Category Archives: Creativity

Why write

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Writing means creating something bigger than yourself. Something that has the potential to touch people. Maybe for a moment. Or, just maybe, for longer.

I write because I have too many thoughts to be contained. It would be negligent not to let them out. Give them a chance to grow into a few sentences that might someday become full paragraphs, or even pages.

Writing is about understanding people and finding meaningful ways to connect with them. It’s about uncovering a relatable story, then bringing that story to life in a way that it hasn’t been before.

I’ve been a hobby writer since childhood, really. But it wasn’t until the last few years that I’ve spent time trying to cultivate my writing skills. The secret to improving your writing is to read all kinds of things, search for inspiration, and write as often as possible. I’ve taken a few classes at The Loft Literary Center, which have given me a better understanding of the structure and components of different types of writing, and opened my eyes to just how many talented people there are in the Minneapolis literary community.

“Either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.”

Benjamin Franklin

I intend to do both. But intentions mean nothing. Only actions count. Aside from classes, my first small action was submitting a piece to a writing contest last month. The MinnPost contest called for a 100-word short story. I thought, Sure, why not?

And guess what? My entry was selected for third place. Although a small feat, it was somewhat validating, especially considering the other winners have had multiple pieces published. Maybe this is the beginning of more good things to come, I thought.

Here’s the announcement and my short story…

{images credit: MinnPost.com}

The simple pleasure of literature

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They always move things around on me. I think it’s a ploy to keep me there longer, trying to find my way through the shelves twice my height. Actually, it might be that I don’t come in often enough. With every visit, I wonder why it’s been so long. No other place makes me feel as surrounded by brilliance. By history, by love, by faraway places, and by things I’ll never even know about because I won’t have a chance to go through it all.

One step into a bookstore and I’m like a kid in Toys “R” Us. I walk around in wonder, taking my time. I look for the perfect item to take home because this is a treat. It’s not every day I get to spend time in such a special place.

I usually peruse the New Fiction, Humor, and Literature Studies sections. I go through the rows carefully, running my fingers along the spine of each book as I read its title. I’ll even get on hands and knees to appropriately assess the bottom shelf. I’m so discriminating about the design I might miss out on a good book because the casing doesn’t draw me in. The coloring, the imagery, the type treatment – all of it should come together to create a style so captivating that I can’t help myself.

When I’ve found one worthy of a closer look, I tip the top corner toward me then pull it from between its neighbors that don’t seem to want to give it up (jealous, I’m sure). I look at the cover a second then flip to read the back. I hate when the back is crowded with nothing but reviews from every newspaper with the word Times in the title. Sure, it might be a charming anthology, or a terrific debut, or even a book for the ages, but I’d like to understand what these 342 pages entail before I’m willing to care how they were interpreted by someone else.

After the back, I dive in to a few chapters at random. Nothing else quite smells or feels the way a book does. The smell is like that of sawdust long settled on a workshop floor. The smooth, soft paperback cover like thick tissue paper. Flipping the pages, it’s as if the same paper variety and weight has been used for every book printed in the last hundred years. I’m not talking coffee table books or textbooks here – those are far less magical, what with their glossy pages and charts and pictures. A real book doesn’t need pictures. It needs to be unusual, enlightening, and full of heart.

With most of them, I don’t get past the second paragraph of a chapter. This always reminds me of the importance of great openings to any piece of writing. If I haven’t been hooked, I gently spread apart the books that have fallen together in its absence and put it back.

With every return to the shelf, my disappointment grows along with my eagerness to find one worth keeping. As I search relentlessly for the next author I hope to stir my soul and make me think differently, I realize that everyone around me is doing the same. For the time these people are here, they’re removing themselves from the complexities of everyday life to appreciate the simple pleasure of literature.

The authors of these books have created something bigger than themselves. They’ve created whole worlds or new ways of looking at our world. And brought characters to life in so real a manner that we feel we know them better than our closest friends. The stories they’ve constructed have the potential to touch people for decades, or even centuries.

{photo credit: brewbooks flickr}


Permanent inspiration.

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It’s one thing to surround yourself with inspiration. It’s another to permanently affix it to your body. Being an incessant editor of everything I do, I can’t commit to such permanence.

My younger brother, however, has no problem with this. Danny drafted his first tattoo in a sketchbook and has done the same with every one since. Before getting the inaugural tattoo, he thought about it for months. He even brought the sketch to my dad and told him what he planned to do. The placement was a statement in itself – wrapping around the wrist of his hand-shaking arm. The different elements creatively denote his birthdate and favorite number. Impressed by the thoughtfulness behind the mark, my dad became a supporter of permanent body ink that day.

