Posts Tagged creativity

A Little Space

By on August 16, 2021   /   Articles, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

It’s August. Summer is rapidly slipping away. How did the time fly by so fast? What about all those things I was going to do this summer? (Looks at 2021 Summer Calendar To-Do List and sees very few things crossed out.) School is either here or just around the corner. Teachers, librarians, readers, and creators of all stripes are answering the call to duty. 

It’s go time!

There’s is excitement in the air with the prospect and potential of a new academic year. But the pangs of summer fading into the sunset settle deep into my gut. (Looks again at the 2021 Summer Calendar To-Do List.) The innocent and once optimistic list of uncompleted writing and drawing tasks screams at me, “HAYS, DID YOU FORGET US?”

The tight-knit ball of creative anxiety in the pit of my stomach rapidly spins with enough orbital angular momentum to force the panic to rise. My heart races. My eyes flitter around the room. My sketchbooks, journals, notebooks, even my own published books gathering dust on the shelf, laugh at me. 

I run outside, look up into the expanse of a beautiful, northcentral blue Kansas sky, take a deep breath, and close my eyes. My heart no longer races. It’s beating with the steady rhythm of rolling down I-70 through the Flint Hills at dusk. 

John P Salvatore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I return to my office. The Summer Calendar 2021 To-Do List hangs unchanged on the wall. But it’s just a list again. A suggestion of potential things. A creative direction. The journals and notebooks are raw stories, packed with potential which hopefully someday find their readers. My published books on the shelf remind me I can indeed do this creative thing competently enough to give them a shelf life.

Ah…the beauty of space. The absolute raw power of space to put everything into perspective.

Space. What an awesome word!

Space is a Swiss Army knife word with so many uses and meanings. Space is a word we should celebrate and appreciate. A word we should vault to the top of the toolbox.

I need to make a token to hang on the wall or wear around my neck to remind me of the value and importance of space and creative space. I need the reminder that when stuck, a step back to create space is necessary in order to move forward.

As the season turns and we make fresh To-Do lists, it’s the perfect time to remember and appreciate the spaces in your life. The other night, I sat for a few minutes on the patio and took in the night sky hoping for a glimpse of the conglomeration of planets on the western horizon or spotting a meteor or two from the eastern sky. Unfortunately, cloud cover and poor timing thwarted these efforts but all was not lost. Mesmerized, as always, by the Big Dipper, I stared at the northern sky for a few minutes. 

Beautiful space. 

A reminder we are all impossible beings floating across the universe at 492,126 miles per hour. Insignificant and yet significant in everything we do. 

Amazing space. My relaxed brain started firing off the important “spaces” in my life. I made a list. 

  • Creative space
  • Outer space
  • Inner space
  • Backspace
  • Negative space
  • Garden space
  • Yard space
  • Patio space
  • Deep space
  • Near space
  • Public space
  • Private space
  • Workspace
  • Office space
  • Family space 
  • Spacebar (How about a Space bar?)
  • Writing space
  • Headspace
  • White space
  • Green space
  • Space Jam
  • Spacesuit
  • Open space
  • Wide-open space
  • Tight space
  • My Space
  • Personal space 
  • Closet space
  • Dream space

How about you? Have you ever considered the importance of space in your personal, professional, or creative life? Do you have a go-to space to open the mind or recharge the soul?

Have a great end of summer and enjoy the promise of tomorrow! 

If you find yourself running into creative walls, remember to take a step back, give yourself some space, and identify the best way to move forward. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly,

Space out, y’all!

The original uploader was Triddle at English Wikipedia.(original:Photograph taken by User:Triddle and User:Codedelectron), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Writing Prompts for a Pandemic

By on May 13, 2020   /   Writing  

When I first sat down to write this post, I said to myself, “How about writing something NOT about the pandemic?”

And then I laughed and laughed.

Because of course, every inch of our existences is about the pandemic–whether our state is opening or not, whether we’re wearing masks or not, whether we’re working from home or not. It’s also whether we feel safe, or been sick–or not. Maybe we’re worried about getting sick or taking care of loved ones who are sick or we’ve lost someone who was sick from Covid-19 or something completely different. It’s also about the fact that the politicization of a national emergency has introduced an additional stress beyond anything we’d ever imagined.

Books Help Us Process

And so, instead of trying to be clever and find something to say that doesn’t have the tang of pandemic to it in some way (there isn’t anything) what I will do is this: add to the body of thinking that explores ways for creators and book lovers to process this time. We are all writers, teachers, parents, librarians, and readers. We think and feel through our fingers when we write, we feel connected and supported when we read or when we share books with other people.  You don’t have to be a writer to find catharsis in the act of writing, though, just jotting down your thoughts in a journal can be a truly helpful, healthy expression.

((Have you thought about keeping a journal? Read here for some ideas about journaling in the time of Coronavirus ))

Writing as Catharsis

But maybe you’d rather not write about yourself. Maybe you’d rather find your healthy expression in the act of creating story. And many of you probably already are pecking away at your work-in-progress, or starting new ones. Some of you have discovered a superpower–the ability to focus deeply as a way of protecting yourself against too much pandemic thinking.

Others of us walk into the kitchen from our home offices and stand there for long minutes wondering why we are there. (Okay, yes, that happened before the pandemic too, but now it’s truly epic.) So, the act of organizing an actual book is perhaps not feeling like a mood-booster.

Writing Prompts for a Pandemic

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, writing prompts can be a soothing craft-building or venting exercise. Think of them as a mandala coloring book, only for writing. You can use them to explore your craft or just free write to release tension.

mandala writing prompts

I’ve provided a few prompts below; choose one that suits your fancy and let your fingers take over. It doesn’t have to be a book (but it may turn into one,) it doesn’t have to be anything more or less than what you want it to be: a character sketch, a short story, a one-act play, a scene, poetry, a letter, or a journal entry.

  1. You (or your main character) are taking a long, solitary drive to get a change of scenery. Most states are still recommending quarantine, so you are surprised to find a huge party happening in a secluded beach town, where they tell you they’ve managed to beat the coronavirus. DO you believe them? Do you stay?
  2. It’s one year from now: May 2021. Your main character overhears a conversation between two middle-school teenagers; they’re talking about quarantine. What are they saying? Where are they? What’s their backstory? What is the effect of their conversation on your main character?
  3. Write a letter to a teacher who has been part of your/your child’s distance learning during quarantine.
  4. You’re writing middle-grade historical fiction about a previous pandemic. Read this: and then write the backstory for one of the protestors in the article.
  5. Write a poem naming and exploring an emotion you’ve felt during the quarantine.
  6. Use the voice of your antagonist in your work-in-progress to describe a Zoom conference call or distance learning classroom.

 

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Inexpensive Bookish Holiday Gifts Middle-Graders Can Make

By on December 9, 2019   /   For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents  

I have vivid memories of making things at my grandmother’s big dining room table, especially around the holidays. Usually under the urging of my Aunt Connie, we paper mached, decoupaged (there’s a word I haven’t used in thirty years) and macramed (make that two words).  I remember a year we made large paper globes out of old Christmas cards.  My grandmother, my Aunt Connie, and that old dining room table are gone now, but the desire to make something remains, and I appreciate having adults in my life who encouraged creativity.

I’ve selected (and even tried) some holiday crafts that are easy enough for nine-year-old hands and yield  a lasting treasure worthy of gifting.

Super Cute and East Button Bookmarks – A little hot glue and Grandma’s box of old buttons and this one is as good as done.  Click here for the details, or not. If you’re like me, you’re already thinking “How hard can it be?”

Book ornaments – This one is probably my favorite holiday gift craft ever.  I made these a couple of years ago and they were a hit. Talk about easy and no mess! Start with empty glass ornament balls, which are easy to find most anywhere. For younger crafters, plastic ones are available, but for middle-grade hands, glass is fine and classier and the clarity makes a difference when reading tiny words.  I had many old paperbacks that were either well worn or duplicates, and I chose books that fit recipients – The Hobbit for the Tolkien fan, Little Women for my favorite Jo March friend, etc. I cut narrow strips of text and rolled each strip around a pencil. It’s surprising how well the paper curls. I found that if I left it around the pencil, and then inserted the pencil into the opening of the ornament, then let it fall off, it was easier than taking the strip off the pencil before trying to insert it. I chose lines with proper nouns – character names, places – in order to make the book easily identifiable. Play around with length of strip and how many to use. You’ll know what looks good. And the book lover in your life with adore you!

Scrabble Coasters – Okay, guys. I made these for my critique partners this year, and if I can do it, so can you. Our holiday gathering is the same day this post goes live, so I’m hoping they don’t read it before they open their gifts.  I ordered 500 letter tiles and found them to be fairly consistent in size. There were a few oddballs, but aren’t there always?  And I used these adhesive cork squares, which were a bit too large and had to be cut on one side. That made me nervous because I can’t cut in a straight line to save my life, but I used a paper cutter with grid lines and, surprisingly, I did all right!  I had planned not to trust the adhesive and bought wood glue, but discovered that the adhesive side of the cork was VERY sticky, so I ended up not using the glue. Hooray! The last step was to coat the finished coasters with an acrylic spray. After all, they are meant to hold sweaty glasses or hot cups. Voila! I have to thank my daughter Maggie who, upon hearing me lament “I don’t know. It sounds complicated,” said “Mom, just do it.”

                   

Ribbon Bookmarks – This one is, admittedly, a bit more complicated and took some planning and tools I didn’t previously own. But, wow, what a response I got when I gifted these to my book friends a couple years ago! The good news is that in one trip to a large craft store, I got the ribbon, the metal ends, the little O rings, and a nice set of jewelry-making tools that I’ve used over and over again since. The most challenging part for some might be collecting the little items to attach. You can buy small charms, I’m sure, but I’m a repurposer and collector of tiny things, so I had a drawer of old watch faces, luggage locks and keys, broken earrings, tiny charms, and baubles and bangles of all sorts. I mean, doesn’t everyone? (Don’t answer that.)  If nothing else, you can start collecting for next year!


Book Trees – These are so cute and not hard to do at all. I found this great video that demonstrates just how simple they are to make. You can leave them “au natural” or bling them out with paint, glitter, and glam.

 

There’s still time, and none of these are too messy or difficult. You’ll make more than a gift. You’ll make a memory or two, I’m sure.

 

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