Teresa Robeson's Blog, page 3

International Nature Journaling Week, part 1

June 1 to June 7 of each year is International Nature Journaling Week. I stumbled upon this challenge on a friend’s Facebook page. I detest Facebook but it’s still useful at times.

Per my usual tardy self, I didn’t see her post until a few days in. Even though I am swamped with a million things I need to get to, I decided to join in anyway…but on my own schedule so I don’t stress about trying to catch up and keep up.

Here are the prompts for the first two days and my nature journal pages for them:

Day one was “describing the indescribable.”

Day two’s prompt was “playing with words.”

How would you interpret the prompts?

75Art, the finale

I thought I had shared just about all the art from the 75Art Challenge I mentioned back in May, but apparently not. When I went to save some photos to the “blog fodder” folder, I found the drawings already occupying the “June 18” sub-folder. Hmmm. My memory is not worth the neurons it’s printed on these days.

Sooo, here’s a final load of art for your amusement (because “enjoyment” might be overstating it…hah).

Image 7 is a close-up of the Gerber baby jar (image 6). I don’t know if you can tell, but all these pieces were done on the Procreate app on my iPad. I’m really fond of the pencil-y lines for the Dali and baby drawings.

I wish you enough

Back in 2016 and again now, I wonder a lot about people who are filthy rich and yet are never satisfied. They crave more and more and more, others’ well-being be damned. I feel like every single blockbuster movie or book has warned us about greedy tyrants like that (from Star Wars to The Hunger Games) and yet here we are because some people are born sociopaths, I guess.

I don’t understand the greed. I feel like all we need is a roof over our heads, people we love and people who love us, and the stability we need to pursue creative passions and savor the beauty of the world around us.

Oh, and fresh, homegrown food, too.

freshly harvested for dinner bounty of broccoli first potato harvest of 2025

Is greed purely a human trait? I need to do some more reading into that. Do you have thoughts or research to recommend?

There’s a saying of “I wish you enough” that I feel most people should adopt a mindset of. If you want to read an excerpt from an eponymous book, check out this post.

Literary Auction for Change

There are only TEN DAYS left until the third annual Auction for Change!

Get ready to bid, and help spread the word—the items up for auction will be invaluable to writers. In addition to all the incredible critiques and AMAs, there will also be items like:

a tour of the Meta photography consultationnewsletter subscriptions (one of which includes an astoundingly valuable how-to-write-a-cookbook class)signed booksand even a book bundle.The auction begins on June 16th, 9 Pacific/12 Eastern, and ends June 23rd, 8 Pacific/11 Eastern.

I donated an Ask Me Anything to help if you want to check it out.

Small gene pools and inbreeding is never a good thing

A basic biology class should be mandatory for everyone.

Bananas, uniformity and catastrophe

Ever wanted to teach about writing?

I’m excited to share that I’ll be speaking at an upcoming online event called Teachers of Fiction — a 4-day gathering for people who teach writing in all kinds of ways: courses, coaching, editing, workshops, and beyond.

This a conference about the business and practice of teaching writing online. This is for teachers, in other words. Does that sound like you?

You can attend the whole event for free if you watch live. Or grab a reduced price early bird ticket for lifetime access, transcripts, and a private podcast feed.

Sign up here.
Note – this is an affiliate link so if you sign up to the paid ticket, I may get a commission from the host.

The event runs June 14–17 and includes sessions on:

Designing online courses that actually workGiving better feedbackAttracting the right studentsManaging your time as a writer-teacherUsing tools like Substack, Notion, and ZapierLaunching new offers (without burning out)

The host, Daniel David Wallace, has built a thriving business helping writers with deep craft and smart systems. This is the second year of the event, and it’s shaping up to be even more focused, practical, and supportive than before.

Come join us, won’t you?

Birthday Month break, week 4

The next birthday dessert wasn’t baked. Our strawberries are coming on from a week of hot weather and we harvested a ton. So, I just cut them up and sugared them down and we ate them with some Tillamook vanilla ice cream. Perfect, really, for warmer weather.

Here is the next set of drawings from the art challenge. The prompts were settings/architecture (log cabin, bridge, windmill, skyscraper, house, castle, and lighthouse), and I tried to make a narrative out of them with a little bear setting out to see the world.

I don’t think any editors or art directors will be beating down my door trying to hire me, but it was fun.

Bit of history, bit of food

Another fascinating post from The Science of Food blog:

Stewing like a medieval peasant: How to deal with the the tougher cuts

Birthday month break, week 3

Next dessert for my birthday is my go-to dessert: chocolate coconut bar (extra pecans, please).

And the next set of drawings for the 75Art challenge prompts…

Birthday month break, week 2

Here’s my first birthday dessert: cinnamon coffee cake (with a dollop of Culver’s peach ice cream). Stay tuned for the next several!

And here are more drawings I did for the prompts in the 75Art Challenge: