For your Independence Day enjoyment, today we join Bec Thomas for “Breakfast,” the Friday series where we get to know an inspiring, creative mother from the blogosphere and peek into her creative space. Bec is a photographer, blogger, and home-schooling mother to three boys. That’s right, home-schooling. Oh, and she lives on an island and spins wool. Seriously. How cool can one woman be?

CC: Please introduce us to who you are, what you do, and your family parameters.
BT: My name is Bec Thomas, and I am me. Me can be a lot of things and they are subject to change over time. I live in the Pacific Northwest so I’m one of those socks and sandals wearing folk who spends a lot of time outdoors. I have a love of water, reading, and online gaming. I’m generally considered very confident, passionate, and rather anti-establishment, but if you asked my friends they would give you many nice adjectives that I don’t really think about.

What do I do? Well first off, I’m a fine art photographer who works mostly in monochrome with nature, but I also decoupage and I hand spin yarn. Yes, I have been asked how I can possibly find the time. My family consists of a husband who is a professional techno geek who works way too much and 3 boys ages 7, 9, and 13, who I home-school.

CC: Tell us about your photography and other creative pursuits.
BT: Photography has always come easy to me. I can just see it, but I couldn’t paint a scene if my life depended on it. A famous photographer, Ernst Haas, from the 40s and 50s, summed it up best: “The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE.” I can see various moments in time that will never exist again; the only way to keep that moment is to record it with a camera. I prefer to work in monochrome but will do color on occasion. Monochrome brings out the details in an image that can be hidden by flashy color. For me, color often gets in the way and the viewer just can’t get past it. I do a lot of storm photography. Here in the Pac Northwest the landscape is often naturally in grayscale in the winter months. My absolute favorite condition to shoot in is fog; it spreads the light so evenly it’s like a dream!

I’ve taken pictures since I was a kid; it wasn’t until my youngest children got to be over 5 that I decided I could fit making it a career into the mix. My two youngest often accompany me when I take photos — even when I’m going out in bad weather, as in my household we worship the Gortex gods. Since my husband works too much I often take the kids with me when I have to drop artwork off for a show or gallery and they take turns being my date for the patrons’ parties I need to attend. They take these duties very seriously.

In the midst of all the photography excitement, I get in several hand-spinning demonstrations a year, usually with my best friend Laurie Wheeler who is a crochet guru. My two oldest boys can both use a drop spindle so they usually demonstrate right along with us. I also decoupage on wooden boxes — some are as big as trunks. I don’t usually show my boxes but that is changing and my new studio will help.

CC: Where do you do your creative work?
BT: A lot of my work is outdoors. I especially like to work on beaches! After I take the photos, I have to edit them and for that I hang out in my messy office space glued to my computer. When I get photos back from the printer, I then head to my new studio space to mat and frame them. I just moved into my studio space a couple of weeks ago. It’s still under construction but it’s huge and can fit all my photography stuff and all my decoupage things. I still have to get all the photography lighting set up out there, but that will come in due time. Once the studio is completely done and snazzy, I will open it to the public. We have art tours on the island I live on and I plan get become a part of that. I will also feature other artists along with both my photography and my decoupage works.

CC: Do you have a schedule for your creative work?
BT: I have what you might call an extremely flexible schedule. Since I take the kids with me, I never know what time I will be taking photos. If I shoot at night then I leave the homestead in my husband’s care (yeah, scary I know). When I have to do my indoor work, it is almost always at night. I’m nocturnal by nature; therefore I have more motivation to get my indoor work done at night.

CC: What do you struggle with most?
BT: I think the biggest challenge I have is trying to sync schedules with my husband. When I cannot take my children with me, it really puts a snag into the works. Part of the time a friend helps me out but that doesn’t always work. It can be quite the juggling act at times.

CC: How do you manage your photography, spinning, decoupage, family life, domestic responsibilities, home-schooling (!) and still have time for online gaming or even going to the bathroom? Have you made conscious decisions about areas where you compromise?
BT: I’m really skilled at multitasking and delegating. I also live under the belief that compromise is just a fact of life. I keep an extremely flexible schedule so things can be worked around and in. I find that if time gets put into a rigid structure then you start to become inclined never to break it and get really frustrated when something pops up that doesn’t fit into the box. If you can stay flexible, the world doesn’t end if something doesn’t get done. The kids usually accompany me, or in some cases “help me” (read pester me, hee hee), while I’m working. A lot of my photography is outdoors so they get an education and exercise why mommy does her thing. Much of the time homeschooling gets done while we’re doing other tasks; the whole world really is a classroom. Yesterday we were out at an extreme low tide viewing the interesting sea life you don’t normally see; I was shooting pictures while discussing what a limpet is and how I hadn’t ever seen a bright blue one on that beach before either.

I have long since refused to be the queen of domestic responsibilities. My goals in life never included being a maid for four other people. The kids all have age-appropriate chores, and have to clean up the messes they make. I still do the laundry though; it just scares me when anyone else, including my husband, does it.

CC: How much does guilt factor in your life?
BT: You know, guilt really doesn’t factor into my life much. I learned when I was a very young woman that I cannot feel guilty for pursuing what I want to do with my life. People too often forget about their own needs in service of others. When I was young I did that too; but I also learned you need to balance, need to set up personal boundaries, and that no one can possibly look out for your best interests better then you can. I generally don’t have time for people that want to try and make me feel guilty or attempt to stuff me into a box of how they think I should live. I am my own empowered individual and you can either accept me for who I am or move on.

CC: Where do you find inspiration?
BT: Inspiration can come at me from just about anywhere. It can be a scene before me, randomly pop into my head, or come from viewing someone else’s work. My most recent inspiration came from fashion photography. I want to apply mass amounts of beads to my friend’s face and photograph it. She is still trying to avoid that inevitability, I’m afraid……

CC: What are your top 5 favorite blogs?

• Crochet Liberation Front
• Patache
• Creative Construction [aw!]
• The World Through My Eyes
• Art News Blog

CC: What is your greatest indulgence?
BT: Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate! That and all the books I read. I really don’t know if I can live without Laurell K. Hamilton, Jacqueline Carey, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Jim Butcher. Also Patrick Rothfuss recently released his first book and it is fabulous, I can’t wait till the next one is released. When any of those authors release a book, life stops for a day so I can read them.

CC: What are you reading right now?
BT: I am currently reading Acacia by David Anthony Durham.

CC: What advice would you offer to mothers who struggle to be more creative?
BT: Don’t make excuses for not doing it. There is always something that can get in the way, always some excuse, make time and just do it. The only person holding you back is yourself. Also, ignore all that “great” advice or put-downs from the peanut gallery. If you’ve got the passion for it, you can make it happen.

CC: Thank you, Bec! And Happy Fourth, everyone.

Keri Smith is a guerilla artist, blogger, and the author of several books, including Wreck this Journal — a ground-breaking approach to creativity. In print and online, Keri offers a treasure-trove of creative inspiration, including terrific freebies on her website and blog, such as:

• 100 ideas
• How to be a guerilla artist
• How to feel miserable as an artist
• 10 ways to infuse your work with your personality

Keri recently gave birth to her first child, and wrote a memorable blog post on the transition to motherhood. Excerpt:

…i am a complex melting pot of contradiction most days. ying and yang. I am triumphant. I am winded. I am invincible and powerful. I am lost. I am in love. I am fragile. I am awed. I am confused. I am all knowing. I am unsure. I want to suck up every bit of this experience piece by piece. I want to hide. I am so happy I am going to explode. My self-confidence shatters temporarily.

this is the best thing i have ever done.

Cecil Vortex has a fascinating interview with Keri — highly recommended reading. [Ever notice the ad-free blog icon in our sidebar? That's part of Keri's campaign.] If you’re ever feeling depleted or in doubt, Keri is your one-stop creativity panacea. I can’t wait to see how her work evolves to include the experience of motherhood.

A great response to last week’s prompt, “wings.” I knew I’d never be able to pick a winner, so I called on guest judge Susan Edwards Richmond, poet and a founding editor of Wild Apples. While it was difficult, Susan settled on a favorite. “I selected Sarah Markley’s writing because her descriptions are vivid and fresh, and she allows the moment to draw her in….She truly engaged herself with the topic and with her own words, and so engaged me as well.” Congratulations, Sarah! Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way. (Readers: Don’t miss Sarah’s beautifully honest blog.) Sarah’s entry below; all the other goodies are posted after the jump.

Butterflies and Dust
A little girl never outgrows her fascination with butterflies; the pull in her heart to run after them; the secret curiosity of what it would be like to be one. Even this little girl.

Spring comes early and short where I live. The winter warms up just enough to allow the hills to explode with yellow and lavender flowers, and then just as quickly, continues to heat and sucks most of the colored beauty from the hills. The blooms dry up before May even comes and we are left with tall brown stalks of what used to be wildflowers.

This is what I slowly picked my way through on a much needed mid-morning trail jog near my house. On a Monday, I ran by myself out of doors for the first time in about 10 days. Recovering from my weekend out of town last week had left me unmotivated and exhausted. I had to push myself out my front door and force myself to lace up my running shoes.

What greeted me was a corridor of dirty, hollow brown bushes that used to be green and yellow and fresh. They were dead now and waiting for the autumn wildfires.

Some spring birds with a little color on their chests fluttered to my right and in the bushes ahead. A dragonfly-like insect buzzed by me — large with a bright orange abdomen.

A little bit of color in the drab hallway of dead stalks. Life wasn’t gone from this hill; it was just hidden.

And as if she hasn’t yet sensed me running toward her, a small butterfly lands on the path in front of me and spreads her little wings wide. Brilliant yellow and black and orange like the spring flowers that have already died. She is a vibrant fragile dot on the rocky trail.

The vibrations from my feet on the ground scare her and she closes her wings tight. The underside of her wings are brown and grey, just like the dirt she is resting on. She is almost invisible for an instant and then she flies away. Fluttering bright and drab together, she disappears.

I’ve seen this tiny butterfly against a curtain of dusty brown and then against the grand, morning sky and I feel a little like this insignificant animal: one minute dazzling and brilliant and the next invisible and scared. No more little girl curiosity because suddenly I am a tiny insect, feeling the full weight of radiance and fear at the same time.

As a woman, a mother, I know my worth, that I have brilliance and beauty. I can see it in my children; I can witness it in the words I write. But more often, I just see dusty wings. The grime and the hurt and the fear of life cloud my vision of myself.

This morning I realized that beauty is often shrouded in drab clothes, and that brilliance and invisibility can exist together. And even I am a butterfly of sorts, beautiful and dusty at the same time.

Wings
feathers carry you
across a great divide big
enough to stop me

From Juliet Bell, a beautiful haiku and photograph pairing, inspired by a walk with her dog. (Juliet won previously for “little black dress.” More of Juliet’s varied work here.)

Down the road, a car
rushes by. Butterfly wings
unseen, now lie still.

Cathy Coley noted on Sunday: “I was drawing an absolute blank, or really cheesy clichés until early this am, then this happened, really.” Wow! (Cathy won previously for “the ocean” and is a prolific participant.)

I dreamt a homeless woman
introduced herself as my angel.
Frizzy curly hair, a bit moreso than mine,
dirt-smudged face and bad teeth.
Who knew angels had bad teeth?
A heavy dirt-grey tattered fleece
hung about her shoulders instead of wings.

I asked her name,
wasn’t certain she said Shelley.
Her voice covered,
I asked three times:
Once a train passed by.
Once, my baby squealed.
Once a woman interrupted
said angel over her name when she
interjected “Oh! You’re such an angel!”

The woman walked away,
my angel smiled and listened
as I offered empathy by saying,
“I was never homeless, but close,
I know your worries.”
She wrapped her arms and blanket around,
held me sweetly for a long time,
whispered in my ear,
“No worries.”

She withdrew her embrace, smiled
right into my eyes, and repeated,
“No worries. I’m your angel.”

She turned to walk away, adjusted
the heavy tattered blanket about her shoulders,
said, “if you ever need me,
you know my name.”

Wings
By the white park bench
two iridescent pigeons
peck at fallen crumbs

(That’s my dragonfly up at the top of the post, too.) So much fun to see all the creativity this week — keep it going! And a special thanks to Susan for stepping in as judge.

Use the prompt however you like. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 8. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

A few weeks ago, we profiled Erin Loechner of the blog Mankind Design. Yesterday, Erin debuted her new magazine, Mankind Mag, available free as an online PDF as well as a print-on-demand hard copy ($8.95). The magazine is beautiful. Do check out “101 Steps to a Creative July” on page 35. Many of these ideas are things that even overbooked mothers can handle. (And I confess, I’m one of the advertisers: top of page 33). The last issue of Erin’s former publication, Inspiration, had over 10,000 downloads — and Mankind Mag promises to be even more successful.

Enjoy — and congratulations, Erin!

This weekend I read The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size by creativity guru Julia Cameron. I’m glad I did.

Like most women who have recently delivered a baby, I’m anxious to get rid of my extra pregnancy weight. (I know Brittany shares this feeling.) It’s been 8 weeks now, and I got the all-clear from my OB at week 6. Many women seem to slim down quickly while nursing and chasing other kids around, but breastfeeding makes me voraciously hungry and I can actually gain weight despite efforts to lose. With so many positive things going on in my life right now, I’m now eager to get set on the right path with diet and exercise. I want the energy boost that comes with being in shape — and, let’s face it, I want to fit into my jeans.

I should admit, for the record, that I have always had a tortured and self-destructive complicated relationship with food. Over the years I’ve figured out what works best for me, but I often slip off track. I was glad to see that the “Clean Eating” Cameron advocates is common sense and very much my personal preference: avoid refined sugar and refined carbs, avoid processed food, focus on lean protein, drink lots of water, eat five times a day (three meals and two snacks) to keep metabolism stoked. Cameron is a little Splenda-happy for my taste, and I have no intention of eating diet Jello, but I can ignore those details. I’m also a vegetarian, so lean protein isn’t as easy as grabbing some sliced turkey, but it’s doable.

In addition to Eating Clean, Cameron lays out seven tools to enable weight loss. The primary tool — no surprise here — is Morning Pages. (For the uninitiated, Morning Pages are three longhand journal pages written every morning, as introduced in The Artist’s Way.) The genesis for “writing oneself thinner” came from Cameron’s observation of her students; adopting Morning Pages for a 12-week program resulted in visible weight loss for many. So many, in fact, that Cameron realized she was on to something.

Cameron’s premise is that overeating can block creativity, and conversely, that creativity can block overeating. I bet that many of us would agree. I’m certainly no stranger to overeating due to various unidentified reasons, or from simply stress. As potter Iris Milward observed when I interviewed her for my book, “Stress eating is when there is fear instead of creativity.”

By journaling daily, Cameron theorizes that we work through many of the issues that cause us to overeat, and significantly increase our creative bandwidth. When we spill our issues onto the page, we are less likely to try and stuff them down with food. (During periods in the past when I was religious about Morning Pages, I often noted that the process was at least as helpful as psychotherapy, and a lot cheaper. Come to think of it, I was pretty skinny then, too.)

Cameron’s second tool is a food journal. Everything you eat is recorded, along with notes about how you felt and if you were eating from hunger. I tried this yesterday, and found the process to be startlingly illuminating. I wasn’t conscious of the fact that I’d pretty much been eating all day — including lots of the junky carbs I know I should avoid. Rather than keeping a notebook, I printed out a bunch of these convenient log sheets. The result of recording what I ate, AND how I felt about it, meant that I ended up eating far less — and far better — than I usually would. Yep, gonna keep that one going.

Walking, at least 20 minutes a day, is the third tool — one that fosters creativity and well-being in addition to fitness. Exercise is obviously a crucial element in any weight-loss plan.

I won’t itemize all of Cameron’s tools, as she probably wouldn’t appreciate that, but I will say that several of them are extremely difficult to accomplish as the mother of young children. Cameron had one child, now grown, and doesn’t generally address the experience of women in the domestic trenches. Sure, I would love to be doing Morning Pages right now, but simply setting my alarm an hour earlier every day — as Cameron suggests — is untenable with a newborn. Even walking 20 minutes every day is tough; my baby wants to nurse constantly and has no established nap pattern yet. I don’t want to be a mile from the house when he starts screaming. Cameron’s suggestion of a weekly culinary date (the restaurant version of the artist’s date) is also not going to happen. Me, going off to a restaurant by myself once a week? Uhm, no. (Honestly, If my husband told me he wanted to go out to eat alone every week, leaving me and the five kids at home, I’d rip his head off be a little unhappy.)

Some of Cameron’s prose seems repetitive, rather than reinforcing, but obviously she can get away with it. There are also a lot of 12-step references, some of which seemed overdone. On the whole, this is a useful book that increases mindfulness about eating just as The Artist’s Way increases mindfulness about creativity.

I will certainly adopt the elements of Cameron’s plan that are feasible: the food journal, walking when I can (also doing some yoga & Pilates DVDs and hand weights at home), and journaling when I can. I will follow the three meals/two snacks model, although as a nursing mother I’m throwing in a bonus snack when I need it. (It’s no fun to get the shakes, as Cathy noted, and nursing mothers need to be careful about restricting calories.) I don’t know if all that is enough to make a difference, but it’s a good start. I already feel better. And is it simply a coincidence, that after my first day of Eating Clean, my baby slept through the night? Six hours straight, when the most he’d ever done before was four. If I needed even more motivation, well, there you have it. And if I end up being more creative to boot, then brilliant.

Stake in the ground: I’ve got nearly 20 pounds to lose, but I’m breaking that down. Goal #1: lose 10 pounds and redevelop some of that long-lost muscle tone.  Since muscle weighs more than fat, I’ll pay attention to how my clothes fit in addition to looking at the scale. I’m giving myself a generous 10 weeks to reach my goal: September 7. Anyone want to join me?

This week in our Friday series, “Breakfast” (where we get to know an inspiring, creative mother from the blogosphere and peek into her creative space) we break virtual bread with Lisa Damian, writer, literary critic, blogger, and mother of two young girls. Lisa is so dynamic that her personality leaps off the page, whether you’re reading her blog or the interview below. And that red hair? Oh…yeah. If only I had the guts.

CC: Tell us about who you are, what you do, and your family parameters.
LD: Who am I? Good question. Still trying to figure that one out, but the evidence suggests that I am a writer and a mother (and a whole slew of other things too numerous to get into here). I have two daughters — the oldest will be five in a couple of months, and my youngest will be two in July.

I spent most of my adult life pursuing a successful career in the field of higher education administration. I’ve been employed by and consulted for colleges and universities across the country. However, after becoming a mother, I realized that the demands of an intense yet traditional career were not as rewarding as they once were, and I took some time off to focus on my family and pursue more creative interests.

CC: Tell us about your writing life and creative projects.
LD: My nonfiction local history book, Trout Valley, the Hertz Estate, and Curtiss Farm, will be released at the end of July 2008. I enjoy doing book, art, movie, and culture reviews for my blog, the Damian Daily, and for Blogcritics Magazine, and I also publish articles for various other magazines and newspapers from time to time. I’ve dabbled in poetry, but my real passion is writing fiction. I’m currently about a third of the way through a novel.

As for other creative pursuits, I’ve been writing and dancing since I was a little girl. While working on my bachelor’s degree at UC Irvine, I crammed in as many electives as possible with courses in creative writing, art history, and film history, as well as numerous dance classes. I choreographed and performed all through high school and college. (As you can see by the photos, another way that I express my creativity is to change my look every few months.)

CC: What inspired you to launch a blog?
LD: The answer to that would be a ‘who’ rather than a ‘what.’ Lisa Guidarini, of Bluestalking Reader, founded the writers’ critique group in which I participate, and she has been instrumental in encouraging me along the way. One day, she said, “Lisa, you should start your own blog.” So I did.

CC: Where do you do your creative work?
LD: I have a beautiful office space at home with a gorgeous desk and a fantastic view. Every morning and evening, eight or nine deer can be seen grazing in the yard outside my office window. I hardly ever get anything done there.

I usually smuggle my laptop up to my bedroom and close and lock the door, hiding from my husband and kids so that I can concentrate on my writing. My laptop and I can often be found at any number of nearby libraries. I hardly go anywhere without a book, a journal, and my laptop, in the hope that I will be able to sneak in even the smallest snippet of time to read, write, or frantically jot down a story or character idea when inspiration strikes.

CC: What do you struggle with most?
LD: Finding the time to write is my biggest struggle. It’s always difficult to prioritize creativity when so many other daily demands beckon. Thankfully, my husband has been hugely supportive in that realm, sometimes pushing me out the door with my laptop, knowing that I will come home a happier woman after having spent a few hours writing.

I also find it challenging to transition from one project to the next. Maintaining a fluid consistency for a paranormal fiction story, for example, while juggling reviews and journalism projects or writing nonfiction can sometimes be like trying to play different roles on the same stage. My voice and writing style vary when I am writing in different genres, and sometimes juggling multiple projects can be a distraction.

CC: How much does guilt factor in your life?
LD: Guilt used to be a major constraint for me. I felt like my career, my family, my friends, every volunteer project, the household chores, and everything else on the planet should come first, to the point where there was nothing at all left for me. I felt like my creative outlets were just that — “outlets.” What an awful word, really, when you think about it. Creative expression isn’t an outlet. It is an essential part of who we are. When I don’t make time for my creative pursuits, I am miserable, and that translates to everyone and everything around me.

CC: Where do you find inspiration?
LD: My biggest source for inspiration can be found in my own dreams, or rather my nightmares. I keep a dream journal on the nightstand near my bed, so that when I wake, I can quickly scribble down story or character ideas that emerged during my REM sleep. Some of my most spooky and intriguing concepts are taken directly from my frequent and relentless nightmares. I used to consider them a source of torment, but now I see them as my muse.

CC: What are your top 5 favorite blogs?
LD: My favorite blogs are difficult to narrow down. I have favorite authors’ blogs, such as Neil Gaiman’s, and then I often visit blogs of other aspiring writers, sometimes political blogs, and frequently the blogs of friends and acquaintances. A few of the links on my Damian Daily blogroll include the Algonquin Area Writers Group (the writers group that I attend regularly), Bluestalking Reader, My Other Car is a Tardis, and of course Creative Construction.

CC: What are you reading right now?
LD: I’m always juggling multiple books at a time. I like to keep one in my laptop bag, one in the car, one by my bedside, and one in the living room, so that if I ever find myself with five free minutes, I can grab a book and read. I’m currently reading Abhorsen by Garth Nix, the third in a trilogy sent to me by Harper Collins for review. I’m also reading How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card, Club Dead by Charlaine Harris, and a friend’s screenplay. I have a huge pile of review books to work my way through. They’re a joy, and I always get a little thrill when books arrive in the mail, but the stack grows at a pretty rapid rate.

CC: What is your greatest indulgence?
LD: My greatest indulgence is time set aside specifically to work on my fiction. A writing retreat off somewhere all by myself in a place with no distractions is my idea of sanctuary. An occasional bubble bath is a decadent pleasure now and then as well, especially when my girls don’t discover that I’m in the bath and try to jump in with me, splashing water and bubbles all over the bathroom floor.

CC: If you were having coffee with a mother of young children who wanted desperately to fit more creativity into her life, what advice would you offer?
LD: I would have to quote that old Nike slogan, “Just do it.” There will never be some magic sign telling you to “Be creative now, between the hours of 10:00-2:00.” Life is never going to slow down and give you permission. You have to give yourself permission to make creativity a priority.

Sometimes writing for me is more of a compulsion. I find myself up at 3:00 am writing, or unable to sleep if a story idea is churning in my head. Sometimes I think it might be easier to schedule inspiration at a more convenient time, but it doesn’t work that way. Whether it’s foregoing sleep, working around the kids’ nap times or school schedules, arranging a deal with another caregiver to watch the kids, or whatever else you can work out, you have to make the time. If you’re truly a creative person, you won’t be happy unless you make your creativity a priority.

CC: Thank you, Lisa!

After dropping 9.75-year-old S off at taekwondo camp, I got 13-year-old K into a salon to get the cockeyed layers fixed in his long hair. Warning to other moms: if your son wants long hair, stop taking him to the barber shop, take him to the salon at a few more dollars. Barbers don’t know how to deal with long hair. He’s still pretty, even after haircut. That’s what I was trying to fix. You know how baby boomers’ parents complained their hippie boys looked like girls? Well, mine really does. Mind you, it took 2 weeks to convince him, after I blurted out at last barber visit, “either grow it for Locks of Love over the summer or chop it off now.” Evidently, that was not my best parenting moment. Thank goodness, baby C slept through this morning’s ordeal after the talk down. I swear K gets suicidal over a haircut. Anyway, mission accomplished, his hair is more skater than girlie now.

I should have eaten more breakfast: by the time we got home, I had a blood sugar crash and nearly passed out. Had the shakes while heating up frozen burritos for a protein boost lunch. Earlier, I took K out to Starbucks (how I wish there were non chain cafes here). We had some good conversation, finally, over coffeecake. As a breakfast, not great, but I really need to make special separate time with him from S on a more regular basis. We had a very interesting discussion about OPEC, supply and demand vs spec issues; and world economies, particularly the rise of a middle class in India and China and how that’s affecting the oil prices, and the fact that the Middle East’s oil supply won’t last forever, as well as oil drilling’s destruction of the Delta in Gulf of Mexico as a contribution to Katrina damages, etc. He’s really a neat guy. If he weren’t so shy about public speaking, I can totally see him run for president. He sure has strong opinions about the one that “ruined his childhood.”

I pass along evidence that they don’t stay little forever. Sigh. Oh wait, thank goodness!

So, the creativity came to play in the above: 1. finding the words and approach to talk him into neatening the mane with scissors. 2. discussion of world economics with intelligent and concerned young citizen on less than 3 hours of consecutive sleep from nursing baby C last night.

Oh, and 3. the inspiration to find the words again, to write down everything that happened for this blog. Hey, it may not be great literature, but it’s a start, and keeps me dipping into the writing well. Besides, finding the right or best words is my business, whether writing them or speaking them. It is especially important, as a parent, to find them, since each kid we have has their own best mode of communication, and we have to be available to their way, not always ours alone. K has always been like speaking with another adult, even when he was 2. With his brother S, I have to be very particular about how I say what needs to be conveyed, and with their sister, baby C, there’s a whole lot of pattycake going on.

Whether I am conscious of it happening or not at the time, I can see how my creative side is more active than I may initially have been aware.

Our prompt for last week was “at 3:00 a.m.” Our winner is Bec Thomas, who sent in three spectacular photos. Check out more of Bec’s work at her blog and website. Bec’s winning trio, for which she receives a $10 amazon.com gift certificate, are 1) Lunar Eclipse 2) Moon and Venus 3) Eclipse of the Moon:

We have a poem from Cathy Coley, too, who is clearly moving toward a creative bender. Go, Cathy!

At 3 am

I bet you thought
something precious like
kicks of tiny feet
and baby nuzzling
woke me
for a late night feeding
in the still dark room.

well, that, too, but
the thunderstorm’s music
was more melodic
than wagner,
more booming than peer gynt.
and the rain, the rain’s
thousand little notes upon the house
more welcome than Mozart.

Lastly, my haiku:

At 3:00 a.m.

In darkness, each small
sound gains unwanted meaning
and my mind runs loose

Use the prompt however you like. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by midnight on Tuesday, July 1. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

A few weeks ago, I read Christa’s review of The Yummy Mummy Manifesto by Anna Johnson. I was intrigued and ordered a copy. I agree with Christa’s assessment, so I won’t repeat all of her points here. I’ll simply say that this book was an interesting take on applying a creative outlook to the experience of mothering — jumping in with both feet (whether or not you also earn a paycheck) and embracing the beauty of daily life.

Johnson doesn’t focus on creativity itself, per se, but she clearly advocates for mothering outside the box. Doing what feels right for you, pushing yourself to new levels of self-expression (and self-care) while raising the offspring. In essence, “yummy” here means something like “vibrant, engaged, and making the very most of whatever you’ve got.”

I liked that Johnson seems to be a voluptuous eccentric, rather than a polished suburban queen. While she’s full of strong opinions (the La Leche League may appreciate Johnson’s use of “lactivist” and — my favorite — “breastaurant”), you won’t come away with an overdose of MSG (Martha Stewart Guilt).

Johnson has launched a website based on the book, which includes a blog.

Since the creative women reading this blog are largely engaged in some kind of work, whether or not we also work for a paycheck, the websites for working mothers that Johnson highlights in her book are resources for all of us, in one way or another. Here are a few of them:

• Mommy Track’d Lots of good stuff for finding that “balance” of “organized chaos”
• Mom’s Refuge Help with both work and home life
• Solutions for Busy Moms Concrete advice on domestic and work topics
• Work It, Mom! A community where working moms share experiences, advice, and support

I do think that The Yummy Mummy Manifesto is a nice book to have on your shelf. I plan to pick it up again from time to time — especially on those days when I find myself apologzing for breathing, and other self-effacing faux pas. I probably won’t dance naked in the rain, as Johnson does, but you never know.

Well, Miranda, you have done it. It’s all your fault.

You’ve inspired me to blog.

When my comments are longer than some blogs I’ve seen, I know you’ve gotten me back in the habit of writing. I am very grateful. I have had ideas coming out of my ears, and much to do with mothering and creativity. Also, I find the more I’m writing — or exorcising the daily drek — the closer I feel to coming back to the projects that need the dust blown off of them. Right now my creative attention span is too short for the novels or screenplays and I don’t feel like researching and organizing and editing forty gazillion old poems. But I know I can do this. And if I blog my way out of the day to day, maybe I can blog my way back into the bigger projects. And it beats sitting down to longhand journal three pages a day by a long shot. Hold a pen and a baby? Not able to read it later. Type one-handed while nursing? Time-consuming, but doable. And I do highly recommend Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for anyone who can get past chapter 7. Not me. Not yet anyway. Writing Down the Bones is much more my speed. I find it very inspiring, and can read it in snippets. Flip it open anywhere, read a page or two or three, and you’ll likely find exactly what you need to get your writing or other creative juices flowing. Natalie Goldberg rocks!

So, this may be it. The beginning of something new, and the pruning of the paths into my brain toward the neglected novels whose windows are a bit cracked and whose corners are a mite cobwebby.

Another metaphor: I’m at the end of the diving board, bouncing slightly and inhaling deeply, waiting for the splash of cold water in my face.

When I was younger, I had this Emily Dickensonian dream of writing away in my little room, and someone coming across the treasure trove of my words after I’m gone. I’m much more realistic — and less shy — now, with a 13 year old who, like his mother, is ‘too smart for his own good’, a 9.75 year old who is the funniest kid on the planet, but not without his challenges, and a nearly 3 month old, who, of course, is the most beautiful, smartest, strongest, etc. girl ever born. Considering this is what I have to work with, besides getting back into tutoring for viable income in the near future, I gotta start somewhere, catch as catch can. Maybe it’ll help others, like all these creative blogger moms have helped me know I could do it, too.

Besides, dear Miss E D didn’t have the internet, and was a tad weirder even, than I.

Splash! The water’s fine

Enjoy this next installment in our weekly series, “Breakfast,” where we get to meet an inspiring, creative mother from the blogosphere, and enjoy a peek into her creative space. This week we have breakfast with Kate Hopper, a Minneapolis-based writer, teacher, blogger, and mother of two young girls. I stumbled upon Kate’s blog several months ago, and was delighted when she joined us here at Creative Construction. Fire up the cappuccino machine!

CC: Please introduce yourself.
KH: I’m a mother and writer, and I teach “Mother Words” at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. I’m married with two daughters—Stella is 4 ½ and Zoe is 3 months old. Mothering consumes most of my energy right now, and because Zoe refuses to take a bottle, I do almost everything with her latched on to my breast. I never knew how much I could accomplish while I nursed, but my back and neck are killing me.

CC: Tell us about your writing life and creative projects.
KH: I’ve written a memoir currently titled Ready for Air, about the premature birth of my older daughter, Stella. It’s an account of the final weeks of my pregnancy, the “this-was-not-part-of-the-plan” first weeks of my daughter’s life in the hospital, and the isolated, post-NICU world we inhabited after we took her home. It’s a story about the different ways men and women deal with crisis and the unexpected. It’s about the dark side of pregnancy and motherhood—the fear, the irrationality, and the psychic disruption. And finally, it is a story of faith and resolve and of learning to let go of my fear long enough to love my daughter.

I write mostly nonfiction, and have a few essays bouncing around in my head right now, but my next big project is going to be fiction (I think). It will be a series of linked stories set in a small village in Costa Rica, where I lived for a couple of years in the mid-90s. While I was down there, I recorded the life stories of three generations of women, and these stories and their voices will be the backbone of the book. (When I’m going to have time to begin this project, I’ve no idea.)

CC: What inspired you to launch a blog?
KH: I started a blog because I wanted a place where I could discuss writing and reading and motherhood. I post about motherhood literature and craft issues, in addition to posting about my own experiences as a writer-mother. I’ve found that blogging has been a great way for me to think more in-depth about what I’m reading and why I think literature about motherhood is so important, and it also gives me an outlet to process the issues of craft the come up in my teaching. What I didn’t expect when I started to blog was how much I’d love it. I’m so inspired by the community of artists and mothers out there, and I often turn to their words when I’m feeling overwhelmed with life or frustrated that I’m not writing as much as I’d like to be.

CC: Where do you do your creative work?
KH: Before Zoe was born, I always wrote in coffee shops. I wrote most of Ready for Air at the Blue Moon and the Clicqout Club. If I get the little bugger to fall asleep in the stroller, I sometimes still get an hour of writing in at the coffee shop, but this doesn’t happen very often. It’s more difficult for me to focus on writing at home because there is always something else to do: laundry, loading the dishwasher, putting away Stella’s toys. But occasionally, I sit on the porch with my laptop, and I feel like a writer again. (But working at home means more clutter at home. Luckily, my husband is very tolerant of the piles of paper that cover our hutch and dining room table.)

CC: What do you struggle with most?
KH: Right now, time is the biggest challenge for me. I work part-time in communications in addition to everything else, and this takes up a couple of mornings a week. (These work mornings are only successful if Zoe remains asleep at the office, of course, and this only happens about 50% of the time.) I’m trying to reserve one morning a week for my own writing, but things always seem to come up. So I have three essay ideas floating around in my head, but I’ve done very little actual writing of any of them. This is tremendously frustrating for me.

CC: Where do you find inspiration?
KH: I always turn to literature when I need inspiration. Right now, I’m revisiting a decade of Best American Essays in an effort to find a structure that works for one of the essays in my head. I also love poetry, and often find myself anxious to get back to my own writing after I read one of my favorite poets. The other thing that both inspires me and seems to free space in my mind for writing is running. There is nothing like a long, slow run to make me feel alive and ready to write.

CC: What are your top 5 favorite blogs?
KH: It’s difficult for me to choose only five blogs that I love because there are so many. These are a few of the mother-writer blogs that inspire me:

• Beth Kephart’s blog: Her book A Slant of Sun was one of the first memoirs I read about being a mother. She is a gifted writer whose words never fail to move me.
• One Hand Typing: Mardougrrl is a mother who is working on a novel. She so often puts into words the frustrations and joys I’ve been feeling.
• From Here to There and Back: I love to read Kristen’s posts about mothering her son. She has opened her life and her words to us, and I’m so thankful.
• This Mom: No matter what she’s going through, Kyra’s writing always make me laugh and think.
• Speak Softly: Vicki is a writer and teacher, as well, and she’s about to get her first book published!

CC: What is your greatest indulgence?
KH: Chocolate, really good wine, and going out to a nice restaurant with my husband. The wine and the dates are not common these days, but I indulge in chocolate every day. (Hmmm, perhaps that’s why the pregnancy weight isn’t coming off very quickly?)

CC: If you were having coffee with a mother of young children who wanted desperately to fit more creativity into her life, what advice would you offer?
KH: It’s not realistic for me to try to write everyday right now, but know I’m a better mother when I have a little time each week to dedicate to my work. So I would tell this mother to dedicate one morning a week to her creative work. If her child(ren) still nap, set aside one day a week that she won’t do anything around the house during nap time. If they no longer nap, she should get someone to watch the kids for a couple of hours each week. (If she can’t afford a babysitter, maybe she could swap childcare with a neighbor or friend or ask for childcare money from relatives as a birthday present.) Motherhood can be all-consuming, but I start to feel desperate if I’ve gone more than a couple of weeks without writing, and that’s not good for me and it’s not good for my children.

CC: Thanks for sharing with us, Kate!

Liz Massey is a creativity coach and the blogger behind Creative Liberty, a blog dedicated to fostering creativity across media. Liz offers a bounty of interesting articles related to creativity, including a weekly roundup of creative links (in which Creative Construction has been mentioned a couple of times–thanks, Liz!).

I happened across an interesting piece that Liz wrote on “one-sentence journaling“–the idea being that short and sweet may be just the key to unlocking your creative self.

Perfectionism and over-scheduling are two enemies of creative expression, and one-sentence journaling has the advantage of tackling both of them head-on….While writers may seem to benefit the most from keeping one-sentence journals, it is a handy tool for anyone who finds that recording their ideas on a regular basis leads to creative expression later.

This is an excellent tool for creative people with little time to spare. It’s a great way to stay creative, make a record of the day’s highlight (or downfall) and, quite possibly, retain your sense of humor. To read more about this intriguing technique, read the full article here.

I look forward to continuing a mutually creative relationship with Liz!