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Posts by Miranda

May 9

2 Comments

Monday Post ~ May 9, 2011

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” ~Maya Angelou

What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic goal or a milestone to reach for. A goal as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” is what it’s all about. Share your goal(s) as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Suggestion: When you’re deciding on your creative intentions, it’s a good idea to think about WHEN you’re going to write those 2,000 words or paint that canvas. Try to schedule the time slots in your calendar (if you keep one), understanding that flexibility may be required. If things don’t happen when you wanted them to, that’s OK. Give yourself a gentle push with one hand, but pat yourself kindly on the shoulder with the other if you don’t reach your goal for a given week. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. Ride whatever you’ve got.

It’s also useful to have a sense of your minimum requirements (come hell or high water I’m going to write 100 words) while keeping a lookout for sudden opportunities to do more. You know, the day that the baby takes a monster nap or your partner takes the kids out to run errands and you find yourself with an unexpected “extra” half hour. Grab that time for yourself. You can catch up on the dishes and the laundry later. If you keep something creative in the back of your mind for those sudden opportunities, you’ll be more likely to use them to your advantage — rather than squandering your precious bonus moments on Facebook or vacuuming out the sofa cushions.

May 3

8 Comments

Writers: How Far Can You Get on Just 250 Words?

I’ve interviewed creative women with young children at home who are desperately unhappy because they can’t get their creative work done with any kind of regularity, or even at all. Probing more deeply, I often learn that so-and-so writer mother can’t consider working on her novel if she doesn’t have four hours to herself. When I suggest trying to be more flexible with work opportunities, she resists. So then the question becomes, gently: “Do you want to get your novel written on your own terms, or do you want to get your novel written?”

It’s important to remember that nothing lasts forever. Eventually, she will again be able to enjoy four-hour stretches of solitude for writing. But if that’s not feasible right now, and the creative work is how she makes meaning, it’s more important to loosen up on those ideals and develop skills that enable more spontaneous and flexible creativity.

It’s not terribly hard to write 250 words a day. With the exception of mothers with newborns, most of us can pull off 250 words without making a major time commitment or feeling like we’re neglecting our family. The four paragraphs you’re reading right now total exactly 250 words. If you wrote 250 words a day, you would have a full-length novel written in just over a year. Does that sound like a long time? It’s not. And if you don’t write those 250 words a day, the year will pass anyway, novel or no novel. Word by word!

This piece was reprinted from the last issue of the Creative Times, our monthly newsletter. Click here to subscribe!

May 2

4 Comments

Monday Post ~ May 2, 2011

“The good mother is a great artist, ever creating beauty out of chaos.” ~ Alice Randall

What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic goal or a milestone to reach for. A goal as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” is what it’s all about. Share your goal(s) as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Suggestion: When you’re deciding on your creative intentions, it’s a good idea to think about WHEN you’re going to write those 2,000 words or paint that canvas. Try to schedule the time slots in your calendar (if you keep one), understanding that flexibility may be required. If things don’t happen when you wanted them to, that’s OK. Give yourself a gentle push with one hand, but pat yourself kindly on the shoulder with the other if you don’t reach your goal for a given week. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. Ride whatever you’ve got.

It’s also useful to have a sense of your minimum requirements (come hell or high water I’m going to write 100 words) while keeping a lookout for sudden opportunities to do more. You know, the day that the baby takes a monster nap or your partner takes the kids out to run errands and you find yourself with an unexpected “extra” half hour. Grab that time for yourself. You can catch up on the dishes and the laundry later. If you keep something creative in the back of your mind for those sudden opportunities, you’ll be more likely to use them to your advantage — rather than squandering your precious bonus moments on Facebook or vacuuming out the sofa cushions.

Apr 26

1 Comment

Bonita Rose: Vintage Sewn Paper Gift Bags

I’ve been having fun in my studio these days, and am playing with all kinds of new things like fabrics, buttons, fancy trims, fabric paint and more!

Aaaah, the life of a passionate creative, right?

Recently I had fun creating some FUN and colorful Sewn Paper Gift Bags!

I made these with simple kraft paper lunch bags, some vintage fabric and trims and black thread. Not hard to do, but the results are so so beautiful! I am making each one unique and each will be available in my shop here.

Some people have told me I should ask more for these, but for now they are listed in the shop below for $3.95 USD each or 2/$5.95 USD!

Each one has a shipping tag tucked inside, stamped with ‘Just a Note” in Victorian Script. The perfect place to write a little something.

Use them to give someone a special gift — jewelery, a gift card, cash — you name it! Aren’t they pretty?

Remember, give handmade.

I had fun!

Thank you to my dear friend and online teacher, Roben-Marie who every day continues to inspire me with her creativity!

Apr 25

4 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 25, 2011

“I consider every individual to be located somewhere on what I call an infinite continuum of creative accomplishment.”
~A. H. Maslow

What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic goal or a milestone to reach for. A goal as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” is what it’s all about. Share your goal(s) as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Suggestion: When you’re deciding on your creative intentions, it’s a good idea to think about WHEN you’re going to write those 2,000 words or paint that canvas. Try to schedule the time slots in your calendar (if you keep one), understanding that flexibility may be required. If things don’t happen when you wanted them to, that’s OK. Give yourself a gentle push with one hand, but pat yourself kindly on the shoulder with the other if you don’t reach your goal for a given week. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. Ride whatever you’ve got.

It’s also useful to have a sense of your minimum requirements (come hell or high water I’m going to write 100 words) while keeping a lookout for sudden opportunities to do more. You know, the day that the baby takes a monster nap or your partner takes the kids out to run errands and you find yourself with an unexpected “extra” half hour. Grab that time for yourself. You can catch up on the dishes and the laundry later. If you keep something creative in the back of your mind for those sudden opportunities, you’ll be more likely to use them to your advantage — rather than squandering your precious bonus moments on Facebook or vacuuming out the sofa cushions.

Apr 20

8 Comments

Miranda: Open House

So far, 2011 is turning out to be an extremely exciting year. It’s so rewarding when your collection of seemingly unrelated passions come together in one big flashing exclamation point.

Some of you may recall my post about becoming certified as a creativity coach. To that end, I’m thrilled to share with you my new creativity coaching website, www.mirandahersey.com.

What’s a creativity coach? A creativity coach is similar to a life coach, but focuses more specifically on creative work. I work with clients who are struggling with making time for art, feeling stuck creatively, or looking for guidance with a specific project or life transition. Interestingly, most creative mothers don’t seem to suffer from writer’s block or artistic dry spells. As we’ve all seen here in our 3+ years together at this blog, it’s much more common for a creative mother to feel suffused by creative ideas and new projects. Her issue is more typically a serious shortage of time. So in my coaching work, we look at all the elements in her current landscape to see how to make more room and support for creative practice.

As part of my new endeavor, I’m putting out a monthly e-newsletter as an umbrella project for Studio Mothers as well as my coaching business. The newsletter includes several tidbits of inspiration and practical advice — so I hope you’ll sign up! Just click here and then click on the newsletter icon in the left-hand sidebar. The first issue comes out tomorrow!

Apr 19

11 Comments

12 Ways to Watch Less TV and Be More Creative

It’s easy to understand the appeal of slobbing out in front of the television when you’re exhausted at the end of a long day. We all need a little downtime. But TV can be parasitic: You turn it on because you feel too tired to do anything else — and that’s it. Watching TV is not going to restore you. It is very unlikely that you’ll turn on the TV at 8:00 pm and then jump up an hour later saying “Great! Let’s get to work on that watercolor painting!” TV is designed to hook you and keep you on your sofa.

The artist and author Keri Smith wrote on her blog: “A few years ago I turned off the TV for good, not because I think TV is necessarily evil, but because I wanted to take back control of my time and what I put into my head. I wanted to treat my mind as a sacred space, and begin to fill it with things that would help formulate new ideas, my imagination, and things that benefitted my life instead of taking away from it.” Well said.

Let’s say that you enjoy television, and it’s a fairly regular part of the evening routine at your house. You might not want to get rid of TV altogether. You may be like many mothers, and feel like a vegetable by the time the kids are in bed. If so, try one of these experiments.

  1. Front-load a few moments of creative practice. Tell yourself that you will watch TV, but first you’re going to be creative for just 15 minutes. You may feel like what you produce is drivel, but that’s OK. Being brilliant is not the point here. Just be creative. Write a few lines, draw a lousy sketch. Make some notes about an idea you had while doing the dishes. Simply do something. If you do this every night before vegetating, you may find that you don’t want to stop after 15 minutes, or that your short creative stint generates a second wind. You may actually feel energized by the activity. Even if your energy level isn’t affected, and you’re still dog tired and head for the couch, you’ll feel great knowing that you did a little something important for yourself beforehand.
  2. Move your body. Do a little stretching — some yoga, Pilates, or calisthenics on the floor. If you haven’t had much physical exercise during the day, a little bit of something will make you feel better, even if it’s the last thing you feel like doing. You don’t have to hit the gym or do a cardio DVD; just find a short routine that you can do on the floor. Do 20 sit-ups. Do some leg-lifts. If you have enough room, you might even be able to devise a short routine to do while you’re watching TV, if you can’t tear yourself away.
  3. Save it for later. Use a DVR to record those shows you think you can’t miss. Then use the time to read or talk to your spouse, call a friend, or anything else that appeals to you, even if you’re too tired to be creative. You’ll end up feeling less tired, and chances are, you’ll end up forgetting to watch that “important” show anyway. And if you do want to watch your recording, you can fast-forward through the commercials, saving time and brain cells.
  4. Pump up the urgency. Use a contest or other external deadline to lend you a sense of urgency. When you’re working toward something and you don’t have daytime hours to make it happen, evening time is suddenly an important resource. You’ll get things done despite being tired — and once you’re in the habit, you may even lose the fatigue.
  5. Go to sleep. If you’re really too tired to do anything you actually want to do, go to bed. You’re tired! Chances are, you’re not getting enough sleep anyway. It’s really OK to go to bed at 8:30 if your body is shutting down. Get a good night’s sleep and you’ll wake up with lots more energy and creative bandwidth.
  6. Be selective. Make a list of the three or four weekly shows that you really love, and decide to watch those and only those. Whatever you do, do not channel surf. When your favorite show is over, turn the TV off. If you have cable or satellite TV and pick up the clicker, you are guaranteed to be able to find something you feel like watching. Why waste your time staring at something you wouldn’t even know you’d be missing, if you hadn’t stumbled upon it by channel surfing?
  7. Turn on the radio. Avoid turning the TV on as background noise or to keep you company, whether it’s daytime or evening. Inane commercials pollute your mind, and you’ll probably end up sitting down and watching something if you let the TV run. If you like the sound of voices, tune a radio to NPR. If you want something more soothing or mood-boosting, put on some music.
  8. Surf the creative interwebs instead. If you think you’re just too brain dead to do anything else but stare at a screen, at least head to your computer — or use laptop while you’re on the couch — and do something that is vaguely related to your creative interests. Surf the blogs of other writers or artists, collect images you like, read the news in your area of creative interest. Connect with an online community. Do something that feeds your pursuit. While it’s still electronic, this activity is at least related to something that feeds you. If you’re already regularly connected to the blogosphere, make sure it isn’t cutting into your regular creative practice. Save surfing for the evening, or for whatever time of day you’re at your lowest energy level. If you’re doing research for a book or other project, cap the amount of time you spend researching so that you don’t pour it all down the internet drain.
  9. Check in with your Big Picture. Before you plop down on the couch tonight, read your mission statement, if you have one. Is watching TV every night part of what you’re here to do? If you were to die tomorrow, would this be the way to spend your last evening?
  10. Fake it ‘til you make it. Pretend for one evening that you are an exceptionally driven artist. Pretend that you are one of those women who aren’t tempted by TV and have a lot of energy. Pretend you don’t have a TV. Just try it. The results may be addicting — more addicting than the TV.
  11. Use your hands. If you’re going to be camping out on the couch for a while, you might as well do something creative with your hands. Try knitting, needlepoint, crochet, embroidery, etc. The physical movement of these activities is soothing. They’re not hard to learn; if you don’t yet know a needlecraft, you probably have a friend who would be happy to get you started.
  12. Create an ally. If you have a spouse or partner who is a serious TV watcher, he or she may feel abandoned if you suddenly start doing something else every night. Explain what you’re trying to do. So long as you aren’t abruptly and completely removing yourself from an established routine without any discussion, you may find more support for your creative interests than you’d anticipated. If not, keep at it. Over time, you’ll find a way to manage both needs.
For your reading enjoyment and/or a future reference, you can download a PDF layout of this post here.

Apr 18

4 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 18, 2011

“Wondering means it’s acceptable not to know. It is the natural state at the beginning of all creative acts, as recent brain research shows.” ~Gabrielle Rico

What creative work would you like to accomplish this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic task or a milestone to reach for. Share your goal(s) as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Suggestion: When you’re deciding on your creative intentions, it’s a good idea to think about WHEN you’re going to write those 2,000 words or paint that canvas. Try to schedule the time slots in your calendar (if you keep one), understanding that flexibility may be required. If things don’t happen when you wanted them to, that’s OK. Give yourself a gentle push with one hand, but pat yourself kindly on the shoulder with the other if you don’t reach your goal for a given week. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. Ride whatever you’ve got.

It’s also useful to have a sense of your minimum requirements (come hell or high water I’m going to write 100 words) while keeping a lookout for sudden opportunities to do more. You know, the day that the baby takes a monster nap or your partner takes the kids out to run errands and you find yourself with an unexpected “extra” half hour. Grab that time for yourself. You can catch up on the dishes and the laundry later. If you keep something creative in the back of your mind for those sudden opportunities, you’ll be more likely to use them to your advantage — rather than squandering your precious bonus moments on Facebook or vacuuming out the sofa cushions.

Apr 11

6 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 11, 2011

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”
~Anne Lamott

What creative work would you like to accomplish this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic task or a milestone to reach for. Share your goal(s) as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Suggestion: When you’re deciding on your creative intentions, it’s a good idea to think about WHEN you’re going to write those 2,000 words or paint that canvas. Try to schedule the time slots in your calendar (if you keep one), understanding that flexibility may be required. If things don’t happen when you wanted them to, that’s OK. Give yourself a gentle push with one hand, but pat yourself kindly on the shoulder with the other if you don’t reach your goal for a given week. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. Ride whatever you’ve got.

It’s also useful to have a sense of your minimum requirements (come hell or high water I’m going to write 100 words) while keeping a lookout for sudden opportunities to do more. You know, the day that the baby takes a monster nap or your partner takes the kids out to run errands and you find yourself with an unexpected “extra” half hour. Grab that time for yourself. You can catch up on the dishes and the laundry later. If you keep something creative in the back of your mind for those sudden opportunities, you’ll be more likely to use them to your advantage — rather than squandering your precious bonus moments on Facebook or vacuuming out the sofa cushions.

Apr 8

3 Comments

Miranda: Healthy Spring

It’s nearly 50 degrees outside right now, but it’s sunny and a few of my windows are open. This weekend is going to bring beautiful weather, and with it, our first real sigh of spring in New England. Our gift for putting up with a seemingly endless winter is the euphoric arrival of fair weather and the dream-like return of flora and fauna.

