RSS Feed

‘Ideas’ Category

  1. Mining the Rough

    May 3, 2013 by admin

    This morning, I dredged up the past.

    I sat on the floor in my closet with two shoeboxes full of journals and combed through them, looking for one in particular. In the process, I came across a lot of dusty old memories: boyfriends gone bad, seething insecurities, angry prayers to God.IMG_5138

    I had procrastinated diving into this part of my work. Because I knew it could potentially bring up some long-healed scars, exhibit a glaring reminder of my obvious imperfections. But when we moved to Kansas in January, I had unearthed from a box an essay I wrote 12 years ago – an essay that was good but had gone nowhere. I needed to revive it. And to do that thoroughly, I needed to revisit a particular corner of my past.

    Diving head-first into our own history can be one scary endeavor. Among the nostalgic and forgotten memories quite potentially lurk some dark emotions, deep insecurities, experiences and feelings we’d rather keep deep and buried. It’s risky business to go there.

    But sometimes, we have to. If we want to weave stories that are meaningful and raw with truth, we often have to dig deep. It can be rough. It can be painful. It can downright suck.

    But you know what? I submit that, nine times out of 10, the effort and the risk will be wholly worth it. Sometimes you have to mine to get to the good stuff. Mining is unglamorous work at best. But a diamond never starts out smooth and beautiful.

    We have to believe in our work so much we’re willing to do the hard work, take the big risk.

    What is holding you back from going into that place? If it is fear, acknowledge it. Join the club. But at some point, take a deep breath and dive in. Hold someone’s hand if you have to. Chances are, by visiting those spaces where emotions run raw and deep, you will emerge with something worth holding onto.

    *My interview with writer, colleague and friend Alissa Johnson, in which I share some thoughts about the writing life, balancing motherhood with writing, and the writing process of Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood, was posted on Writing Strides yesterday. It also includes a beautiful testament to real friendship, and the bond that writing can weave. You can read it here.

    Category Creativity, Family, Family History, Ideas, Inspiration, Life, Self-doubt, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,, | No Comments

  2. Win a Book – or Just Have a Little Fun

    April 15, 2013 by admin

    Exercise a bit of creativity for your chance to win a copy of my book, Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood – or just have a little fun with the creative process.9781932636956-Cover

    Either way you look at it, it’s sort of a win-win deal.

    http://www.writingstrides.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/4.png

    Image courtesy of www.writingstrides.com.

    Today, in celebration of the launch of her new writing business, Writing Strides, a dear friend of mine is asking readers and writers and creative gurus to help her write a story. She’s got the first paragraph already down. (And she warns, it’s a bit dramatic.)

    Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to read the continuing story (posted by other readers in the “Comments” section below the post) and add to it. Participants will be entered to win a free copy of my book (a work which Johnson knows well, as she played a crucial role in critiquing and editing the chapters from the ground up).

    I am so privileged to call Johnson a fellow writer and a close friend. Her work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Mountain Gazette and Green Woman Magazine, among others, and she has won awards from the Colorado Press Association and Funds for Writers. Her mission is to help people take their writing farther, via writing classes, one-on-one coaching and writing prompts. She is full of inspiration and compassion, and I am so excited to share in the beginning of this journey with her.

    So whether you’re ready to start something, need a creative writing prompt or just want to be a bit silly and let loose, head to the Writing Strides blog for some fun and ambition. You won’t regret it!

    Category Books, Creativity, Ideas, Inspiration, News, Social Media, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,,,,,, | No Comments

  3. To Write Again: A Return to the Sweet Life of Art Making

    February 21, 2013 by admin

    So. Days melt into days, and weeks into weeks. Across five states and two time zones, from a place that perpetually feels like summer back to a place where winter is in full force and (amen) the weather comes and goes in seasons. It has been a long road from southern California back to Kansas City, the challenges of moving with two young kids fierce and at times unrelenting. Yet we have pulled through it, and in all the chaos, things are beginning to make sense again.

    Finally, we are emerging into a new normal. We are putting down roots here fast and hard. Desperately, we want them to stick because if we’re honest, this life of mobility, of pulling up our lives every one to two years to begin again in a new place, is just plain tough. It was the life of adventure five years ago, when we were still relatively newly married and without kids. Now, with two little boys in tow, we simply crave to be settled. For the wellbeing of our kids. For the wellbeing of our family.

    As I write, the wind outside is fierce, hurling hard snow against the upstairs windows. My little Eli, who was born in sunny California just seven months ago, can’t take his eyes off of the mean white stuff. I finished nursing him this morning, and he lay his head on my shoulder and snuggled into me, quiet. That’s odd, I thought. And I said out loud, ”Why are you so quiet?”

    Then I saw why. His eyes were wide open, staring intently out the window at the onslaught of blizzard.

    Snow. Something completely new to him.

    As I ease myself back into these waters of a writing life, I feel more and more at home. To be honest, I don’t know where my work will take me next. We have started over yet again, in a new community, a new place. Ideas throw themselves at me ruthlessly, and I snatch at them as if trying to catch beautiful butterflies in a net, wanting to keep them, study them, turn them over in my hands and then release them into the world again.

    I revisit old essays, wonder why some of them have remained untouched deep in a folder for so long. But the answer comes quickly. Mothering. Family. Life.

    Most important right now is that we have weathered a stretch of tremendous transition and upheaval. In this new normal, this new place we so much long to call “home” for the long haul, I am writing again. And dang, it feels good.

    Category Creativity, Family, Home, Ideas, Inspiration, Life, Motherhood, Parenting, Place, Travel, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,, | 5 Comments

  4. What is Your Life’s Theme?

    September 13, 2012 by katemeadows

    If you could pull one theme out of your life, what would it be?

    For me, that theme is “tough.” As in, “What does it mean to be tough?”

    I didn’t know this when I first set out to write a series of essays profiling the colorful characters of rural western Wyoming around whom I grew up. That series of essays now comprises my first book, Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood, published this month by Pronghorn Press.

    The essays were, at first, quaint and almost fluffy, mere sketches of people and experiences in my life that I found interesting. One piece did not necessarily relate to another; they just sort of fell out of me, one by one, like stones. I knew I had to write them – but I didn’t exactly know why.

    It was a long time before a pattern started to emerge, some sort of thread or echo that started resonating within each piece. I realized I wanted to know how these people – people like big-bellied bachelor Uncle John, the rancher-turned-writer woman named Chris, and my wild and impulsive Grandpa Bucky– helped to shape my upbringing and, consequently, shape the woman I am today.

    The resounding thread? Each of the characters I wrote about exhibited some form of tough. And moreover, they displayed senses of toughness I never felt I had. Having to homestead on a desolate landscape so barren that nothing grew? Not me. Driving cattle home at four in the morning? Not me. Spending lonely winters alone in a boxy cabin miles off a main road? Not me.

    Through writing, I started to look hard at this theme of “tough” and ask myself, “What does it mean to be tough?”

    All of these things, yes. But wasn’t there more to the meaning of that word? If not, I realized, I wasn’t tough at all.

    Except I know I am tough. Just not necessarily in the ways a rural Wyoming life demands. Through writing, I realized that my notion of “tough” was narrow. By holding myself up so sharply against these people who had truly lived hard and noble lives, I had for far too long denied that “tough” badge for myself.

    Looking back on the essays prompted me to examine my life via other questions as well.

    If you could re-do any moment of your life, what would it be?

    If you could live one sweet and precious moment of your past, what would it be?

    Thinking about our lives from a variety of angles can help give us a better grasp on ourselves, who we really are. Peeking through multiple lenses can help us to better understand ourselves – who we have been, who we are, who we hope to become.

    The former New York Times and Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen writes: “It’s odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone and became her. Then I began to like what I’d invented. And finally I was what I was again. It turned out I wasn’t alone in that particular progression.”

    I am not yet 30 years old. As someone once told me, “You’re not old enough to write a memoir.”

    But in writing about my younger self, I discovered a powerful theme at work. It’s a theme that, piggybacked with a theme of confidence, I take with me into the wilds now of motherhood. It’s a theme that is molding me now, and a theme I believe will continue to shape me in the future.

    And all because once, I wanted to write about and therefore recall some colorful and strangely admirable characters of my past.

    Look at how these “tough” people defined me. Because of them – and because of the writing process – I am now tougher and more beautiful, a more complete person.

    You can receive a signed copy of Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood here.

    So? What about you? What is your theme?

     

     

    Category Books, Creativity, Family, Family History, Home, Ideas, Inspiration, Life, Life Stories, Motherhood, Parenting, Place, Quotes, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,,,, | No Comments

  5. How to Leave a Legacy

    August 28, 2012 by katemeadows

    The other night, I was talking to some friends of mine in our living room. My college roommate and her husband were visiting from Albuquerque, and the late evening had finally cooled off enough to that the house felt good and airy, not stifling of the day’s summer heat.

    Copyright 2011, Kate Meadows, Joshua Tree National Park.

    It was strange, the topic we had stumbled onto. We found ourselves in a conversation about dying doing what you loved.

    A brother of my friend’s co-worker had recently met this fate, drowning on one of the Great Lakes during a sailing outing. A wind had come up and tossed the life vests overboard. Not wanting to be out $25 – the cost of the life vests – he turned the boat around in the increasingly bad weather to retrieve them.

    That was the move that cost him his life.

    The irony is terrible, but that man is now lauded – celebrated in his death for dying doing what he loved. He will always be remembered for his passion: sailing.

    Weren’t that we all could be remembered that way, for claiming our life’s passion and running it out with abandon.

    And I ask: Why can’t we?

    It’s not that we will all die doing what we love.

    But we can, each of us, be remembered for our fierce love of something.

    That “something,” of course, is different for everyone. But that’s what makes the world such an intriguing study. It takes loves of many things to make the world go ‘round.

    For my friend’s co-worker’s brother, that fierce love was sailing.

    For my dad, it is snowmobiling.

    For me, it is writing.

    What love will you be remembered for? How are you living out that love today?

    Category Ideas, Inspiration, Life, Life Stories, Travel, Writing | Tags: ,,,,, | 2 Comments

  6. Life in the Trenches

    August 14, 2012 by katemeadows

    Mark Twain is known to have once said this: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

    When we sit down to write, be it fiction or nonfiction or something entirely different, how important it is that we are cushioned by some life experience. How important it is to our careers as writers that we spend time in the trenches, digging through the dirt and getting dirty, beautifully dirty.

    Copyright 2011, Kate Meadows, southern California.

    I think about this now, as I am deep in the trenches of motherhood and daily trying to find my way through new struggles and questions surrounding life with a new baby and a toddler. Part of me is anxious that my time to write is less, the demands of being mom more.

    But right now, “Mom” is the life part that will inform and is informing my writing. And there are so many themes to explore with that: identity, stereotypes, love. The list goes on.

    Last week, my cousin – who is also a journalist – encouraged me to write from my sweet spot. It’s that spot where you find your life thrumming, where you find the struggles to be had and the lessons to be learned. We had been chatting about our own recent struggles as writers, and mine entailed a potential story for Highlights Magazine that had fallen through. I suspect the magazine’s editor had turned down the piece because she saw through the curtain: there wasn’t an ounce of passion in it.

    In other words, I had pitched an idea and written a story about something that did not at all inspire me, a topic I knew something about but had little connection to at this stage in my life. And I was pitching it to an audience with which I have little experience and, admittedly, little desire to reach.

    I am not a children’s writer.

    The story lacked the zest it needed because I was reaching too far for it. I wasn’t writing from that sweet spot.

    Admittedly, the sweet spot, that place where I find I have so much to explore and process and so much learning to do, is not easy. But it is necessary.

    Copyright 2011, Kate Meadows, southern California.

    It is necessary for me to grow, both as a person and as a writer. I am hard at work in the trenches, drumming up some good old life experience that I hope will make for some sparkling words and killer story ideas later.

    Can you imagine what would happen to your writing if you didn’t get out and live a little, if you rode only the ripples of your ocean as opposed to the crashing waves?

    Take time to write, always. But always, too, take time to live and to fully experience the moments – the great ones, the hard ones, and all of the ones in between.

    Category Creativity, Family, Ideas, Inspiration, Life, Motherhood, Parenting, Quotes, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,, | 6 Comments

  7. Your Story is Bigger Than You

    July 16, 2012 by katemeadows

    What if your story, whatever life story you have to tell, is about more than you?

    I speak about and advocate for telling our life stories. At a recent workshop, I encouraged attendees to think outside of themselves when they resolve to put a story down – be it their own, their family history, their small business, what have you.

    One man, who has been at work on his family history for 30 years, asked why.

    Why do I need to think about others, he asked, when my primary motivation to explore my family history is to learn more about who I am?

    New York fountain. Copyright 2010 Kate Meadows.

    It was a good question, and I wasn’t shocked to hear it.

    But I think we so often fail to think outside of ourselves when we pursue our own endeavors. So often, we think, a) no one else will care; or b) this story won’t do anyone else any good, when in reality, the opportunities to speak to others through are stories are simply untapped goldmines waiting to be explored.

    This same man, in his tireless pursuit for names, dates and places of long-dead or long-lost family members, found a treasure trove of stories lurking beneath that hard data – stories I don’t think he necessarily bargained for. He wrote letters to people asking for information, and received stories and memories in return. You know what that tells me? Others in the family besides him have an interest in the family legacy.

    When I suggested this to him, he nodded, as if giving me the benefit of the doubt. Then, he was quiet for a long time.

    A year and a half ago, I set out to piece together a complete small business history. I wrote letters to 250 of the business’ mainstay customers, asking for their stories and memories of how the business had been a part of their lives.

    I had no idea who, if anyone, would respond.

    For a while, no one responded.

    Then, some stories started to trickle in. Followed by more. And more.

    In the end, thanks to the submissions I received, the history of the business was, in page numbers, twice as large as I had bargained for.

    Know what that means?

    People besides myself and my family became invested in the larger story. People had something to say; they wanted their hand in it. Now, still pre-publication, the book has sold almost 150 copies.

    That tells me this small business history is about more than just the business itself. It comprises threads of numerous people’s lives, people who care about their part in the larger story.

    Consider your own story. Who is a part of it? Would they care to know it? How can you reach out to others with your own message?

    Category Books, Creativity, Family History, Ideas, Life, Life Stories, Motherhood, Parenting, Self Publishing, Small Business History, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,, | 2 Comments

  8. A Poem for Monday

    July 2, 2012 by katemeadows

    New York at night.

    An Education in Language

    Bits ‘n’ pieces of real-life dialogue

    by Kate Meadows

    the tourist in hot July:

    “I had some girl tie my shoe yesterday.

    I forgot what her name was.”

    the drug-induced classmate, suddenly awake:

    “Are there monkeys in Austria?”

    the sociology professor, lecturing on economics:

    “Welfare is a pretty dirty word in this country.”

    the philosophy professor, who writes his own plays:

    “Nothing could be more boring than to watch somebody thinking …

    I have no influence, not even in a footnote …

    Never trust a philosopher.”

    the sweet old lady, chatting with friends around a wood table:

    “Whenever I do something like fry fish, I just boil up some of that herbal tea, and it really smells up the place.”

    the professor of American Literature, a real democrat:

    “What art could possibly produce the insanity our country has gone through the past couple of years?

    Is it orange today? Is it yellow?

    What color is our terror now?”

    the old and pessimistic doctor, among customers in the repair shop:

    “My ex-wife, who is my best friend and my girlfriend …”

    the high school government teacher / school principal:

    “Are you supposed to be humanly – excuse me – humanely treated?”

    the history professor, who lectures about Hitler and shows slides of war:

    Flirting butterflies, Indiana.

    “We’re not as comfortable with revolution, after 200 years of seeing what it has done …

    All these jerks have small stature.”

    the college roommate, exasperated due to a response from a classmate:

    “All over a pair of promiscuous eyebrows.”

    *What words or ideas are getting your fancy today?

    Category Creativity, Ideas, Life, Life Stories, Poems, Poetry, Quotes, Writing | Tags: ,,,, | No Comments

  9. 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

  10. 3 Things I Learned from Trying Something New

    June 18, 2012 by katemeadows

    On Saturday, I did something new.

    I taught a workshop on a topic I am passionate about: Telling Our Life Stories.

    It was a process, putting the content for the workshop together, organizing it in a way that made sense, and – perhaps the greatest joy and challenge – anticipating the needs and questions of those who attended.

    I was nervous, yes. Nervous that the content I put together might be too general or easy, nervous that my “expertise” might not hold up, nervous that nobody would show.

    But as I got down and into it, both the creating of the event and the sharing, I realized a few things.

    California Pacific Coast, Copyright 2012, Kate Meadows.

    First, I was having fun. By exploring a topic of interest to me – Telling Our Life Stories – I was allowing myself to spend time immersed in something I loved. Good had to come from that, I thought.

    Second, the preparation for the event allowed me to view myself and my work in a different light. I have never considered myself a teacher. Never really thought I had the skills or desire to teach. That might be true if I were talking about a fourth grade classroom or a room full of preschoolers. But give me something I’m passionate about and some listening, interested ears and what do you know, I can find a groove. This workshop also challenged me to think of that word “teacher” in a broader form. I am a teacher every day, as a mother. As a writer, I hope my words speak and shed new or re-discovered light on topics and experiences that are important to others. As a workshop leader, I can aim to inspire and challenge conventional ways of thinking. This workshop allowed me to see that I am a teacher – just perhaps not in the most formal of ways.

    Third, sharing knowledge I’m passionate about with others who are interested in the same subject presented me with an invaluable opportunity to give. Saturday’s workshop was, for me, a small act of service in which I hope I empowered others to think more intentionally about their own life stories and ways they can communicate them. Rather than lecture, I aimed for conversation. And boy, did I strike gold. The conversation that unfolded in that small room on Saturday was entirely a joy to me – and with so many questions and insights, I could be confident that the others who were there were getting something out of it, too.

    What “new thing” is on your bucket list to try? Take the leap – and you just might surprise yourself.

    Category Creativity, Ideas, Inspiration, Life Stories, Self-doubt, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,, | 2 Comments

Older Entries