4 Things I Learned From 8 Months of Slow Living

/ Rowena Eureka / 6 Comments

In early February I announced that I would blog regularly about my slow living sabbatical. Two weeks later, my health fell apart and blogging was impossible. I’m doing a lot better now. As of September there are only 12 foods that I can eat without having a horrible reaction, but I feel mostly healthy again. 

So far, Covid-19 is one health issue I’ve avoided. After I announced my slow living sabbatical, Covid-19 forced the world into a modified slow living situation itself (though many still have to work, including enormous hours of extra childcare for some, and everyone still has bills to pay). My idea to stay home and live slowly fit right in with the rest of the world. 

Even with 8 months of health battles my slow living experience has been entirely satisfying.

Here’s what I learned:

1 – Taking time to feel my pain is the key to healing

March was a bleak time for me. My head felt like it was going to split open because of an extreme sinus infection, which made me finally notice my autoimmune food intolerance issues that had been getting steadily worse. 

(The food intolerances were related to me adding a few processed foods into my diet last year. Apparently my gut will never be able to handle processed foods.)

I spent hours curled up in a fetal position on my rug crying — the pain too much to bear. In slightly better moments, I paced my apartment, repeating over and over “I’m okay, I’m okay” until the pressure in my head eased. 

Pain has value. It forces you to pay attention to your body. Being so sick made me realize how much I have ignored chronic illness my entire life. 

I saw my childhood and adolescence in a new light. I wasn’t the “hyperactive” preschooler or the “overly-emotional” teen girl well-intentioned people told me I was. I was a human, constantly dealing with pain that the medical community didn’t understand in the 70s and 80s, just a human.

Slow living allowed me to embrace my pain. It allowed me to admit how bad it was and accept it. I no longer saw myself as an adult who can’t seem to finish anything she starts. I now see myself as a chronically ill person who has accomplished a hell of a lot despite being sick.

Slow living meant I didn’t have to worry about trying to go back to work or letting anyone down. It was a relief to be sick and not need to cope with anything but listening to my body, so I could truly figure out how to get better.

I wish every chronically ill person could have the chance to live slowly and listen to their pain.

2 – There’s so much good Art available and it saved me at my darkest

 I can’t take medication because I react to almost everything. Instead I used high quality TV as my pain management. In March, I binge watched Schitt’s Creek (Netflix) seasons one through five — at least four times — while I watched the new season six episodes weekly. 

That show made me laugh and nourished me all that at the same time. I can still watch it over and over focusing on new aspects: Moira Rose’s inventive way of speaking, her ever more incredible costumes, the satisfying character arcs of David, Alexis, and Stevie…

I asked friends on Facebook for their best feel good TV shows and watched dozens of their suggestions. My favorites were Please Like Me (Hulu), Modern Love (Prime), and The End of the Fu***ing World (Netflix). The last one doesn’t sound like a feel good show but it was surprisingly healing and hopeful, despite one or two disturbing scenes. 

In April, my health improved enough to read. I lay in bed for hours reading YA rom-coms with a theme of movies or filmmaking. There are a surprising number of charming YA rom-com novels that take place on a movie set or involve filmmaking.  (Post on this coming next week).

In May, I added listening to Hopepunk sci-fi fantasy audiobooks like Becky Chambers’ A Closed And Common Orbit or Amy Rose Capetta & Cory McCarthy’s delightful space-aged, gender-bending King Arthur duology, Once and Future.

I am thankful for all the writers, editors, actors, and crew that let themselves create. Living the lives all these characters gave me space from my pain. Living in these worlds made me want to create my own worlds. Each and every episode or chapter helped me grow stronger. 

Slow living made me realize the true value of Art and why it’s worth my time to create my own. I wish for everyone to have the time to make their own Art, too. You never know who will need your Art. 

 3 – Intentionally curating my life is the key to a good one 

The vast amount of good Art to choose from was a blessing when I was sick. Like any good medicine, dosing matters. A small dose of something is a cure — too much, a poison. That’s true for the entire Internet. Dosing matters.

When I started my slow living year I wanted to do EVERYTHING. Then I realized Art doesn’t cover everything, it’s super specific. Good Art makes choices. A good life means making choices, too.

I learned I need to pay attention to what I like and what I don’t. Curating is important. 

My past eight months of slow living have allowed me to get really clear about what works for me.

Which people emotionally feed me?

What activities do I get the most out of?  

What’s the right mix between being online and offline?

I began curating every aspect of my life. I need 8 hours of sleep so I have 16 precious hours a day. That’s it. 

 I realized time alone isn’t just something I like, it’s something I need. Time to research, write, read, and time for sensory activities like drawing or playing piano while my subconscious percolates. I’m happiest when I spend most of my day alone.

I’ve discovered I love online learning but need one-on-one or independent instruction. I can handle a small group of 1-3 people but groups of 12-15 others are not a “small” group for me. I can handle a larger group if we’re all together to listen to a lecture, without a discussion afterwards, though.

I’ve also learned how to be intentional about social media. I like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram because I can interact with relatives and friends across the world in short one-on-one interactions. 

But I don’t need to be on each social media platform every day. Nor do I need to spend hours on them. 20 minutes a day works well. 

I’ve realized how much I value having my own blog. Half the value in writing is figuring out what I think. Whenever I get out of my head and put my thoughts into words I clarify my understanding of that topic.

I’ve learned I like following a schedule. When I was sick I did whatever I wanted in the moment, always going for the quick high. I started to miss the slow satisfaction of going for a long-term goal. Scheduling helps me prioritize my 16 hours.

I wish for everyone to have a year of slow living to discover what works for them. I think the world would be a better place if everyone had the time to learn what activities truly feed them.

4 – Embracing the here and now is more important than I thought

I love ideas, theories, and systems. I love figuring out how society can live better. What would a post-patriarchy, post-capitalist society look like? That’s the question that gets me excited. I love thinking about the future. Abstract thought is my favorite place.

My slow living experiment has taught me the value of the here and now. I’ve learned that it’s good for me to take small chunks of time to get out of my head and notice where I am in this moment. 

What does it look like?

Smell like?

Sound like?

Feel like?

Taste like?

Staying in my head and not noticing my body was a coping mechanism for chronic illness, but it also kept me from noticing my when my body needed attention. 

Good Art puts the reader in the moment. How can I create Art if I never pay attention to the details of my own life?

 I’ve started making sure I take time each day to live in the moment — to get out of my head and notice what’s around me.

I notice:

the pink and orange lollipop zinnias on my balcony garden,

the sound of cicadas in the humid DC air,

the feel of the carpet on my bare feet when I do yoga,

how a cool breeze from my fan feels like the ocean air at Assateague Island.

Being in the moment made me realize my apartment walls were bare. I’d been happily living down the street from my spouse in my writing studio for almost two years. (An upcoming post will detail how and why that works for us.)

Paying attention to my surroundings made me want to fix up my apartment. I finally hung art on the walls and organized my things so I could actually see what I owned. 

I’ve been gardening on my balcony and love having a small green oasis steps from my desk.

Before Covid, I’d loved traveling to new cities, walking around the neighborhoods as I imagined what life would be like if I was someone else. Now I visit neighborhoods around me— neighborhoods I’d never really explored in my almost 30 years of living in my Maryland DC suburb — and notice exactly what each neighborhood is actually like in this moment. 

Living in the moment hasn’t cured my insatiable need to understand people or to imagine a better future society. But my new awareness helps me care for my health, so I’m able to do the research and writing I want. It’s given me the headspace to let those facts and ideas germinate in my brain, allowing my worlds and characters to ripen.

Slow living has been the life I’ve always dreamed of— even with months of health issues. Now I wish for everyone to have this kind of life. What have you learned from the forced slow living style of the pandemic about yourself?

4 Reasons I’m Taking A Slow Living Sabbatical in 2020

/ Rowena Eureka / 2 Comments

2018 was a bad health year. In 2019, I was healthy and tried all kinds of new things. It was my Year Of Yes. At first, it was a lot of fun! Then I took on too many extroverted activities and started getting sick again.

For 2020, I’ve decided to take my health seriously. I’m retiring from substitute teaching, taking a break from most volunteer work, and will focus on slow living and writing for the year because…

1- I Want to Start a Sabbatical Trend

I’m incredibly lucky. Most people don’t have the choice to take a sabbatical year, even if they need it. Out of all the things I could do with my good fortune (travel, switching careers) this one appeals to me because I think the world would be a better place if everyone had the option to take sabbaticals.

We are a culture that values being busy. There’s a lot of stigma associated with taking breaks. Taking the year off to live slowly and write sounds pretentious and lazy.

Many people don’t retire until they’re almost 70, which means a lot of people work for almost 50 years. To make the most of five decades of working, you need to take a few breaks to recharge and reevaluate. I’m starting the trend because I can.

I want sabbatical years to be a trend that extends to everyone. When the iPhone was first released in 2007, the only people with smartphones were the affluent. Now almost everyone has a smartphone. I want to make taking sabbaticals as popular as having a smartphone. 

2- I’m Taking My Health & Energy Budget Seriously

Responsible spending means looking at how much money you have coming in, then creating a budget for yourself so you don’t spend more money than you have. Like money, everyone has their own energy budget.

I over-drafted on my energy budget for 2019, and probably for many more years before that. I am an introvert. It took me a long time to realize just how much of an introvert I am because I genuinely like being with people some of the time.

 I also used to blame myself if I did a job and was exhausted afterwards. I’d believe it was because I didn’t do it right. I used to think there was a way I could “work smarter, not harder”. Now I realize there is no “smart” way for me to be around a group of people for an extended amount of time and not come away feeling exhausted, especially with my health situation. That’s my reality and I’m accepting it in 2020.

Now I take the messages my body sends me seriously. Teaching is an extroverted job. The climate change presentations and workshops I did last year were extroverted activities. I believed in the work I did and liked all the people I worked with, so I thought I could squeeze them into my life without any problems.

What I learned is that being extroverted is costly for me. I started having thyroid problems again. I started getting intense hip pain. I tried ice packs and blood tests to figure what was going on. The blood tests came back normal-ish and the ice packs worked some of the time. But I felt awful most of the time. 

Then my last climate change workshop ended and I decided to take the next month off from all subbing, workshops, presentations, meetings, emails, etc. Within four weeks my hip stopped hurting. My thyroid was better. 

Turns out I need HUGE amounts of solitude.

After 30 years of over-drafting on my energy reserves, it was time to listen to my body.

3 – I’m Giving My Writing The Time and Space It Needs

I have always wanted to write but never gave myself permission to write anything beyond journal entries as a kid. As an adult, I expanded my permission to writing stories I thought were publishable. I wrote them ever so slowly, striving to be as perfect as I could. I never wrote stories just because I liked them. Some voice inside my head would attack me the minute I wrote for fun or stopped striving to be perfect.

Doing things for others was my priority. I was a special education teacher, a family daycare provider, a stay-at-home parent, and a substitute teacher. These were activities I got easy praise for. Even when I finally went to grad school to get my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults I continued to be a part-time substitute teacher, despite not needing the money, because it was too scary to just focus on writing.

After grad school I added blog intern, then volunteer climate change presenter to my plate. I always needed to do activities that were helping others so I had a distraction from my writing.

None of these jobs was for the money either, because my partner has a job that makes way more money than I could ever make. Yes, totally and completely lucky! (Though being the person who does all the unpaid labor in the relationship has some real costs that I could write an entire essay about).

I wish I were the kind of person who could do a bunch of activities, then come back home and write as a way of decompressing. That’s not the way I work. My writing is forged out of hours and hours of solitude. The worlds I want to write about are complicated and require a ton of research.

 For 2020, I’ve decided it doesn’t matter if my stories ever get published. What matters is that I give myself the time and space to write whatever I want.

This year, I’m writing some stories that are probably publishable and some that are just for me. I’m giving myself the time to research my complex ideas about the future, and create the worlds I wish to see.