Each subsequent tat is symbolic of something meaningful to my brother. Some are dedicated to our dad (one being his signature and date of birth). Some are reminders of how to live well (the newest reads: enjoy the little things). And one was done as a gift to me because he felt so strongly about the meaning behind it…

That’s my handwriting. I wrote it in his sketchbook.

Arms exposed, my brother is a walking inspiration before he ever says a word. And when he does start talking (or singing), he rarely stops. Dude has got a lot to say, and whatever it is, he always speaks with gusto. I’ve never met someone with a greater passion for each day. He epitomizes create happy.

A Learner

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Written for my creative nonfiction class.

A Learner

Walking through a maze of buildings built more than a hundred years before I even came into existence, the sun playing peek-a-boo behind the clouds, I opened the door to the address listed first on the notes I’d printed to help me navigate my way through my new surroundings. Once inside, I discreetly scanned the plaques outside each door in search of the room number I’d memorized so as not to reveal that I didn’t know where I was going. I found the one I’d been silently repeating to myself, as that’s what I do when I want to remember something, and walked in. Triumph one of what was to become years of tests of my abilities. I took a seat in the middle of an assembly of undersized chairs connected to even smaller writing surfaces. Standing at barely 5’1” and a half without heels on – a rare occurrence – the small space wasn’t a problem for me. It served as a reminder that I hadn’t grown up yet, no matter how many hurdles I’d overcome up to this point.

Later I would become a front-row sitter. But not today. On this day I wanted to blend in. Observe my environment to determine how best to act here. As the room reached closer and closer to full capacity, my stomach turned from nervousness. Or maybe from excitement. I’d never thought I would be here. I didn’t know that it was a place I would belong. But as the professor approached the podium and welcomed the class of would-be 2009 University of Minnesota graduates, I just knew. This was for me. I am a learner.

The time between that day and graduation is a period in my life I remember being the happiest. It could have something to do with the fact that shortly after graduation is when my dad got sick. And shortly after that is when I lost him. But also, it’s a time when I remember being so sure that all the possibility in the world lay in front of me. I could do anything. Change everything. Become important.

As far back as I remember my dad always believed I would accomplish great things, as all dads believe of their children. But I took this very seriously. My dad was one of those people-changers. You became a better person for knowing him. I know my brother and I did. With cowboy boots, kind blue eyes, a horseshoe mustache and a contagious laugh, he was a man of small stature, but of huge heart. More than anything, I always wanted to make him proud. And I did.

“This is my daughter, Casie. My college grad.” He’d say as he introduced me to anyone.

I’d smile, knowing that graduating college isn’t an unusual feat, but something that meant to him that he’d raised me right.  “Nice to meet you,” I’d always say, looking over at my dad grinning from ear-to-ear.

“Your dad has told me so much about you over the years. He’s very proud of you.” That’s what they’d all say. His friends and coworkers knew more about me than some of my own, probably.

With a bachelor’s degree on my résumé, it was time to find a profession worthy of that proud smile I’d come to rely on for motivation. As I transitioned into the supposed “real world” that I thought I’d already been part of since I’d worked more than fulltime while in school, I caught myself starting to doubt that I could really do anything or make any real difference. As a student, you have the luxury of looking with hopeful eyes into the future you’re working toward. When studenthood ends you suddenly find that what was once the future is now the present and it’s not what you thought it was going to be. The way I see it, you can either become one of those people who wake up every day wishing they were doing something else – something more – or you can become the person you want to be.

“You have too much good energy, kid, to waste it on things you shouldn’t,” my dad told me as we sat on his patio and I explained through teary eyes my angst about not being where I’d hoped. At that particular time last summer, I didn’t know where I wanted to be or what it was I wanted to do, exactly. But I was very sure that what I was doing was not it.

A year later, I’m not quite there yet. But I think I’ve found a way to get closer. We’re all learning new things every day, but there’s something about being in a classroom that substantiates it. Last Monday, I walked through the door of an unfamiliar building, wandered up a few flights of stairs and down a hallway until I found the room I was supposed to be in, and took a seat in a classroom for the first time in two years. I’m officially a learner again. A learner who wants to become a writer.