I believe that many of us who celebrate Easter without the religious emphasis see the holiday as a celebration of the new season. This year, I’m ahead of the game in Easter preparations — but things will be a little different this time around. In recent months I’ve gone hard-core in getting rid of the sugar and cheap carbs in my pantry and refrigerator. Yes, I *thought* my diet was healthy — vegetarian, largely organic, trying to reduce our dependence on anything that comes out of a box — but then I read Connie Bennett‘s Sugar Shock and Nancy Desjardin‘s The Sugar Free Lifestyle. I had read other books on sugar and its insidious, addictive properties before (and how many things we don’t think of as sugar act in a similar way) but this time I actually got it.

Fat is far less of a concern (especially for vegetarians) than sugar is. When shopping for organic yogurt for the kids, I now pick the brand with the fewest grams of sugar. I’m working toward getting them onto plain yogurt. I now make sure that the organic peanut butter I buy doesn’t have added sweetener. I will no longer buy potato chips, because they’re too much of a rush on the glycemic index without any protein or fiber to slow things down. I won’t even buy Annie’s organic products anymore if they aren’t whole-grain. That means whole-wheat mac & cheese and whole-wheat bunny crackers, which were an easy switch on my little guys. Now, when my kids eat fruit or whole-grain crackers, I make sure they have some nuts or something else with protein in it to reduce to effects of sugar on their tiny little systems. I don’t even prepare regular pasta for dinner anymore — it has to be whole grain. (Schar makes tasty whole-grain pasta that is also gluten-free — nice for me, as I don’t eat wheat at all. Not because I have celiac, but because I find that eating wheat products — even whole-grain wheat — induces strong food cravings that drive me crazy and destroy my mood. Other carbs that aren’t whole grain — like rice cakes made from white rice instead of brown, or potato puffs, pirate booty, etc. — also entice me to pig out and then crash.)

I’m not even buying or making cookies anymore. Do I sound like a mean mom? The only reason I’m getting away with this is that my oldest son is away at college (but trying to improve his diet anyway); the next oldest son, a junior in high school, doesn’t have a sweet tooth at all; my daughter, who is 15, has been right on board with me in improving our snacking habits; the little guys are happy with the occasional all-natural popsicle. OH, and I even stopped buying juice. Can you believe it? The little boys get organic juice boxes in their lunches, but other than that, it’s water (which we all love anyway) or soy milk (I’ll save my rant about soy for another time). I won’t even buy my kids gum since I learned from my friend Jane that even “natural” gum contains plastics — and regular gum contains truly awful chemicals that you don’t want your child putting in his or her mouth.

While I’m on the health rant here, I’ll note that I’ve also just given up caffeine. Now, if you know me, you know that I was an extremely devoted coffee fan. I have a Keurig one-cup brewer (which, OK, I absolutely adore except for the fact that the K-cups are not yet recyclable) and was enjoying at least 3 — sometimes 4 — large cups of coffee a day. Each with skim milk and two sugars. Any time I felt a little down or tired I’d hit the machine. But then I stumbled across some information that opened my eyes to the effects of caffeine — and that the data on caffeine being an appetite suppressant and/or metabolism booster is sketchy at best. If anything, caffeine may give you a short-term buzz that fends off hunger, but then you’re going to come off of that buzz and be more interested in food than you would have been if you’d skipped that cup of Joe in the first place — not to mention all the bad stress-like effects that caffeine wreaks on your body. So there I was, relying on caffeine to keep my cravings away, and I was actually shooting myself in the foot. (Speaking of feet, one of my motivations in altering my diet is that I broke my foot more than two months ago and it’s refusing to heal. I was hoping that removing the sugars, cheap carbs, and caffeine that tax that body — and replacing them with an emphasis on raw vegetables — would stoke my healing ability.)

Going off of caffeine was SO much easier with the help of Teeccino. I’d never had this herbal coffee before, and I LOVE it. (Thanks, Brenna!) Teecccino company, if you’re reading this, I will do ads for you for FREE. It’s all-natural and many varieties are largely organic. Totally caffeine-free. It doesn’t taste quite like coffee, but it satisfies in the way that coffee satisfies — and I only put a tiny bit of sugar in it (which I’m working on weaning off entirely). At the beginning, I blended regular coffee with Teeccino in increasingly smaller doses so I could ease off without the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. OMG, Teeccino has made such a huge difference for me — I have several flavors and can honestly say that I don’t think I’d be off caffeine without it. I still get that “ooooh, I’m having a treat” feeling that I used to get from coffee. (Bonus: I make my Teeccino using the reusable Keurig filter, so no more waste.)

I don’t know if it’s the drastic reduction in sugar and cheap carbs, the elimination of caffeine, or the raw green protein smoothies that I try to have every day, but my skin has never looked better and my energy has never been more abundant. I’m sleeping like a dead person and waking up refreshed. My creative bandwidth is unprecedented. Has all of this helped my broken foot? The next set of x-rays is scheduled for the end of next week, so we’ll see.

So, all of this goes to say that I couldn’t bring myself to load the kids up with tons of Easter candy this year. All that sugar, all that artificial food coloring and chemicals — ugh. It’s just not good for them, and will be a real shock to their bodies after eating so well for the past few months. And I don’t want to have it around to tempt *me* either. We can’t go cold turkey, as that would be a little unfair, but I drastically reduced the amount of candy that the Easter Bunny will be hiding, and the kids’ Easter baskets (even the teenagers still get them), with the exception of a chocolate bunny in each, are filled entirely will non-food items. That was actually fun. But in order to transition in way that’s satisfying for everyone, we need to develop some new traditions. I want to focus on creativity, health, family, and the new season.

If you celebrate Easter, what are your favorite non-food treats? Do you have any Easter crafts — in addition to the can’t-miss annual egg-dyeing — that have become traditions? I’d love your ideas and inspiration!

Apr 6

Our new e-course listings!

In case you missed the news on Facebook, Studio Mothers now has an ongoing e-course listing. (See the new tab above.) There’s so much great stuff happening on the web — now you have an overview tool for making sure you don’t miss anything that really appeals. This list includes e-courses and e-books on creativity and creative living that are especially relevant to creative mothers.

We’ll be regularly updating this listing — so please don’t be shy about letting us know about an online course you loved or your own upcoming class. Just send the info in an e-mail to creativereality (at) live.com.

Enjoy!

Apr 4

6 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 4, 2011

Monday Post“All who are creative, in whatever way, are doing something very important to the well-being of the world.”
~Sandra Chantry

What creative work would you like to accomplish this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic task or a milestone to reach for. Share your goal(s) as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Suggestion: When you’re deciding on your creative intentions, it’s a good idea to think about WHEN you’re going to write those 2,000 words or paint that canvas. Try to schedule the time slots in your calendar (if you keep one), understanding that flexibility may be required. If things don’t happen when you wanted them to, that’s OK. Give yourself a gentle push with one hand, but pat yourself kindly on the shoulder with the other if you don’t reach your goal for a given week. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. Ride whatever you’ve got.

It’s also useful to have a sense of your minimum requirements (come hell or high water I’m going to write 100 words) while keeping a lookout for sudden opportunities to do more. You know, the day that the baby takes a monster nap or your partner takes the kids out to run errands and you find yourself with an unexpected “extra” half hour. Grab that time for yourself. You can catch up on the dishes and the laundry later. If you keep something creative in the back of your mind for those sudden opportunities, you’ll be more likely to use them to your advantage — rather than squandering your precious bonus moments on Facebook or vacuuming out the sofa cushions.

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