Creating time and space to just enjoy my writing is my gift to myself for 2020.

4 – I’m Committing Myself to One Planet Living

I write stories that take place in the future. I love to imagine how the world might look post-patriarchy, post-capitalism. What would that look like for a kid? For a teen?  For adults? The future is my happy place.

In reality, we can only live in the present and our planet has some big problems right now. I got interested in environmental issues because of my stories about the future. I wanted to learn who had a plan to reverse global warming and Paul Hawken’s Project Drawdown was the detailed pragmatic plan that answered my question. 

 I still want to be a part of reversing global warming, even if I’m not doing Project Drawdown presentations and workshops. But I need to help in a way that doesn’t zap my energy for writing. So I’ve decided to use my sabbatical year to live like we only have one precious planet.

I took a vow to stop flying. Now I take the train or bus when I travel. I rarely drive, and walk or take public transportation pretty much everywhere.

The beauty of taking a year off means I have the time to travel slowly.

I now write Monday through Friday. Saturday afternoons are for outings to museums, parks, or anything that feeds me. Sundays are for walking to my Unitarian Universalist church and for preparing for my upcoming week.

Living slowly means I have time to be a tourist in my own city. So far, I’ve been to the National Cathedral, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, and the Jane Goodall exhibit at the National Geographic Association. I fill my writer’s notebook with a few words about each place I visit.

Living slowly means I can have adventures in a sustainable way and support the arts community in my own backyard. I go to one live performance a month—dance performances, music concerts, plays, etc. So far I’ve seen the musical Newsies at Arena stage and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Kennedy Center. I go by myself and take everything in. It’s amazing how nourishing art can be for my health and happiness.

I’m also taking the time to shop local, compost, limit my plastic waste, and use more renewable energy. Taking a slow living sabbatical means I can have a full life while still maintaining our only planet.

The 2021 Planning I’m Not Doing

I don’t know what I’m doing in 2021. I don’t plan to substitute teach again. I could always be a tutor or a nanny or find another job, if I wanted. Finding a new career won’t be a part of my 2020 though. This sabbatical is all about writing, taking care of my health, creating a low footprint, and filling my spirit. It’s about being using my good fortunate in a way that makes me happy, because that’s what I wish for everyone to be able to do in the future.

My 5 Favorite 2019 NonFiction Reads, Part 2

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Here are my top two favorite nonfiction reads from 2019. Last week I posted my fifth, fourth and third favorite nonfiction reads, which you can check out here.

2. Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears And Unleash Creativity
by Felicia Day

What It’s About:
This book of creative exercises is like the quirky, more whimsical cousin of The Artist’s Way. The goal of Embrace Your Weird is to help you become less critical of yourself so you can creative the projects you want— whether that be writing, painting, or making sculptures in toothpicks.

The exercises start out with the intent of proving to you why you should totally embrace your creativity, move on to building up your “hero self”, arm you with techniques to face your demons, then help you brainstorm allies for your journey.

Felicia Day is the writer/ producer of the Netflix series, The Guild, as well as the creator of many online endeavors. I reviewed and loved her memoir, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), which tells the story her unique upbringing being homeschooled (for “hippy reasons”), going to college at sixteen, majoring in mathematics and violin at the University of Texas, then becoming an actor and writer in Los Angeles. She’s also known for playing quirky roles like Vi in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Codex in The Guild, Penny in Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, Charlie in Supernatural, and Poppy in The Magicians.

What I Liked:
There’s so much to like here. Felicia Day is whimsical and fun, yet also thorough and organized. It took me three months to do all the exercises, and at the end I felt more playful about my writing.

What I Learned:
I came away from this book with a better understanding the need for play and creativity in my life.

Audiobook Details:
I listened to the audiobook version and used the PDF for the exercises because I love Felicia Day’s quirky style of narrating.

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1. Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties
by Dianne Lake and Deborah Herman

What It’s About:
This is the story of the “Manson Family” from the point of view of Dianne Lake— who joined the Manson family when she was just fourteen years old. She was not present at any of the murders but was still able to testify against the family at the trials.

What I Liked About It:
I had always avoided books about Charles Manson because I am tired of focusing on supposed “genius” sociopathic men, so I was delighted to find this story told from the youngest woman in the family.

The first half of the book is about Dianne’s life growing up and the second half is about her time in the Manson family. While I chose the book for the second half, the first half where she explains how her family went from a white-bread middle class family in suburban Minnesota to counterculture hippies living on a commune in California was just as fascinating.

Dianne paints a vivid picture of her father’s growing dissatisfaction with the repression of the 1950s, and how his fascination with Jack Kerouac (and other Beat Generation writers) were the catalyst for her family’s slow absorption into the 1960s counterculture. Her description of 1960s counterculture shows both the advantages and disadvantages of their utopian beliefs. I felt like I had time traveled to the 1960s and was living right along with her.

What I Learned:
Lake describes Manson as someone who was a master at manipulating people. Despite being basically illiterate, he had used his prison time to educated himself. Manson took classes in prison on Dale Carenigie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People techniques, as well as getting an education from fellow inmates on how to be a highly successful pimp. He also used his time in prison to learn to move every muscle on his face independently so he had full control over his facial expressions and could change the sound of his voice and dialect, too, in order to mirror whoever he was talking with.

However, Dianne’s story makes clear that while Manson did have exceptional people skills— that he used for self-serving purposes— the main reason that he was able to gain the loyalty from the women in his self-made family was because of the misogynist elements of the 1960s that caused so many women to have no one else to count on. Manson’s family welcomed Dianne Lake with open arms, which was far more than her own family did. By the time the Manson family got darker— after Manson became more and more obsessed with his racist fantasies about the end of the world— Diane was trapped with no one else to turn to.

Audiobook Details:
The audio version is narrated by Dianne herself. Some Audible reviewers complained about Dianne’s narration but I thought it worked well. She comes across as an earnest, authentic teller of her own story.

My 5 Favorite 2019 NonFiction Reads, Part 1

/ Rowena Eureka / 3 Comments

I’m listing my favorite top five nonfiction reads in reverse order in two parts. This week I’ll write about books five, four and three. Next week I’ll write about my top two favorite 2019 nonfiction reads.

I almost always prefer the audio version of a book. I grew up in a household where the TV was on a lot, so I have better listening comprehension than print comprehension. It’s also easier to multitask while reading, which means it’s easier to find the time to read more.

5. The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge
by Beatrice Chestnut

What It’s About:
The Enneagram is a personality system like Myers-Briggs. While the Myers-Briggs system deals with a person’s cognitive processing preferences (how they take in and use information), the Enneagram deals with how you defend yourself from your childhood wounds.

The Enneagram system uses nine basics types, those types can further be broken into three subtypes per type, for a total of 27 different subtypes.

What I Learned:
Regardless of how ideal or traumatic your childhood was, you have emotional wounds that formed your own unique defenses for dealing with the world. The defense system you created in childhood forms the basis of how you interact with the world as an adult.

This is really good system for getting information about your blindspots in dealing with others, and using that information to grow in ways that help you better cope with life.

What I Liked About It:
The Enneagram is also a fantastic tool for writers because it provides a template for 27 different character wounds that you can then customize with individual details and variability to build your characters’ story arcs.

This is also a good tool for understanding your own parents since their Enneagram personality type influenced your personality, too.

Finding out my dad is a type seven helped me understand why most people think my viewpoint is so optimistic, when I tend to think of myself as the cynic of the family. Turns out my dad is the most optimistic of all 27 subtypes.

Audiobook Details:
This is one of those books where having the printed version might actually be more useful, because I found myself wanting to go back over the material again and again.

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4. Blowout

by Rachel Maddow

What It’s About:
The book focuses on three key stories: fracking in Oklahoma, the oil industry’s history and record of accidents and greed, and Russia’s gas and oil history and current situation.

The three issues tie together to make the three big points of Maddow’s thesis:
1) the oil and gas industry has a record of incompetence and has almost no plan to deal with their inevitable the accidents,

2) life gets worse for the majority of citizens of a state or country that discovers oil, while a tiny subset becomes enormously wealthy,

3) Russia’s extreme mafia-like corruption has strangled its business sectors, therefore oil and gas is its only economically viable sector.

What I Learned:
The Russia information is especially important for understanding the GOP-Ukrainian story and their conspiracy theories about Ukraine.

Oil and gas are Russian’s only functional industries. But because of their corruption and incompetence, they lack the equipment or technical know-how to drill in their oil-rich arctic regions. Since Putin got caught meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, U.S. companies are blocked from working with Russia to provide equipment and technical knowledge. So Putin is pretty desperate to get those sanctions removed. Plus, Putin would love to have control over Ukraine’s gas companies.

What I liked About It:
Rachel starts the book much like she starts her show, laying out the history and cast of characters the listener needs to know before presenting the evidence needed to make her case. Like with her show, she uses story to draw the listener in, making you want to find out what this seemingly unrelated anecdote has to do with whatever explosive current event is going on. Because Rachel is a master storyteller, at the end all the pieces click in place and dozens of seemingly unrelated parts suddenly paint a much bigger coherent picture.

Audiobook Details:
If you are a Rachel Maddow fan you’ll love the audiobook because it’s like listening to an extended version of her show.

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3. Shrill
By Lindy West


What It’s About:
Lindy West is a Seattle based comedy writer, feminist, and fat woman (her words) who tells her life’s story in a series of think pieces. She talks about how fat shaming convinced her that being quiet and shy was the safest path as a kid, then follows her journey of finding her voice through her love of comedy, and finally how she learned to use her voice to advocate for body acceptance and feminist issues.

What I Liked:
Lindy has a unique voice that manages to be insightful, compassionate and funny all at once.

What I Learned:
I started reading Lindy West when she wrote for Jezebel, but had no idea that she used to write for Seattle’s The Stranger with Dan Savage as her boss. Or that she actually schooled Dan about why fat shaming doesn’t work.

I also learned she made a TV show about her life based on this book. It’s also called Shrill, has two seasons on Hulu, and is just as delightful as the book.

Audiobook Details:
I love listening to audiobook memoirs because it’s like having a cool, funny friend tell you their life story. Lindy’s compassion really comes through in the audio, too.

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Next Week: My top two 2019 non-fiction reads

8 Reasons For Blogging In 2020

/ Rowena Eureka / 9 Comments

I’m restarting my blog and committing to one post a week for all of 2020.

Here are eight reasons why:

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1. I Want Control

I don’t own my Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts. They’re free for me to use because those companies make money selling my ad views and data. I have little control over who actually gets see my posts or how those platforms will work in the future.

With WordPress, I pay to control my own content and choose if there are ads or not.

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2. My Thoughts Are Longer Than A Soundbite

Facebook and Instagram are best for photos, short announcements, or fun questions that connect me to my family and friends. Writing a blog allows me to write about complex topics like: big changes I’ve made in in my life over the past two years, my favorite non-fiction reads, how utopia is misunderstood, why I prefer short stories to novels, or what each of us can do to help reverse global warming.

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3. I Want To Contribute To The Tapas Menu of Memoir

When I was a stay-at-home parent struggling with chronic illness I escaped into blogs as a way of vicariously living other lives. I could sample the lives of so many people just by reading a few posts online because blogs are the tapas of memoir.

I read Tara Ariano’s blog about her life as one of the co-founders of the popular now defunct online forum Television Without Pity. I loved reading about the highs and lows of editing such a massive project, complete with her frequent all-night work sessions and weekly game nights with her spouse and friends in Toronto, Canada.

I also was a fan of Amanda Marcotte’s feminist blog Pandongon.net. Her clear, engaging discussions on what feminism is and isn’t, and how it helps daily life— for both men and women— made my life better in concrete ways. Marcotte also described her move from Austin, Texas to Brooklyn, New York. It was like was living in places I’d never actually been to at the time.

Both bloggers have moved on to other projects, and neither blog is available on the Internet anymore, but I’m a happier person because those two women wrote them. After sampling so many blogs, I want to write my own blog again.

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4. I Made Real Life Friends After Reading Strangers’ Blogs

Before I decided to apply to the Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) to get my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, I read Katia Rania’s blog about her experience of going through the program. Katia’s honest, hopeful entries allowed me to virtually try out the program from the comfort of my own living room.

I was in the middle of the MFA program myself when Katia moved to my hometown. I reached out to her on Facebook to tell her how much I liked her blog and we became friends in real life. She now writes about what it’s like to be a newly published author with the time-consuming job of teaching middle schoolers. I continue to enjoy her posts, even as we now get together in person.

Before I went to VCFA, I was also a regular reader of the annual music list on the blog Presenting Lenore. Lenore was a complete stranger, but I noted that we had similar music tastes, and got new music recommendations from her annual list.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Lenore I met at my first residency at VCFA was the same Lenore who had suggested all those new bands I sampled. We’ve been to a concert together in real life now, and she even made me a mixed CD.

My life is better because Katia and Lenore blogged.

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5. Thanks To Cynsations, I Know That Value Of Deadlines

I also read author Cynthia Leitich Smith’s fantastic children’s literature industry blog, Cynsations, years before I met her as a faculty member at VCFA. After graduating, I became a “Cyntern” on her blog for two years, interviewing writers and putting together the weekly Friday news roundups. I’m still a reporter for the blog, posting interviews occasionally.

When I first joined Cynsations I had never interviewed someone for a blog. Through working with my fellow Cynterns — Gayleen and Stephani–I learned how to meet deadlines. It was eye-opening to see how a deadline could force me to write a posts I didn’t think I was capable of. A lesson I received only because Cynthia took the time and energy to blog.

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6. It’s Time to Embrace My Voice

My very first post on Cynsations was an essay about my struggle to give myself permission to write. I still struggle with voice.

I’ve come to realize that as a kid I unconsciously believed the unfortunate rule that it’s better to be silent rather than to take the chance of offending someone. It’s not like I’m out to offend people, it’s just that when I express my opinions, I’m bound to offend somebody. I used to think I should avoid offending people at all costs.

For years I bent over backwards to not offend people. You know what? I still offended people. Being silent offends people; being sick offended a ton of people. Even being nice to everyone can offend. You might think you’re including everyone, but you always forget someone, and offend them anyway. There is no way not to offend.

What I’ve learned from reading thousands of blog posts is that it’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to offend people. Taking an opinion clarifies your thinking.

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7. The Assignment That Taught Me Joan Didion Was Right

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/05/archives/why-i-write-why-i-write.html

At VCFA, I was obsessed with writing a story about a utopian future, but didn’t understand the basics of utopia and couldn’t explain to my advisors why such a story was not delusional, but aspirational.

In my third semester, I had to write a thirty page critical thesis on a writing craft topic. My topic was how to write a satisfying utopian YA novel.

It was the most difficult topic I ever tackled. At one point, I had pages of quotes and references spread out all over my carpet. I was sure I would never wrestle my thoughts into a coherent argument, but I did.

The clarity I gained from writing about utopia, then rethinking my analysis and putting together an even better and clearer lecture for fourth semester, taught me the value of writing.

Before I wrote about utopia, it was hard for me to clearly articulate its value. Now I’m able to easily give a short five minute elevator speech on how utopia is misunderstood, and what value it has for society. (Hint: you can’t get to a new better place if you don’t have a map.)

People tell me that I have changed the way they think about utopia. That ability to change people’s minds is all due to writing it down first.

I’m at a crossroads in my life. Our country and world is at a crossroads. It seems like a good time to figure out what I think and why.

__________

8. There Will Never Be A Better Time

My current circumstances for blogging are pretty utopian. I’m finally healthy! My kids are happy adults, and I’m taking a year long sabbatical from paid work to embrace slow living. Plus, I have my own writing space.

Either I take the chance on blogging now or I never will.

I’ve decided to take the leap and write one post a week for the rest of 2020.

Next Week: Favorite Non-Fiction Reads From 2019