Kindling

On Publishing "Girl U Want," a short fantasy

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 20:53:00 +0000

I have a new short fantasy out in Dappled Things. (In print only, and selling fast.)

I had such fun writing, "Girl U Want," because of the interesting bits that wended their way into the tale: Craigslist, single motherhood, Devo, church, job interviews, and the novel, Watership Down.

Reflecting how the character of Fiver hopped into the background of this story, I found a wonderful current conversation of Watership Down at Mythgard Academy. I am enjoying it very much!

Here's to the mysterious intersection of faith and magic and all the ways life may become infused with wonder.

Winter in Summer / Summer in Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 21:04:00 +0000

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer."

—Albert Camus

It's searing hot in the Willamette Valley!

I love the above quote, and it works the other way, too. A respite from our circumstances can be found within: summer in winter; winter in summer.

One sweltering August, pregnant with my first child, I took to singing Christmas songs. Belting out, "Let it Snow" helped me feel cooler, mentally, and somehow physically. (Who knew my daughter would be singing to me Christmas songs in choirs for years to come?)

Wildfire Writer Ken Robinson brings a wry, poignant quality to his stories and poems, and he, too, has been cooling down this summer by visiting a chilly season of the soul. Which is to say, we poets can use it all: the happy, the sorrowful, the rainstorm, the heat wave.

Wintry Mix / Ken Robinson

The winter drags on.

The furnace is broken,

the landlord is hiding,

no one can find him.

I forgot to buy coffee.

Now my car won’t start.

Only yesterday, my cat up and died,

and when I dug his grave,

a water pipe burst.

Picture frames are falling,

the carpet is receding,

revealing floorboards that are rotted.

This morning, I cut myself shaving,

and now I am bleeding.

If that’s not enough,

my favorite lamp just burned out.

And last night you left me,

this time forever,

as I lay sleeping.

So here I sit, all alone in the dark.

Outside my window, a willow tree is weeping,

renegade storm clouds flirt, slow dance,

and become as one,

and the rain falls like tears,

sounding a relentless pitter-patter.

A lone mockingbird complains,

but none of this really matters,

for the sky is alive,

as am I.

The photo is Portland's Council Crest in winter, by Christi Krug

Cutting to the Chase: Editing Dialogue in Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 02:01:00 +0000

Oh dialogue. It can be scary the first time you take it on. This is the case whether you're writing fiction, nonfiction, or memoir.

When I look over my work from previous decades, I find the dialogue is what needs the most help.

Usually, I've said too much, added hems and haws, or included information it wasn't natural to include.

Dialogue takes on a true-to-life sound when we break it up and keep it brief.

We tend not to use complete sentences when we speak, and most of us don't explain things at length—in fiction these become "info dumps."

Things to remember when writing dialogue:

Avoid complete sentences. Leave off the first word. How different "Miss you," can sound versus, "I miss you," but it lands in an interesting way, off the cuff.

Don't worry about substituting fancy words for "said." That can be distracting or annoying. This word, said, is said to be pretty much invisible. You can mix it up now and then, but don't struggle with different verbs here. Try taking out the attribution altogether. Change paragraphs when a new speaker begins.

If it's not natural for the characters to provide certain information, ask: does the reader *really* need to know this? How can I get the information across in other ways?

Remember you're simulating natural speech. Fiction is not truth. (Memoir isn't even truth.) You don't have to include every word you normally would. Think of your favorite movie—now imagine a scene with a phone call. How often do you hear, "Hello?" and "Goodbye"? These things are implied, but clipped out—and our minds supply the niceties and fill in the chinks. Let the reader's mind fill things in, but don't belabor the back-and-forth of everyday exchanges.

To make it snappy, cut words. Then go through and cut it again. Chances are, it still makes sense. If not, see below.

Use body language, tone of voice, and gestures to show the emotion conveyed in these your brief snippets. Follow the glances. Show the eye contact or lack thereof.

Use your character's breath. Pause the dialogue, and add she said where she would take a breath. If a run-on sentence, make it really a run-on sentence, to show character or emotion, but do this sparingly. She's gotta breathe sometime!

Make every character's voice their own. Know your characters, and what's special and different about how each one speaks.

Let your characters say what they need to say, but don't let words clutter the page. Make sure every word counts, means something, is placed, by you, with care. You are the master puppeteer, using exactly the language needed to tell the story.

Below is a snippet of mine, about 15 years old. Out of curiosity, I'm seeing how many words I can delete from these few lines of dialogue. And I'm adding some actions and gestures that fill in the emotions, as you can see. (In yellow.) Also, when the action happens right next to the dialogue, you don't need to say who is speaking. (It's most clear for the reader when you have one speaker per paragraph.)

They talked, hushed. Mom’s voice was choked. ~~with tears and panic, said, “I don’t know.~~”

Grand sounded far away. “~~Have you~~ Been taking your medicine?”

Aunt Beryl ~~said,~~ shook her head.“~~She~~ Needs professional help.”

Grand ~~said~~ studied the tablecloth. “~~She probably~~ Got her dosage wrong. She’ll perk up.”

“~~No,” said~~ Aunt Beryl threw her hands up. “This is a real crisis.” She said something I couldn’t catch, and then, “Hensington Mental Hospital.”

“~~I hate~~ That place,” moaned Mom.

Take a few lines of dialogue you've written, and trim. Read aloud to someone. And repeat! You are offering the experience of a real conversation, but it's art, and it's yours!

Feel the joy of that!

Magic Objects: Revealing the Messages in Story and Life

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 20:59:00 +0000

One of the many things I learned from Joanna Rose and Stevan Allred, my writing teachers at Portland's Pinewood Table, was to pay attention to "magic objects."

Things will show up in your story. A sewing kit. A flashlight. A bottle of Woolite fabric wash.

When you realize these are more than random objects, you can let them have magic powers, as it were. They call up emotions, and become alive with power.

My memoir narrator, a six-year-old kid, senses the presence of her disabled mother when she smells the sweet-starchy scent of Woolite. That bottle comes to stand for so many things: fragility, tenderness, ineptness. Poverty, because they don't own a washing machine. Care, because of the hand-washing. Loss. That bottle was so often empty.

What's gorgeous about magic objects is that they appear 1) in your stories and 2) in your life.

Especially when you are going through transitions, note the things that keep showing up - when you walk, when you wash dishes, when you get in your car.

First, look for the magic objects. Choose one. Take walks with it, and sit with it, and sing to it, and really listen. Notice what it is saying to you.

You could put it on the dash of your car, on your kitchen counter, at your bedside.

Let magic have its way.

Your story and your life are not complete without it.

Dream of a Midsummer: A Midsummer Night's Dream at Portland Center Stage

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 20:28:00 +0000

Notes to self after seeing A Midsummer Night's Dream at Portland Center Stage.

If I hadn't seen this play, would I be making my current story a love story, and changing the hero from male to non-binary?

If I hadn't seen this play, would I have stayed home on the third evening of summer, and recycled my own boring thoughts?

Would I have laughed myself silly, smiled until my face hurt, or giggled with a weird combination of wonder, embarrassment, shock, admiration, delight, and surprise?

If I hadn't seen this play, would I have connected so dearly, in such deep harmony, with my queer friend who came with me?

If I hadn't seen this play, would I have thought about the era four hundred years ago, when males played female parts in Shakespeare's plays? Or how, when you scratch the surface, so many of Shakespeare's characters are gender fluid?

If I hadn't seen this play, would I have appreciated the glorious fragility and adorability of humankind?

The answers are: no, yes, no, no, no, no.

If you can, get to Portland Center Stage this weekend! It's your last chance for a YES of an experience!

*Both photo credits: Tamera Lyn for Portland Center Stage

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 18:11:00 +0000

A Flash of Flash Fiction

Rifling through notebooks and journals, I find short bursts of writing. Sometimes they turn into flash fictions that find publication, like my piece forthcoming in a Brain Mill Press anthology. But even if they don't find a published home, bursts, or "wildwrites" are great practice.

Wildwriting gets you into that beautiful creative zone where things happen. It's exhilarating, spontaneous, sometimes meditative, fulfilling. Regardless of the product. Sometimes it's goofy, sometimes intense. Thing, is you need to go to a place where creating nurtures you, mentally, but maybe even physically. Go there, often.

Here's a playful wildwrite I did a few years ago (three, but if feels like one with the pandemic effect), writing in a virtual class co-led by myself and wilderness guide and author John Colver.

PROPELLED

John was sitting on a picnic bench in the park when he realized writers had descended upon him. It began with the thundering of a helicopter overhead in stark relief against the snow-peaked mountain; then as blades whirred, Melanie, Julie, Sally and Christi descended the ladder with military speed and landed with successive thuds beside him. "There's nothing like a wildfire to serve as a propeller of daily practice," said Christi, feeling like an infomercial. She spit out several feathers, realizing the horrible collision that had just taken place . . . as bits of golden eagle soared like confetti in the sky.

"I think we've got enough writing material," said Julie, looking down at her singed military fatigues, one pocket still flicking with black and gold embers.

"Lemme at that insane chopper pilot," burst out John.

Sally folded her arms. "If we're not going to start, I'll grab one of these books here," she said, turning to the picnic table stack. Melanie wore an unreadable expression.

Somewhere off in the fields, a child shrieked with joy chasing a butterfly. She was joined by two more kids, eons away from classrooms. Summer promised two and a half more weeks, but days were turning like pages with a fierce ripping sound, each flipping into the next.

John was oblivious to all of this, buried in his own notebook, wondering how the team would be of help now.

Christi was still spitting feathers, trying to decide whether to feel guilty and mentally searching a desk drawer for her Sierra Club Hike Leader Certificate. Where was that card? Would they still want her if they knew about her run-in with the eagle? That's what happens when you race to write, she thought.

Even writing can be destructive when one tumbles pell-mell from a chopper. Those boisterous kids probably knew. God, she hoped they didn't find her out.

Compelling Questions for Writing Fantasy and Horror

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 21:18:00 +0000


As A Writer, Ask Questions, then Imagine

Sometimes the most important thing we can do as writers is to ask a question.

I love asking questions when I read authors, especially when they stimulate my imagination and the questions lead to more questions!

Recently, I started reading H.P. Lovecraft, and although his name wasn’t new to me, I’m grateful to the young author whose interest in his stories led me to take a closer look. (Thank you, M!)

I find the 1900s racism of Lovecraft to be blatant and frustrating, but when I look beyond that, there's a vivid and striking imagination that leads to compelling possibilities.

Here are some elements to apply to your fantasy and horror story beginnings, gleaned from reading Lovecraft. See how many you can weave into your fantasy or horror story, prodding the reader to ask more questions.

Artifacts are key. Is there an artifact in your story? Where was it found? Or, where is it believed to be hidden? What lore or myths surround the artifact?

A corpse, mummy, or preserved body is as an irresistible artifact. Also, if there are remote villagers who tell stories of the above, even better.

A scream, “off camera,” that curdles the blood, will tempt and terrorize us into wanting to know what happens next. Who is the screamer in your story?

Is there a rancid smell? Where does it emanate from? What is it redolent of?

Are there inhuman sounds associated with your story? Creaks, rattles, groans? What? From where?

Is there a family resemblance, of your protagonist, to a long ago eccentric? What is the facial or physical feature, and to whom is the resemblance? Perhaps a great-great-great-something or other? How is it discovered? Does a portrait hang on the wall, or is there a piece of jewelry or other item that has been passed down?

What rumors surround the people, places, and artifacts that seem to have mystical powers, magic, or curses associated with them? Who tells these rumors?

What other elements are you finding in favorite stories, movies, or books that you could bring into your own work, as you craft your mind-tingling tale?

Protect Your Morning! Protect Your Brain!

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 19:24:00 +0000

In Cal Newport's Deep Work*, we read about the importance of protecting the time we spend in focused work, allowing creative accomplishment otherwise impossible. The Hidden Brain podcast introduced me to his work.

This book has inspired and supported me in my goals of completing fiction and nonfiction.

Right now, the principles are immensely helpful as I write thirty poems in thirty days for the poetry marathon that is the 30/30 Project, raising funds for Tupelo Press.

Technology entices, especially during the pandemic. Without social media connections and the little zings of conversation, life can feel like a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough in which someone left out the sugar, as well as the chocolate chips.

What I'm saying, what we don't hear enough, is that foregoing the thrill of online connections is hard.

And so I try to create tech-free times: an hour or two in the morning, and on Sundays, a phone-free Sabbath. The morning feels especially powerful: it happens every single day. After I'm awake, I have a smooth, fresh, inviting playfield like the sandy beach I get to walk near my Oregon Coast home. It is a beautiful thing to make footprints in newly-minted, barren sand.

Is your morning protected, nurturing? Or is it trafficked every which way with all sizes and shapes of passersby?

From time to time (yesterday, Day One of the marathon) I notice that I am not getting anything accomplished in the day, basically. An honest assessment means usually admitting that my social media addiction is playing a role. As one of my favorite Wildfire Writers, Jessica Slatten says, "It's faux work. It makes you look busy, but you're not really accomplishing anything."

It helps me to review Deep Work, or Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, or to listen to other sage reminders of what technology is doing to my brain. I am not going off grid anytime soon, though. I must balance my Party Girl with my Monk, my social butterfly-ing with my silent, aloof ascetic.

I can't ignore the struggle. I can't go numb to it, or enter a sweet denial in which I blissfully hum along, texting, posting, giggling, meeting interruption a hundred times a day and pretending I don't really care whether or not I complete my writing projects.

I invite you to think critically about the role technology is playing in your life, and in your time. What could you accomplish if you didn't have to constantly tend to it, like a puppy in your lap at all hours of the day? I challenge you to challenge yourself, and set some limits, and find out how you can change your brain to one that pays deep attention to your most powerful goals.

*The audiobook version pictured lists different authors.

Extra! Extra! Sensory! You've Got More Than Five Senses!

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 26 May 2020 22:16:00 +0000

For twenty years, I've been pressing writing students, "Use the five senses!"

It's a simple formula that transforms your writing. Scenes, stories, poems–they all come alive when you invite us to breathe, smell, taste with you. Senses on every page are a brilliant way to vivify fiction and nonfiction alike.

But now I'm behind the times. Scientists have uncovered far more than five senses in the human repertoire. Your sense of balance, for instance. Write about a dizzying feeling! It can belong to you, or to one of your characters on the page. The fancy word is equilibrioception.

Another sense, which can make any story compelling, is that of hunger. How would you describe the gnawing, yawning, empty, or growling feeling of a belly asking for food?

A third sense is thermoception, which is the ability to detect heat. What is the sensation of trudging through a desert landscape, or simmering alongside a summertime pool? By the same token, we can feel cold within our bodies, from our chest to our toes, to the tips of our ears; or we can sense a chill that comes from the outside.

Another interesting sense is proprioception. This is feeling where you are in space, and includes the giddy feeling standing on a twentieth floor balcony, or the precariousness of walking a tightrope.

Wake up to your senses - they are legion, and they fill each human moment with possibility! For more, check out Wisegeek.

Letter from the 9-Year-Old Boy on the Bus

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 01:07:00 +0000

Some time ago, when I had to commute for work, I met this kid.

He sat in the back of the bus with a somber expression.

He burnished a Moleskine notebook in his long, thin fingers. He chewed on the eraser end of a pencil.

He spent most of the time writing and looking out the window.

Every now and then he would say something, usually something that made me think.

Currently, with the state of the world, I'm not riding the bus. So I was beyond thrilled to get a letter from him in the mail. We've been corresponding since then.

Every philosopher needs an audience, I guess. So I'm passing along excerpts from the 9-year-old boy on the bus.

Dear Lady Who Carries A Backpack:

Glad you're staying home and mostley happy. But you don't always have to be happy. Some people think emotions can only do one thing at a time.

It’s not true. My emotions can usually do five things at a time, with a sixth emotion doing double time.

Most people who survive awful things are the funniest people you ever met in your life.

Aunt Rosabun, she juggles spatulas between flipping three pans of pancakes, but she lived in an orphanadge once. And my bus driver had his teeth knocked out when he was 9 but his new teeth lasted him all the way to 74, which is now, and he was voted Most Handsome Smile by all the girls at Klamath Falls High School.

Anyway, emotions are interesting if you’re the kind of person who invents things in the kitchen.

Today I found out, too much apple juice in chocolate peanut butter cookies doesn’t work--

IT’S TOO STICKY--but a little is just right.

What I love is mixing sticky and fruity plus crunchy or sour. Plus the dark, heavy feelings. And sprinkle the thin, shredded ones on top. Sometimes you’re in the mood for grainy ones. That can be good, too, if you like nutrition.

You have to be careful not overmixing.

Also, your oven has to be hot.

Also, maybe your emotional taste buds aren’t ready. They have to get mature. You might have to wait to grow up some.

Yours,

Nine

P.S. It snowed right after we got sent home. How weird and cool is that? We'd never be able to make a snowman if we couldn't freeze our fingers off and laugh at the same time.

Dabbling, Dead or Alive: Kodachrome

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 19:43:00 +0000

As a fan of all things Portland Center Stage, I loved hearing "Kodachrome" had its beginnings in 2015 at JAW, an annual festival of staged readings where unknown playwrights have a chance to show their work - to move, perhaps from dabbling to official.

"If the casual is made official, would it stop the rest of us from dabbling?" That's the question asked by Suzanne (Lena Kaminsky), who photographs everyone in her small town, capturing events large and small. When the Young Man (Ryan Tresser) proposes to the Young Woman (Kelly Godell), it's a sketchy moment - we're not sure if they'll make it out alive. Suzanne photographs this drama gone comically awry. Next she introduces us to the hardware store owner, librarian, history professor, mystery novelist, florist, perfume maker, waitress, and policeman.

Everyone has a story, and Suzanne is amused, bemused, yet removed somehow. She recounts how the Young Woman wrestles with ambivalence over her engagement. "It gets eerily quiet as the young woman has eight separate feelings."

I love the hilarity and truth of that. How does a human being process multiple feelings all at once? How do we sort out how to love and create in this world when we want so many conflicting things?

"Sometimes I can't tell the difference between what I want, and what I think I should want," says the mystery novelist.

Dabbling - making something without too much care for the outcome - gives us a chance to discover what we truly want, a chance to experiment. When we're creating, we can inhale, get to know our relationship with the subject matter - a story or play we're writing, a flower bouquet we're arranging, or perhaps a space we're brightening with the change of a light bulb. Dabbling can help us in everything we're doing, without needing the finality of black and white. We can allow full color. We can allow the full spectrum of emotion.

In the background is my favorite character, Earl, an unassuming grave digger (Ryan Tresser) who seems rather slow - but who sees more than anyone else in town. The reason for this? He can see dead people.

Earl and Suzanne have a chat one day, and it dawns on us why she seems so removed from her world. She's dead.

Even so, she's having a hard time letting go. With every picture she takes, she's dabbling - processing the life she's left behind. She asks questions. "Why is the goal happiness?"

Meanwhile, Suzanne's widower, the hardware store owner, goes about his days, empty and broken.

As a creator, even dead, this photographer has to allow all her human emotions and experiences. She can't pretend she's ready for the next thing when she isn't.

Everything comes to a standstill, and even the quirky, adorable Earl has to face heartbreak. And then there's the moment Suzanne says, "I'm feeling five distinct feelings. One . . . two . . . three . . . ."

This allowing, this dabbling, this feeling - it can move you out of stuckness into something rare and new.

The hardware store owner says he's forgotten how to be alive.

He's given sound advice, what you might tell someone who has forgotten how to dabble: "You'll pick it back up."

Photos by Patrick Weishampel

Creativity, Loss, White Christmas, Irving Berlin, and You

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 02:09:00 +0000

Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin offers warmth, inspiration, and the chance to lift one's own voice—wonderful things to cultivate over the holiday season.

I now have a history to connect with the plethora of charming songs written by this unlikely creative hero—and I want to watch those old movies and sing along.

Irving Berlin, a Jewish immigrant, survived a traumatic, impoverished childhood, exhausted a sixth grade education, and created all of his 1200-plus songs at the piano. “Annie Get Your Gun,” and “Cheek to Cheek” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” have all the pluck and humor and resilience of their author.

Hershey Felder, inhabiting the role, is a wonder. He embodies the above characteristics all while performing Berlin’s music masterfully.

This Portland Center Stage world premier drew me into Berlin’s life, the bittersweet memories of his family, and his idiosyncrasies. Most of all, though, I absorbed the sadness of all the goodbyes said over his lifetime. A simple, sweet song like “What’ll I do?” reveals a hard, heartbreaking question.

What do I do when I have to say goodbye? What do I do when I feel alone?

Recently, goodbyes have been weighing on my heart. I witness Berlin finding his way despite his own untimely losses.

When the love of his life dies, a friend urges him to write a song about it, but Berlin resists. All he has ever done is write breezy stuff. “What it’s not going to do is make it any worse,” admonishes his friend.

It’s true. Creating in grief doesn’t salt the wound; it helps us own and live and grow through the experience. For this reason, my daily journal, my creative walks, and my poetry have become my dearest companions in loss.

Berlin, too, came to understand that creating was his ally, and this new “serious” songwriting paved the way for something entirely new and beautiful in his career. Those songs of his that we know best touch the deepest, most poignant places of loss.

“I don’t like being alone,” Berlin says. “What a song does is never leave you alone.”

In our creating, in our singing, we find a witness to all our grief. When we pick up the pen or the paintbrush or sit at the piano, we gather hope and sweetness even in the dead of winter; we stumble upon our own “Russian Lullaby,” our forever “White Christmas,” our beautiful, impossible “Always.”

Photo credits: Patrick Weishampel

Do Hard Things: Hold These Truths

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 23:07:00 +0000

No clear impressions, either from above or without, can be received by a mind turbid with excitement and agitated by a crowd of distractions. [S]tillness (is) needed for the clear shining of light within . . . .

--Caroline Stephen, 1834-1909

The play, "Hold These Truths," at Portland Center Stage, found me in a state of distraction.

I took my seat grateful for the company of the friend who had joined me. Deep down, though, I was nursing disappointment because of the friend who had cancelled at the last minute. I was prickling with shame about the ambivalent way I was handling an important, long-time relationship. I was worried about my car in the shop. And on top of everything, I was coming down with a cold, dammit.

What I didn't want was to confront these feelings. I found a blanket of Numb, and pulled it over my heart.

Even so, there was a welcoming vibe in Portland Center Stage's downstairs theater, the Ellen Bye Studio. Ryun Yu took the stage with a wonderful, engaging presence, and soon I was caught up in the true story of Gordon Hirabayashi.

Yu starts by bringing Gordon's parents to life for us. Japan-born, they have learned to get by in a world of discrimination. There's his down-to-earth father, saying, "The nail that sticks out is the one that gets hit." There's his fussy mother, urging him down a Seattle street after a man yells, "Get out of my country, you f--ing Japs."

We watch Gordon's transformation from a meek, rule-following boy, into a University of Washington student grappling with government orders to shove him and his family off to a concentration camp, which is indeed what these prisons were called. He reads and re-reads the Constitution's promise of "life, liberty, and property."

Then he sneezes.

Ryun's got a cold, I realized. He didn't skip a beat, but made this a graceful part of his performance, even as he had to wipe his nose on his sleeve. It was fitting.

Gordon takes up a political battle which is all about that nail getting hit, again, and again. He is misunderstood, even by his family. He is imprisoned and alone.

It breaks your heart, especially when you know that his efforts as a single person wouldn't change the course of history. More than 120,000 Japanese Americans - U.S. citizens as well as foreign born - were kept behind barbed wire in compounds for the duration of World War II.

Meanwhile, all the ads of that era show rosy-cheeked, white Americans sitting around their tables with their flowered centerpieces, happily making sacrifices for the war effort: giving up butter or sugar.

I think about my own childhood as a white kid in Seattle, and my shock when I moved to a neighborhood where all the other kids were white, too, and my complete ignorance of this historical event until decades later. Nobody talked about what we did to the Japanese.

Give us our blanket of Numb.

The show is peppered with audio bits, including evacuation orders. It was surreal to hear the names of familiar childhood streets and locations: Yessler Way . . . King County . . . Bainbridge Island . . . Puyallup. Within these boundaries, lives and livelihoods were stolen as longstanding community members became outsiders. Homes were ransacked and repossessed. I grew up knowing those places, but I never knew of this horror.

It made me think about Hard Things.

What power there is when a human being can give up comforts, care, and approval because of who he is, because of his own, unwavering belief in what is right.

How weak I am in light of that.

The play underscores Gordon's Quaker beliefs, and how they centered him during this turmoil. "Before we soar to a great height, we often plumb great depths," Gordon tells us.

I don't even want to face my feelings. Yet here was someone who was locked away, abused, discriminated against, who felt cold and hunger and darkness and disapproval and . . . who chose this battle.

Plus he probably had a cold.

Seth Godin talks about laziness versus emotional labor. Being too lazy to feel doesn't expand me as a human, and ultimately, it doesn't make me happy.

A meaningful life isn't about getting what I want. I have no control of the outcome of so many things, including the behavior of others, individuals or whole nations. What I can do, what I might do, is learn to be a little less numb.

Maybe I can be uncomfortable.

Maybe I can turn off my computer, my distractions, my noise, and find the stillness within myself, sitting with hard decisions and frustrations.

Maybe.

Photo credits: Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv.

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 19:58:00 +0000

How to Connect with Your True Nature

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 19:58:00 +0000

One of the best feelings is when a friend recognizes your true nature - through a glance, a compliment, a gift, or a photograph - letting you know you are truly seen.

A dear friend snapped the above photo, and I realized afterward that I am completely and utterly myself here, no pretenses. This shot feels like a window into the "real me."

Our creativity needs us to know and recognize our true selves.

When are you most authentic? What is it you are really about? With whom do you let your hair down?

Where do you recognize your true nature?

I take nature breaks every week, spending time in the beauty and silence of Creation. In the past year I've climbed and explored mountains, followed abandoned trails, crept behind waterfalls, paused inside of caves, scrabbled up rocky hillsides, pitched my tent in snow or along the beach.

Last month, I backpacked 70 miles of the Lost Coast of California, where Highway 101 was diverted from the rugged coastline, allowing pristine wilderness to remain. It is a place without cars or Starbucks shops, where pelicans fly with their wonderful wing-heaving grace, where, day by day, Redwoods add years to their centuries-old lives.

It was yet another reminder that being in nature helps me nourish and understand my nature and deepens my creativity. Indeed, I'm interconnected with the natural world.

I believe, in fact, that we all are. And I believe that nature adventures can enrich and inspire and heal us.

I've just begun a wonderful collaboration with Michelle Fox, owner of TreeSong, a nature awareness and retreat center at the edge of the Columbia Gorge in Washington State. We'll be bringing you creative offerings that will nourish your writing life as well as your inner and outer nature.

I can't wait to bring you along this trail with me! Together we'll see who we really are.

I'd love to share Lost Coast photos with you.

Building Creativity, Creatively

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 19:07:00 +0000

We tend to think we need everything just right in order to do that special thing: to pick up that paintbrush or take that dance class, or especially, to write that novel, story, or poem.

In these first weeks of fall, we may feel like putting off writing until after the kids are settled in school, after we've recovered from that first seasonal cold, or after we've adjusted to our new commute.

Forever waiting for the "right" time and conditions, we're succumbing to the illusion that these conditions will exist, ever. If we're going to do the work we truly want to do, we must give it priority now regardless of what is happening in our world.

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

Train yourself to write despite less than ideal circumstances. You can:

Write in the parked car waiting for a kid to be done with a guitar lesson.

Write during a wait in the doctor’s office.

Write while on hold (&@%$*!) with customer service.

Write in yoga class.

Write while taking a walk. (Use a recorder app.)

Write in the grocery store line.

What should you write if you can’t think of anything? Just make a couple of notes about the story you would write if you had more time. As you pen those thoughts and ideas, you just might find yourself writing the actual story.

______________________________________________

What conditions are you waiting for before you'll write or create? (Smoother schedule, fewer disruptions, more time, better health, more stability, etc.)

How can you creatively find a way around your less-than-ideal conditions?

Can you view your current "interruption" or challenge as your main creative path right now?

In what ways can you apply your boundless creativity and imagination to this situation?

The Refuge of Art: The Pianist of Willesden Lane

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:40:00 +0000

I've been stunned wordless by this Portland Center Stage show, thinking for days about artists and heroes, miracles and music, and the courage to rise above unfathomable cruelty.

When Mona Golabek stepped onto the Main Stage looking ordinary in her sensible shoes and black skirt with a pucker at the back zipper, I was unfazed. Her attire was nondescript (read: frumpy), and she was brown-haired and middle aged (read: just like me), playing the part of a simple Viennese girl. How was she going to hold her audience with this one-person show?

I could never have imagined that in the span of ninety minutes I would be spellbound, moved to tears, burning to dance, and awed into hero worship.

Mona Golabek is not only a performer, musician, writer, and actor, she is heiress to a legacy of courage.

Golabek brings to life the character of Lisa Jura, her own mother, the Holocaust survivor and inspiration behind the story, doing so while performing concerto after concerto. Golabek crafts a wonderful human experience, flowing from story to song and back again.

I know little about classical music. I recognize the works but can't match composers with titles. As I watched, I felt lazy-minded and undisciplined in light of the story of this young pianist whose knowledge, dedication, and hard work were phenomenal.

Because practice is key. In order to create art that changes the world, we have to be willing to dedicate ourselves to the hard work, the boring stuff, the tedious parts. We have to see beyond the day-to-day exercises into a world that may be.

In the case of Lisa Jura, her world was falling apart. Though she practiced with extreme care every day, the Nazi regime invaded her beloved city and denied her the right to continue piano lessons.

Yet her commitment to music opened a door to ride the Kindertransport, the railway that operated for less than a year, rescuing 10,000 children from Nazi-occupied territory. We glimpse the horrors of this time in footage shown on the ingeniously-designed screens, set in ornate frames as portraits on a wall.

The images wreck your heart.

Lisa Jura plays piano, note after note, night after night, using every available resource to keep her skill alive while making her temporary home in a London hostel. When bombs crash all around, the others flee to the bomb shelter. Lisa stays at the keys.

"I couldn't listen anymore," says Lisa at the piano, "so I escaped to the only safe place that I knew."

In the end, what we take away from art is not how perfectly we have honed our craft. Art itself becomes a refuge for us.

And Claire de Lune steps lightly, trilling, haunting and holding us, too. The Pianist of Willesden Lane takes us all to this place of safety.

Photo credits: Patrick Weishampel

How to Live, Unwritten

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 20:10:00 +0000

I've been thinking of the paradox of newness. Every day is new, and a new year is sparkly and exciting and Possible. And yet, not.

We mark days and years with our calendars, naming the movement of the planet. And yet our lives begin with awareness and continue in a seamless way, unbroken by calendar pages except in our imagination.

We can always start over. (And we can always let go of having to start over.)

The most important way to be new is to be open. In our thoughts. In our doings. To be receptive to what comes. To allow ourselves to be unwritten.

"Only the unwritten can truly live a life." --David James Duncan

This means letting go of what we thought, wrote, or created yesterday, and taking life as it is right now.

Controlling Your Image vs. Giving What You Have

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 20:19:00 +0000

"Control what others see."

Isn't this what I'm always trying to do?

Google knows.

More and more, I'm disgusted with my efforts at controlling what others see. Do I want to live a life aimed to please, impress, sell, and satisfy? Is my artist soul about how others view me?

The problem with image control is that I can start believing my own press, shaping and tending my image, and thereby losing touch with my interior self.

It doesn't sound like it could happen so easily, but for me, it does. I must return and return again to my own inner validation, shucking off both the compliments and the complaints, and worst of all, the crickets. Whether my audience likes me or doesn't like me, or whether I'm seen or heard, is not what fuels me in the creative life, in the spiritual life, or in any true sense of accomplishment.

Working with writers and artists as clients and students, I've met many who need to lay aside the concern and effort knotted into image-making. The sensitive and caring seem most affected. These are the ones who habitually notice others' needs and emotions.

When we create an image for people, we gain the toxin of personal confusion.

When the image takes in a lot of people, we call the image "fame." Filmmaker Mike Meyers told interviewer Terry Gross he sees fame this way:

"It's the industrial disease of creativity. You want to make stuff, which is fantastic, and then this thing happens, which is very gratifying and I'm very grateful for it, but it does require a hazmat suit, a psychic hazmat suit."

I'm not even famous*, but there's something in me that wants to be. My tiny fame is enough to make me jumpy and sensitized and noticing. Google wants to help. (Aw, that's so sweet, Google!)

Yet this disease and the need for protection affects the unfamous and the unpublished just as much as those who are well known. The idea is, I have to make the whole world love me, because if I do, I will truly be lovable, not to mention happy.

This idea is a lie.

There is no joy or love in controlling my image, garnering fame, or manipulating a particular response - from one person or ten thousand.

The juiciest creativity pops, the happiest life unfolds, when I abandon control. This is the magic of focusing on what wants to be delivered into the world, sent straight from a pure and carefree heart.

Sign says "Changing House." Change before you plunge.

When it comes to validation, as a creator or a writer, what you need most is to trust your own authority.

Join me as a guest speaker at Vancouver Community Library, where I'll be giving the talk, "You're the Authority," on Sunday, January 31 at 1 pm. This is part of "National Unpublished Writers Day" a celebration that recognizes and supports writers - regardless of publishing status.

"National Unpublished Writers Day" at Vancouver Community Library will also feature host Christopher Luna, novelists Mel Sanders and April Bullard, and poet Toni Partington - four luminaries who have learned that giving from their hearts is much more powerful than trying to control their image.

In the meantime, I'll be wearing my Tiny Fame Hazmat Suit.

*This is the kind of famous that makes the most sense.

Forbidden Words, or, How I Kept Sane in Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 20:28:00 +0000

A week ago, I emerged from a 12-day silent retreat. No, not a retreat. It was not relaxing, restful, or a getaway. It was a death march into deep silence, and I don't recommend it. Not unless you are a glutton for excruciating experiences which just might change you forever.

Giving up speaking was tough, but not as tough as giving up the written word. There was no reading, no writing, no journaling, for 11 days.

Three weeks earlier, I was navigating emotional upheaval during an intense yoga teacher training. My number one support had been my notebook. Two notebooks, in fact.

My notebooks in yoga teacher training.

Now, I would have no access to my words, no way to process on paper what was going on.

I expected to feel like Harriet the Spy.

She found that when she didn't have a notebook it was hard for her to think. The thoughts came slowly, as though they had to squeeze through a tiny door to get to her, whereas when she wrote, they flowed out faster than she could put them down. She sat very stupidly with a blank mind until finally "I feel different" came slowly into her head. --from Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh

I figured it would kill me.

Later I realized that was the point.

It is in dying that we find renewal, that we truly connect to the creative force. When a part of ourselves is buried, even for a little while, seedlings of understanding take root. When we who do word-work set those words aside, surprises happen.

One thought that poked above the soil was this: that I will always create, that it is more than a thing I do, it is nature, my work: to birth that innate creativity in self and others. Well, okay, I knew that. But now I knew it anew. I mean, I really knew it.

And as I slouched around the compound (I began thinking of the meditation center as prison), I began awakening to creativity.

Fallen branches and vivid berries called to be celebrated. Rocks looked important.

The bananas, apples, and oranges that were served whole, exactly the same way, for two meals a day, took on new possibility.

And it came to me how, without breaking the rules, I could treasure words.

I created a swag for my dorm room door. Well, there wasn't a place to put it, so I set the berries and branches on the fire alarm box and tucked the ends of twigs into the top ledge (thinking, wouldn't it be funny if I set off the fire alarm in this silence? But no, it wouldn't have been funny).

I built a cairn of small stones which I placed under the bathroom mirror.

I started mixing up the bananas, apples, and orange (zest!), with the proffered almond milk and tahini, in new smoothie concoctions every day.

And I collected the tags of teabags. And pulled out my pocketknife scissors, and began snipping labels from toiletry bottles and tags from sweaters.

I set rules, such as, I didn't form sentences, only worked during free time, didn't write anything down, and didn't go out of my way to get a label. I placed all the tiny words in a teabag envelope: my forbidden journal.

After I got home, I created with those scalloped words. And this poem emerged.

And so I ask you.

What, in your life, is asking to go underground for a while?

What elements need to die so that creativity can be rebirthed?

Where can you let go of words?

What happens when you give up the thing you think you can never give up?

When was the last time you connected to your interior creative nature?

Spark: Cut out words where you would least expect beautiful words to exist - a cereal box, a newspaper from a birdcage. Challenge yourself to discover beauty.

Spark #2: Don't speak, write, listen to media, or read for an entire day, up to 48 hours. Pay close attention to your relationship with language. Before you resume speaking, write down your insights.

For the Love of Our Town

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 20:04:00 +0000

Our Town at Portland Center Stage opens upon stark simplicity. The only scenery is rows of chairs gathered as in a one-room schoolhouse or town meeting or church.

“What is this all about?” I wonder.

The Stage Manager rearranges chairs, designating different parts of this turn-of-the-century town, and it is like watching the flow of a dream, the collective dream of American history. He introduces us to the Gibbs and their neighbors, the Webbs. The air rings with good-mornings. All have their place: the milkman, the newspaper publisher, the doctor, the busybody, the constable, even the town drunk.

I think of the story of Alice, free to ride her tricycle through downtown Everett, Washington in 1907. On her seventh birthday, missing her front teeth, she stopped in at the studio of the photographer and asked him to take her picture. Her mother hated the gap-toothed photo. Then later, she loved it.

People watched out for the little girl on the trike, and for each other. That sense of being known and protected by an entire community – that’s something we’ve lost. And yet we have new communities, virtual gathering places and Google hangouts, social networks—all sorts of constructions meant to give us a sense that others know who we are and care about our daily activities.

Because what we do every day isn’t all that important.

As the Stage Manager explains, nothing remarkable has ever come out of this town.

You and I have to admit that despite all our clamoring to be remarkable, even with our gadgets and fast cars, we are just as plain and ordinary as the people of Grover’s Corners.

Deep down we fear that we don’t amount to much. As Thoreau mused, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

The search for the sensational pervades our history books, too. The Stage Manager points out that there were two million people in Babylon, “but we only know the names of kings.”

So then, if we aren’t royalty, what’s the point of us?

As we watch young George Gibbs and Emily Webb grow up, this question is in the back of our minds. It’s an uncomfortable question, to be sure. We hate to ask it. Some of the production's moments seem far too slow, almost as if to draw out this discomfort. Yet the beauty of this play is in the clear, unemotional way it persists in this question.

I have to say that my favorite PCS actor, Sharonlee McLean, and her comic interruptions as Mrs. Soames save the tone when it seems too detached and somber. Yet performances are lovely: big-eyed Nikki Massoud is captivating as Emily Webb.

Daily lives and quaint conversations about the "potato moon" give way to the larger sense of time passing, the world spinning, life ending and beginning and ending again.

Emily’s words in the visually haunting final scene are unforgettable. “We don’t have time to look at one another." She asks the dagger of a question: “Do any human beings ever realize life when they live it?”

As I drive home, feeling a stone-heavy sense of time and the world and the question of purpose, I look up at the poplar trees, still green, lining the drive toward my neighborhood. Every Autumn they become a tracery of flaming red lace. Every Autumn I am stunned at the change, forgetting to notice the daily surrender of green to red until it’s shockingly complete.

I remember going down this road with my youngest daughter at the wheel. I would hold my breath, cringing, wanting to be anyplace but in the passenger seat. And those moments passed so quickly. And now she is in her last year of college.

“Oh, I loved teaching her to drive,” I say out loud.

Because even though I didn’t . . . I did.

And to me, that’s the gift of Our Town. Recognizing that we don’t know what we love. Moments that seem lowly and insignificant and irritating and devastating can be honored and celebrated. We have the chance to pay attention. We can know each other.

I can see every face, from my daughter’s, to my own face in the mirror collecting lines every day, to the photograph of Alice, the gap-toothed girl on her trike who became my difficult grandmother.

So what’s this all about?

Not the accolades, or the sparkle, or the royalty or remark-ability of us – but that we are worth loving.

We don’t need gadgets or “likes” or titles or jet airplane rides to make this true. We are observers with the power to appreciate and notice and love all that shows up on the stage of our world, of our town.

In every now, the love, yes, the love.

Photo credits: Patrick Weishampel

Story Prompt: Glory Days of an Old Truck

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 19:02:00 +0000

"Glory Days" by Tommy Gworek

An old truck has so many stories to tell. From celebration to heartache, from success to quiet simplicity. Sometimes a dirt road and a relaxing cloudy wake during a late summer sunset are all one needs to be in the middle of a perfect moment.

What Glory Days does this old truck remember? Write the story.

--Photo and written prompt by Wildfire Writer Tommy Gworek

Doodles and Non-Conformity

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 23:53:00 +0000

"Conform and be dull." --James Frank Dobie

This watercolor collage piece began with an experiment, which began with a doodle, which began with an intention: I am going to try something different today, with no expectations.

Where you can you experiment?
What do you have at hand?
What can you create today without depending on a particular outcome?

Story Prompt: In the Middle of Nowhere

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 23:43:00 +0000

There wasn't a sign of life for miles. I left my Volkswagen van where it died on the highway, approached the shack, and knocked on the splintered door . . .

What happened next?

Snail Conversations and Ordinary Things

noreply@blogger.com (Christi Krug) — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 20:25:00 +0000

A couple months ago, having a rough day, I went for a hike and came across a snail. I crouched down. We had a bit of conversation.

Snaildom

Not worried about the situation
he's making some tiny progress.
Doesn't care how long it takes
or how small he is in the world,
or how quiet,
absorbed
in this task of being.

Last week I was finding snails everywhere.

The above guy, as well as a dozen others were spaced along the Cape Horn Trail near the Columbia River.

Below, "Snails" by Christine Bourdette, at the Fields city park.

I guess at the moment snails are my totem animal--er, mollusk.

"The whole world is a series of miracles," wrote Hans Christian Andersen, "but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things."

Writing Prompts for you:

Is there an ordinary thing that keeps showing up for you?

What are you tempted to overlook as ordinary, which might carry a message?

Where is your life "boring" where you want it to be "glamorous"? What can you learn from this?

Are you at peace with your pace of creating?

What burden are you carrying?

How might you simplify your life today?

What smallness can you celebrate?