Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 25

Organization and Control

As a working mother in my 30s and 40s, I was sure control was the key to success. I ran my life with lists and schedules. This worked well at work, except for days when the schedule called for leaving work promptly. In those days, much of the political part of work took place in bars and restaurants after work and for moms with children, the glass ceiling often looked more like the carved wood door to the club bar door.

I stayed ahead with strict schedules–often I’d sit with my to-do list for the day, the week, and each project. What I missed by socializing after work, I made up for by working once my son was asleep. My work was always on time or ahead of schedule. I was dependable and it had to stand in for social.

It worked most of the time. When something unexpected came up, I would make a list for it, ignore it, deny it, or rarely, work around it. I often went to work sick. I truly believed that the cure-all tool was organization.

The trouble with organization, of course, is that it doesn’t allow for life to happen. It does allow for good problem solving, a regularly planned process and a good idea of what was going to happen in the future.

As I got older, I realized that we are less in control than we think. We are not in control of the weather, of when or how our family members will die, when or if we will get the flu, or be broadsided by a driver who is on the phone and runs the red light.

There is a difference between control and organization. Organization works with what you have. Control tries to place (or nudge, or force) people, plans, processes into step with where you are at the moment. With varying results.

Control often runs off the tracks due to no ones fault. Instead of trying to force events by sheer will, see what happens if you look at the event in the light of “what works best here?” or “What can I do that works with what I have?”

--Quinn McDonald is beginning to enjoy the accidental and the flawed. It’s the gift of emotional wabi-sabi.

 

 

Filed under: In My Life, Inner Hero/Inner Critic, Recovering Perfectionists, Wabi-Sabi Tagged: losing control, over-organizing, Wabi-Sabi

Writing is Visual

You are reading a mystery book or a thriller, and can’t put it down. It’s late at night and you begin to wonder if you locked all the doors. What you are reading is coming off the page and making you feel creeped out. Your imagination has turned words into video. Reading is a visual experience.

Maude White is a paper carver–a visual storyteller who tells her fine, complicated, detailed stories in paper. See her work at http://bravebirdpaperart.com/home1/

If you read a wonderful, fat book about a family, you don’t want the book to end. You love the characters, you feel you know them. You could describe them and entertain them. Words are not only visual, but story-telling is emotional–it triggers emotions of compassion, anger, community, fear, love, friendship.

Some writers can create such vivid images that our brain not only translates them into our lives, but we believe we have experienced the events. Our heart pounds, our eyes well up with tears. A good book is an emotional experience. A sensory experience. A visual experience.

In the long battle of design v. writing, I’ve always been on the side of writing. Yes, of course, because I’m a writer. But also because I know that your imagination is so much bigger and stronger than the image someone interprets for you.

—Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach

 

Filed under: Links, resources, idea boosts, The Writing Life Tagged: visual storytelling, writing as visual

Decorating With Collections

Yes, it’s too early for winter holiday decorations. Unless, of course, you are hand-making them. In which case, it’s time to think about all the Autumn and Winter holidays (because some decorations can be combined or re-used).

On October 18 and 19, the Women’s Expo is at the Phoenix Convention Center. I’m volunteering for Arizona Art Supply. I’ll be making wreaths with paperback book pages. While prepping some books, I had another thought–most of us have collections–office supplies, sentimental collections and pieces we keep through all the de-stashings.

I had my mother and my mother-in-laws button collection. I also ran across a stash of push-pins. I rarely use them anymore because computers and smart phones have covered a lot of ground that bulletin boards used to cover.

While buying the wreath rounds I saw a  green styrofoam cone and picked it up, too. I regretted the green almost as soon as I took it out of the bag, so I used Dylusions Ink in white, and sprayed it, which gave it a nice textured color. No complete coverage needed, but when you spray, do it in a bag or cover a big area. The ink drifts and sticks.

Sort the button collection to gather the same sizes and colors. I chose colors from black through gray to white. Start the project by putting three rows of push pins into the base area of the sprayed and dried cone.

Then pin a row of buttons in the darkest color in the space above the push pins. The buttons don’t have to touch the pins. Larger buttons will take up more space so the smaller buttons will seem to float. That’s fine. The pins that hold the buttons should be pushed in at an angle from top to bottom to keep the buttons in place more easily. You’ll also be able to carry the project around more easily.

Once the row of buttons is in place, put another row of push pins into the cone.

Then alternate buttons and push pins, using lighter buttons as you move up. You can see the black through gray here, but you could also use black and orange for Halloween, or yellow, red and brown for Thanksgiving.

You could choose extravagant buttons to show off your collection favorites, or coordinate them with your wedding colors. All white is also attractive.

My collection has a lot of white buttons, so the top third was all white.

The top of the cone is decorated in three pieces of trim shaped like white poinsettias. Put a push pin in the top center to support them, and then angle in straight pins to hold the flower in place. The gold circle is part of the photography background, not on the tree.

When the tree was done, I decided I wanted to add a bit more glitz, so I bought dress trim in silver beads. The scale has to be right, but there are many choices–pearls, pre-strung sequins, or any other trim.  Put the pre-strung “garland” over the row of push pins and use the heads of straight pins to hold them in place.

You can use a glue gun for all this, but pins are adjustable and make much less of a mess for someone who is not used to glue guns. (I don’t own one.)

These trees would make great centerpieces or mantel decorations. Have fun!

—Quinn McDonald has a big button collection. She’s thinking of doing a tree with all buttons, too.

Filed under: In My Life, Tutorials Tagged: holiday decoration tutorial, tree decoration tutorial, tree with buttons, tree with push pins

This Little Journal Stayed Home

On my last business trip, I had to hand-carry corrected workbooks. That shrank suitcase space, so I thought, “this time, I’ll leave the journal at home.” I don’t journal every day, so a two-day trip, well, I really wouldn’t need it anyway. The journal stayed in the studio.

Here’s what didn’t make it into my journal the day it happened:

The full eclipse, around 3:00 a.m.,  the kind where the moon is red.
I ate dinner overlooking an indoor ice rink and noticed that the youngest class fell as often as the older class, but the younger kids laughed when they fell and did deliberate pratfalls, bounding back up again. No fear, no shame, just ready for more fun. Something about being young that acknowledges the purpose of life is learning. By the time you are eight, you feel embarrassed not to know it all.
I missed writing down a dream because it evaporated when I woke up without a way to write it down.

Traveling instant art kit: Neocolor II, water brush, pencil, Pitt Pen, eraser. The bare necessities.

Sure, I can write down the two events I remember, but it lacks the immediacy and insight of writing it down as soon as it happens. And the dream is gone.

What to do when there is really no room to take the journal? Here are four ideas:

1. Buy postcards at the airport when I arrive and tuck them into the folder that holds my schedule. There’s always room to take a few postcard stamps. Write down journal entries on the postcards and mail them at the hotel before I leave. Instant journal page!

2. Take photos of things I want to remember and print them out when I get home. Print it out to the size of the journal page, and write on it, or on the back and add it to the journal.

3. Take a few shipping tags to write on. Send them back as postcards (the larger ones) or tuck them into the journal when I get back. Or keep it simple and simply tuck blank index cards into my schedule.

4. Pick something else not to take. A journal is my idea bank, comfort source and being-bored preventer. And it doesn’t have an uncomfortable underwire. A woman’s got to have priorities.

—Quinn McDonald is leaving for Houston, and this time, her journal is coming along.

Filed under: Journal Pages, The Writing Life Tagged: commonplace journal, take your journal, traveling journal, vade mecum journal

Listen to Your Journal

Note: Congratulations to Denise Huntington who won the book giveaway on my blog! Denise, send me your mailing address (to QuinnCreative [at] yahoo [dot] com) and Just My Typo will be on the way!  Many of you were generous and said April Lopez and her Dad should win the book. April, send me your mailing address and I’ll send you a book you and your Dad will enjoy!

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Listening to your journal is a skill  often neglected by the very people who would benefit from it. We write a lot in our journals, but then we close the covers, put them on the shelf and forget about the wisdom we just wrote. We are used to writing, asking to be heard–praying for answers. But we often miss the answer when it shows up. And it will show up. That’s one of the benefits of  journaling.

For a while, all the writing is pouring out of you in an endless flow. One day, you will find yourself thinking about what you are writing–the words aren’t pouring out on their own. You are paying attention. And all of a sudden, you write something interesting. Profound. An answer to a question you had. You are now in a deep connection to your own wisdom or a wisdom of your Inner Hero.  You have tunneled deep enough to be away from the distraction, and you just dug up an important truth, courtesy of channeling your Inner Hero. Your Inner Hero gives you permission to dream up solutions.

Truth is surprising. We recognize it and blink. Sometimes we wish it were something else. But the flash of recognition is the key. You will know. Maybe it’s not the answer you had hoped for, but maybe it’s exactly what you need.

Your pen may race on, while your mind chews on the answer. You may not want to listen, but you will. You will be drawn back to those words, that flash of recognition. It can be an answer, a key to an answer, or simply a truth you have not believed before. Because you could not.

And there it is, on the page in front of you. Underline it. Save it. You may have to finish your thought, your paragraph, your page, but the answer is right there.

You have created the start of a habit. A habit of writing and listening. And when you listen, you’ll find answers. You might have to write a long time to learn to trust yourself, but once you start to listen, you will hear your answers.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who has a lot to learn.

 

Filed under: The Writing Life Tagged: creativity coaching, journaling, learning from your journal

Developing Thorns

The ocotillo in my yard grows each year, usually during Monsoon, when it rains. I’ve written about how it drops and sets leaves in a matter of hours, but I became interested in the thorns.

How does a plant set thorns? Do they grow out of the stems in a separate stage? Do they appear overnight? (I’d believe almost anything about the octotillo).

During the last two weeks my octotillo went into a sudden growth spurt, and I saw, for the first time, how the thorns are formed.

The first thing that happens in the growth spurt is that the stem lengthens and new leaves set. There are two different kind of leaves, and the first ones that set are odd. They have long stems and the fat part of the leaf bends at an odd angle.

Leaves turning into thorns.

The leaf stems are green, but they quickly turn thick, brown and . . . sharp. The leaf ends drop off, leaving the sharp thorns on the stem.

New leaves forming at the base of the thorns.

And then, almost at the same time as the thorns are forming, small new leaves form at the base of the thorns. They are the real leaves of the ocotillo. They will stay until it becomes too dry to sustain them.

I’ll leave you to see all the metaphor in the ocotillo–how they form protection that looks like a helpless piece of the plant. How thorns aren’t always sharp. They start out as stems, bendable. They harden with time, based on what the plant knows already. And then the leaves come out, at the base, to soften the look of the plant. That should fill your journal for several days.

–Quinn McDonald keeps a nature journal because it’s just like real life.

Filed under: Life as Metaphor, Nature, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: growing thorns, ocotillo, ocotillo thorns

Collateral Damage in Architecture

The phrase “collateral damage” generally means the innocent victims of war–people who got in the way, didn’t understand orders shouted in a foreign language, or those in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hate the word, it makes me cringe. It makes killing the innocent seem somehow accidental and explainable.

Another senseless outcome of war is the destruction of historic buildings. Beautiful, graceful buildings that hold sacred memories, prayers, and art, smashed to dust in seconds.

I’m not interested in knowing that the destruction was necessary or that war is awful. That’s a given. Ask anyone who remembers Kristallnacht, November 8 and 9, 1938, as the Germans smashed their way through Jewish neighborhoods.

The hallways of the Great Mosque of Aleppo.

The buildings I’m talking about are in the Middle East, the uneasy part of the world we don’t want to think about. The Tomb of Jonah, sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians, is now just rubble.

The Buddahs of Bamiyan, giant statues hewn out of a cliff in the year 500 were bombed to dust by the Taliban in 2001.

Another one that breaks my heart is the Great Mosque of Aleppo. The architecture was breathtakingly beautiful. The complicated vaulted ceilings begged the eye to look up into the heavens.

The legend is that the mosque holds the remains of Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist. It was built in the eighth century. It is a house of prayer.

The land it stands on has been under siege from one faction or another forever. War is as old as the emotion of fear and anger. Religion has been used as the excuse of hatred for as long as formal (and splinter) religions have existed.

The Great Mosque of Aleppo as it looks now.

I don’t have an answer to collateral damage. I just mourn that along with people, so much art, so much history, so much spiritual growth is ground to dust under the boot heels of war.

–Quinn McDonald knows that art describes the rise of culture and the destruction of art brings the destruction of culture.

 

Filed under: Art in Progress, Life as Metaphor Tagged: Aleppo, destruction, war, war and art

Book Giveaway: Just My Typo

No, the title is not a typo, the book title is Just My Typo, a compilation of mistakes, goofs, slips and typos by Drummond Moir.

I talk a lot about making mistakes, so it seems like a good time to give away a book full of them, from misheard instructions to fat-fingered keystrokes. Twelve chapters that will make you grin, cringe, and push the comma over just a little.

From page 42: “In 1924 Mr. Rockwell compiled the genial orgy of the Rockwell family.”

The chapters include:

To be or To Be: typos in Literature
The Fourth Mistake: typos in the media
The Word Stage: typos of historical and political significance
The Lingua Franca: typos abroad
Food for Thought: grastronomic typos
The Cost of a Comma: the most expenxive typos
Immaculate Contraption: kids’ typos

It’s a short book, 168 pages of typos and an excellent index so you can find your favorites again.

From page 68: “Chocolate potato cake: 6 oz. margarine, 1 oz. cocoa, 4 oz. mashed potato, 5 oz. self-raising flour, 433 eggs, size 3.”

There are typo photos and collected typos and favorites of editors and writers.

How to win the book: Leave a comment, letting me know why this is the book for you. Winner will be announced on this coming Friday, October 10 on the blog. Be sure to check back in to see if you won!

–Quinn McDonald loves typos unless she makes them.

Filed under: Giveaway Tagged: book giveaway, typo collection, typos

The Last Swim of Summer

One morning, the water begins to chill instead of cool. I swim a little harder, warming it and warming me.

The sun stays off the water longer, hiding behind the hedge, slowly edging up. Not like the August sun, brassily reflecting in the water long before I dropped into the deep end.

palm trees reflected in a swimming pool © Quinn McDonald, 2009

Not like the summer sun that crisped all skin not hiding under a least one foot of pool-blue water.

The September sun kept the water warm enough to trust.

Until the last week of September, when the wind turned. Days still hot, but the night air sucked the warm right off the water.

I went in one foot at a time, hoping each time it was not the last.

Like saying goodbye to a lover, I always hope there is one more day, one more weightless hanging between dawn and work. One more sliding through the water looking at a fierce blue sky.

This morning it was too cold to swim and I did anyway, lips as blue as the last

Sunrise in Phoenix.

berries in the store. Looking up, wanting the sun to rise, I saw the first V of migrators arrive.

The pool rocked water up the stairs as I ran for my towel just as a tired duck took up the space I left in the water. We looked at each other, as we exchanged places and the seasons changed.

–-Quinn McDonald won’t be in the pool anymore this year, but she can walk the sun up every day.

Filed under: Journal Pages, Nature, Inside and Out, The Writing Life Tagged: fall in Phoenix, journaling, Quinn's poems, Swimming in October

Rumors and Rumor-Mongering

Last week found me traveling back from Dallas with a head cold I had picked up somewhere along the trail. The news of where I’d been hadn’t been out of my mouth for three seconds when a well-meaning friend said, “I hope it’s not Ebola.”

Big sigh.

Fear. Fear-mongering. Fueled by rumors. Let’s take a look: I was nowhere near

From healthy-lifestyle.com

Thomas Eric Duncan while I was in Dallas–I was in a hotel and at a client’s office. The incubation period is from two to 21 days, making Dallas unlikely as a source for my cold, let alone Ebola. You have to come into direct contact with bodily fluids to get Ebola, so all of this is just stirring the fear pot.

Sadly, I’ve seen this twice before. Once in the 1980s, when AIDS first was defined as an incurable, death-causing disease. There were nasty rumors about gays then, too. The other time was after 9/11, when all Muslims became painted as terrorists. I sat in on a class of a fellow instructor, a Muslim woman who wore a headscarf, and shook my head at the advice she was given: just take off the scarf. Interestingly enough, none of the terrorists had been women.

Meanwhile, we are growing a fresh crop of panic over Ebola. I’m not saying it’s a harmless virus, it is not. But I am saying that we have serious problems in this country—heart disease is the number one killer of humans in the U.S. About 68 people die every hour in the U.S. of heart disease. In a year, it adds up to 600,000. Over half a million. Not a single person has ever asked me if I still eat bacon. Or if I exercise. Nope. Because Ebola is more dramatic.

The people who are fear-mongering over Ebola are not nearly as worried about heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. AIDS has claimed about 636,000 lives, but we don’t talk about it anymore.

Let’s not get hysterical about Ebola. Yes, it’s a serious disease. No, there is no cure for it. Yet. (And there is no cure for MS, diabetes, ALS, cancer or the common cold). Take a deep breath and realize that you have better things to worry about. And let’s not talk about shutting down air traffic between the U.S. and Africa. That would have been a brilliant strategy in 1619, but we’re about 400 years too late for that.

Fear leads to fear-mongering. Leads to rumors. To lies. To hatred. To victimizing. Let’s stop it early.

—Quinn McDonald is feeling well enough to rant.

 

Filed under: Creativity Tagged: fear, fear mongering, spreading rumors