Let’s Refill Together

Hello Boise. Happy April! My favorite month.

As you may know, I’m very lucky and grateful to join the fabulous Natalie Disney as the inaugural Boise City Writers-in-Residence. Natalie set a stellar example in her six-month stint from September 2023 - March 2024. As we enter April, my term begins.

What does that mean? The Boise City Writer-in-Residence is a collaborative program between the Boise City Department of Arts & History, Boise Public Library and The Cabin. Funded by the City of Boise, these six-month residencies offer local writers dedicated time and a one-time stipend to support their creative practice and connect them to the community through free monthly literary public programs and events.

Hooray! Thanks to all of these organizations for starting this program. So cool.
I’m deeply honored (and still a little awestruck) to be one of the first recipients.

My first event happens this Wednesday, April 10 (tomorrow evening!) at the Downtown Library, upstairs on the third floor (in the Marion Bingham conference room, I hear). This workshop will be the first of a six-part series in Refilling (Y)our Creative Well(s). If you’re curious, you can drop in just once (do one and be done). Or attend a few sessions, focusing on what topic interests you most (and when you’re available). Or come to all six and join us for the full journey.

In this series for writers and artists across disciplines, we’ll explore pathways for refilling creative wells, renewing artistic energy and reawakening our wild spirits within. Each session is free and will take place either at a different Boise Public Library Branch or at the Erma Hayman House.

If this sounds up your alley, scroll down a bit, check out the linked descriptions of each event and mark your calendars as you like.

Refilling Your Creative Well:

a workshop for artists across disciplines

If you ask me, sometimes “exhausting” feels too tame a word for living in our contemporary world. If you’re like me, some days you wake up wondering where your creative juice has gone. You may know it’s still there, somewhere, but everything else can get so overwhelming, it’s hard to find energy to look. In this workshop for writers and artists across disciplines, we’ll explore pathways for refilling creative wells, renewing artistic vitality and reawakening our true selves within. This will be a hand-in-hand journey together through the tangle of frozen, dusty cobwebs you may be experiencing toward greener, wilder forests in mind/body/soul. Let’s reawaken.

Over the next six months, this series of free workshops will focus on renewing our artistic energies from within. Consider joining me at the following events:

April 10, 6 p.m. - 7:45 p.m. at the Downtown Library

May 8, 6 p.m. - 7:45 p.m. at the Library! at Bown Crossing

June 26, 6 p.m. - 7:45 p.m. at the Library! at Cole & Ustick

July 10, 6 p.m. - 7:45 p.m. at the Library! at Hillcrest

August 14, 6 p.m. - 7:45 p.m. at the Library! at Collister

September 25, 6 p.m. - 7:45 p.m. at the Erma Hayman House

Maybe this workshop doesn’t sound right for you at this time —
check out additional ways you or a friend can work with me below.

Work with Me

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Copyright (C) 2024 Heidi Kraay. All rights reserved.


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The book I didn’t mean to write…

12 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle soft launched in December from Modern Mythographer and is getting its first live, in-person release event at MING Studios here in Boise on March 10, where I first read early drafts of the project before I knew it was a book. The event is this Sunday at 7pm as part of their cool 7o’clock series. I highly recommend checking out the series sometime if you haven’t (and participating as an artist if that’s for you) — always something ripe, fresh, curious to uncover, every Sunday at 7pm.

If you’re in town, want to do something different than watch the Oscars and be out in the world for our extra evening of daylight savings, that’s one idea of how to spend an evening. Or just an hour of your evening, really.

Yes there will be books and there will be readings. There will also be moments of communal connection inspired by chance operations. But don’t worry—we’ll go easy…For instance, there will be a chance to contribute to an ongoing communal century with a line or two and pick up instructional cards that invite you to write your own centuries with how-to directions. And there will be a few treats. Like music from Thomas Paul. More details below.  

XOXO, H

“Heidi Kraay’s new book 12 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle is memoir when it wants to be and poetry when it needs to be. Using the century format which allows for a hundred numbered statements in each section of poetry, 12 Lifetimes is both expansive and direct. There is not an extra word or unnecessary gesture in this gorgeous book that will leave you wanting to call up your oldest friend and tell them you love them.”

—Modern Mythographer

Event Details:

Where: MING Studios

When: Sunday, March 10 at 7pm
           Doors at 6:30
           Come early! No late entries.

Cost: Free for MING Members

$7 for everyone else

Book Cost: $18

Can’t come but want the book?

Kind words from readers:

“An amazing journey, this book!!!” D.J. Fogel

“I had to stop several times to reflect on your words,

to wipe tears from laughter and from sadness.

Absolutely beautiful work.” J. Saenz

“Loving the book. Such a cool structure!” N. Garcia

Can’t make it but want to come say hi soon? I’ll be in conversation with a panel of other local writers on the Saturday afternoon of Storyfort this year.

Say hello there

Did you get this in a forward or see it online?
Sign-up for these *mostly* quarterly updates
(plus a couple bonus notes here and there for Boise residents) below!

Newsletter Sign-Up

Wanna send some tangible support to this playwright/writer/human?
You can throw a tip in my jar! $1, $10, $100, whatever :) No pressure, just an offering.

Tip Jar - Thx!

Copyright (C) 2024 Heidi Kraay. All rights reserved.


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Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

A couple months ago, my brother asked for some input regarding some pieces of writing that he was holding off publishing, in part because of the terrible responses he imagined hearing when certain people might see what he wrote. We had an email thread conversation about that and he then said one of my replies should be a blog article.

Because he's my big brother who has a lot of wisdom and one of the first people I knew to have a blog, and because I bet a lot of people (myself included) delay sharing their work for the same reasons, the text of that email makes up the majority this post -- a little revised for clarity and context -- one that I hope will get me back on a more consistent posting schedule, too. If you've been avoiding writing/sharing/making/doing something for similar reasons, I hope there's something here you might find useful here as well.

--

Yes, our imaginations can work up some pretty awful responses to the writing (art, anything...) we put out in the world. Often these imagined reactions are not based in reality. The fact that those projected statements and voices are not based in reality can be what makes those fears (or monkey mind thoughts, or the editor, the censor) most powerful. They come from that part of our brain that just wants to keep us safe, keep us in status quo, keep us from going out of our comfort zone because that's what it's evolved to do to keep us alive. All it wants is to get us to stop writing (and/or stop doing whatever scary thing it is that might be what we really want to do with our life).

There's an exercise Beth Pickens (a creativity consultant who lives in the Bay Area) gives her clients sometimes: work out all the possible worst-case scenarios to their very end. With that in mind, what might happen if these people do object to the writing and artwork you release? What's the worst thing they can say? What would happen if they said that? And what would happen after that, and after that, and after that? (Invariably, Pickens says this train of thought goes on until every client ultimately says, "and then I'll go broke and die," or something like that.)

So...what happens if you work out that fear until it reaches the very bottom of the barrel, and see just how dramatic your imagination can go -- and then decide what you'll do anyway?

And/or then go the other way -- what happens if you don't publish? If you don't make the thing you've always wanted to make, or go where you've always wanted to travel, or book the scary gig, or ______ (fill in the blank with what fits your circumstance)? How will you feel if you continue to keep the book (proverbial or literal) in the drawer? How will you feel if you do publish? Where do you feel that in your body? Often our bodies know what we need to do, but we train ourselves to tune that out. Instead, what if we listen to what our bodies have to say?

Or as Oliver Burkeman quotes James Hollis in Four Thousand Weeks, what happens if we ask ourselves, "Does this choice diminish me, or enlarge me?" (I'm asking myself that about a lot of decisions right now.)

Often that fear (of writing, publishing, sharing, doing anything that moves us toward the life we want) is the resistance Stephen Pressfield talks about in The War of Art -- resistance being the sign that the thing you're afraid of IS the thing you need to be doing. Resistance is going to try to find any way possible to stop you from doing the thing that takes you out of the comfort zone -- so you can use it as a compass that will show you the direction you(r larger, higher, wiser self) want(s) to go.

Or as I recently heard someone paraphrase Iyanla Vanzant, "If there's not something in your life that pushes you to the point where the pee is running down your leg, then you ain't living big enough."

And so then, if you decide to go ahead and publish (or do whatever it is you want to do with your art/life/work), which I hope you do, what is the least you need to do next in order to feel good about that decision and move forward? (In the case of publishing something that someone might not like, such as a piece of writing that could affect someone else because it includes something they said or did, do you give them a heads up? do you let them read a bit of it? do you draw a boundary around how they can respond if you decide to share it with them early, or how much you'll let their reactions affect you? or do you let all of that go and hope for the best?)

In other words, what is the smallest next step on the way to your big goal? Not what are the five next things you can do -- but what is ONE tiny thing you can do right now?

Can you do that little thing? Right now?

Please do. Your art, audience and I thank you for doing that.

Need some creative rejuvenation?

In February, I led a six-week in-person workshop at The Cabin where writers and artists across disciplines could come together, vent their frustrations, envision their dreams and begin shedding the difficulty of the past 2+ years so they could move forward into the creative life they want to be living. For every mention of “they” here I should say “we,” as the workshop was as much for me as the participants. Our renewing time together struck such a nerve that The Cabin wanted to offer the same workshop six months later.

Check out the workshop description for Refilling Your Creative Well below and if you or someone you know could benefit from this shared time, I would love to be in the room with you and/or your loved ones. This is again an in-person Boise workshop. Reach out with questions to me or a staff person from The Cabin.

XOXO, H

Refilling Your Creative Well:

a workshop for artists across disciplines

It’s been quite a couple years, hasn’t it? “Exhausting” feels too tame a word. If you’re like me, even at this point of the pandemic you’re wondering where your creative juice has gone. You may know it’s still there, somewhere, but everything else can get so overwhelming, it’s hard to find energy to look. In this workshop for writers and artists across disciplines, we’ll explore pathways for refilling creative wells, renewing artistic vitality and reawakening our true selves within. This will be a hand-in-hand journey together through the tangle of frozen, dusty cobwebs you may be experiencing toward greener, wilder forests in mind/body/soul. Let’s reawaken.

Nuts and Bolts:

Location: In-person at The Cabin

Time: Wednesdays, 6:30—8:30 PM MT

Dates: August 31st—October 5th

Cost: $215 for non-members, $180 for Cabin Members (scholarships available)

Register

Maybe this workshop doesn’t sound right for you at this time —
check out additional ways you or a friend can work with me below.

Work with Me

Did you get this in a forward or see it online?
Sign-up for these *mostly* quarterly updates
(plus a couple bonus notes here and there for Boise residents) below!

Newsletter Sign-Up

Wanna send some tangible support to this playwright/writer/human?
You can throw a tip in my jar! $1, $10, $100, whatever :) No pressure, just an offering.

Tip Jar - Thx!

Copyright (C) 2022 Heidi Kraay. All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe