growing together. But I also cherish them as ways to stay connected to people who, although close to me in spirit, are geographically distant from us as these wonders big and small unfold.

    This morning, I tripped on a shoe and tumbled completely over – down to the ground, onto my face. My son, who witnessed the fall from atop the bed, immediately said, “Oh, are you okay? Do you need some help?”

    I shared the incident with my husband, my parents and my in-laws.

    What was the value in sharing? To gain sympathy for the fact that I had fallen?

    Of course not. I shared the story to show these people what our little boy is learning, to give them a glimpse into his compassionate and caring heart. Where did he learn to ask those questions? Where did he learn how to show his concern? He is becoming his own little person, and I want my world to know that.

    Stories have meaning. If we can learn to interact with people beneath the “How was your day” or “What’s the weather like” level, we can learn a whole lot more about ourselves and others.

    Sharing stories is not just about making conversation. It’s about being real, both with others and with ourselves.

     

    Category Family, Feel-Good Stories, Inspiration, Life Stories, Motherhood, Parenting, Writing | Tags: ,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  9. The Shocking Truth About Customer Service

    May 10, 2012 by katemeadows

    As I wrap up work on a full length small business history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, which chronicles the life of a small engine repair and retail shop in western Wyoming, one truth keeps coming back to me:

    It’s about how this small business was founded and staked its success on customer service.

    Customer service.

    Blah, blah. Do you, like me, roll your eyes when you see that term? It has become so cliched, so overused, in today’s corporate society.

    But when I hear “customer service” in relation to Bucky’s, I understand it differently, because I have so often seen it in action.

    The 11 p.m. snowmobile delivery to a private residence on Christmas Eve.

    Opening the back shop during off hours so a team of snowmobilers can have access to parts and a workspace to fix a broken-down machine.

    Mid-morning coffee breaks that are open to people in the community.

    This is the kind of customer service that is always focused on giving more than getting.

    And you know what? In the case of Bucky’s, it has reaped rewards a thousand-fold.

    People keep coming back to this little store on Lincoln Street in Pinedale, WY, because they know there is always something good in store for them. They know the people there think outside of themselves, think beyond making a buck or two.

    They know the people who work at Bucky’s are truly in tune with what a customer needs.

    Small business owner (or entrepreneur) or not, your life can be like that. It’s about turning the focus outward, rather than keeping it inward. It’s about putting yourself in other people’s shoes, anticipating their needs, asking (even if not directly), “How can I serve you today?”

    If you read the history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, you might get tired of hearing about customer service, the countless ways employees at that shop have stepped up to treat someone like more than just a customer.

    But it’s all in there because these are the memories and stories straight from the customers’ own experiences.

    Turns out when someone serves you and truly meets your needs, you want to shout it from a mountaintop. Turns out that in this crazed world wrought with a “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude, there are still people who care about you.

    *In what way have you been touched recently by an act of service?

    Category Feel-Good Stories, Life Stories, Place, Writing | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  10. Warning: Technology is Bad. (Or is it?)

    February 20, 2012 by katemeadows

    Recently, a friend of mine posted the following on Facebook: “I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing that my Nook is reading to [my son].”

    I responded that it depends on what said Nook is reading to son. Dr. Seuss? Not horrible. Cosmopolitan magazine? Maybe we have an issue.

    Image courtesy of www.barnesandnoble.com

    But here’s the thing. The fact that an electronic reader is reading to a little boy is not all bad. That little boy is still being exposed to words, images, literature (and, we hope, good nuggets of all that). At least he is being read to.

    Later on, my friend posted another comment on the same Facebook thread: “It just occurred to me that I don’t want that to be the future…where we don’t even read to our kids anymore because the computer does it for them.”

    So I started wondering, how many people still take time to read to their kids? When was the last time you read something out loud?

    And then I thought: Is a computer reading out loud really a bad thing?

    I was shocked (and here, I expose my terrible naiveté) to learn recently that many people don’t read emails in their entirety anymore.

    I tend to think in thorough, fleshed-out paragraphs whenever I have something big in the works. If I am planning a writer’s group meeting, or a family dinner, or a series of interviews with folks from my hometown, I put together elaborate, well thought out emails that I send to dozens of people, emails that beg for response and communication.

    I am usually lucky to hear back from two or three people in my long line of email recipients.

    Am I just a bad writer? I wonder. Am I a boring person?

    Image courtesy of www.photobucket.com

    No and no. People just don’t have time – or don’t make time – to return the communication efforts.

    If the communication front is like this with email, what is it like when it comes to words and stories with our families at home?

    My friend was astute in her observation about her son’s Nook discovery. He was hungry – for adventure, for entertainment, you name it – and he discovered a world of words. It just wasn’t through the voice of his mom or dad.

    I will never say that anything beats a loved one’s voice when it comes to little ones and reading. But if it’s between a Nook or nothing, I would take the Nook any day.

    Warning: Technology is bad, if we let it dig its fingers too intricately into our lives. But if we take time to notice, it can create and harness some beautiful moments, too.

    *When you hear the word “technology,” what comes to your mind? Does this term evoke a positive connotation, or a negative one?

     

    Category Books, Feel-Good Stories, Motherhood, Technology | Tags: ,,,,, | No Comments

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