Sounds of mind

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Someone asked me recently if music for me was a means of releasing emotions or escaping them. I’ve since decided that it’s a bit of both. While the melody offers an escape, the lyrics are a way for me to release my thoughts. Since I identify with certain pieces of a song more strongly than others, I thought I’d try tying together the parts of different songs that mean the most to me and see what I end up with…

{Note: Please read as one continuous arrangement. It actually makes some sense.}

I’ve got some issues that nobody can see
and all of these emotions are pourin’ outta me
I bring them to the light for you, it’s only right
this is the soundtrack to my life
I’m super paranoid like a sixth sense
since my father died I ain’t been right since.

{Kid Cudi, Soundtrack 2 My Life}

I don’t know who I am
Staring at a million broken pieces here
I don’t know where I stand
While I’m still, the world goes round so free, so cavalier
Aimlessly I wander, like a drifter on a narrow winding road
I’ve got plenty of direction
But I don’t know where to go
I’m so lost without you
That I can’t find myself
Ever since you left me
It’s been like a bullet through my heart
And I know I should move on
But I don’t know where to start.

{Little Big Town, Lost}

Some days I miss your smile
I get tired of walkin’ all these lonely miles
No, life ain’t always beautiful
Tears will fall sometimes
Life ain’t always beautiful
But it’s a beautiful ride.

{Gary Allen, Life Ain’t Always Beautiful}

We all have missed you, and the way you grin
The day is necessary, every now and then
For souls to move on, givin’ life back again.
Life without you, all the love you passed my way
The angels have waited for so long, now they have their way.

{Stevie Ray Vaughan, Life Without You}

Oh it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it’s not enough
To make it all okay
Running back through the fire
When there’s nothing left to save
It’s like chasing the very last train
When it’s too late.

{James Morrison, Broken Strings}

Oh, we’re a little closer now
In finding what life’s all about
Yeah, I know you just can’t stand it
When things don’t go your way
But we’ve got no control over what happens anyway.

{James Morrison, Please Don’t Stop The Rain}

Won’t you walk through this world with me,
Over the miles of mystery,
Walk through this world with me.
‘Cause I just want to look back over all the years
with you right there standing by my side.

{Marc Cohn, Walk Through This World}

I wanna do something that matters, say something different
Something that sets the whole world on its ear
I wanna do something better with the time I’ve been given
I wanna try to touch a few hearts in this life
And leave nothing less than something that says I was here.

{Lady Antebellum, I Was Here}

I’d love if you’d comment with lyrics from songs that have a lot of meaning for you.

Aha moment

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I have a second job where I go to different restaurants, bars and events to promote different beers. Usually I just have casual conversations with people about the beer and about their day. But last weekend my conversation with a small-town bar patron took an unexpected turn.

As is somewhat usual, a man asked me if I did anything besides beer promotions. I explained that I work for an ad agency in Minneapolis. Also per usual, he asked where I’d gone to school.

The University of Minnesota, I told him.

That’s normally where the conversation ends in typical Minnesota fashion with something like, “Great school. Well, it was nice meeting you. Have a good one.” But this talk went a bit further.

Next he asked what I’d gone to school for. I told him how I’d graduated with a journalism degree and that I was originally a professional journalism student aspiring to be a magazine writer, but that I’d changed course within the journalism school and studied strategic communication for the majority of my college career, pushing me into the world of advertising.

Given all the journalism talk, he asked, Do you like to write?

I love to.

Are you good at it?

Well, every time I ever told my dad how much I love to write, he would always say, “And you’re good at it.” Since my dad could always be trusted to give an objective opinion and because his opinion in this case is one I’ve heard from many other people as well, I think I might be good and I’m always trying to be better.

So, you like to write. Do you like to read?

Yeah, I like to read.

What do you like to read?

I read articles and blogs about creative disciplines, business or anything else I find interesting. I read satirical essays by David Sedaris, Sloane Crosley and similar authors that I stumble upon. Anything that offers uncommon ideas about common things.

We discussed further how skilled writing is a lost art and an ability essential to everything you do in life. The problem is people don’t take it upon themselves to build their writing skills and teachers and professors don’t hold students as accountable as they should for proper composition nor do they challenge them to push past the creative boundaries they’ve been held to since the first time they were told to color in the lines.

Do you write regularly?

Yeah, I have a blog that I update pretty often. I would write more if I had more time.

What do you write about?

Well, the name of my blog is ‘create happy’ and the idea is to write about how I try to find happiness in everything and act in ways that inspire people to do the same.

What makes you want to write about that?

I feel like I have an instinctive desire to help people experience joy {something I know I inherited from my dad}. And it’s an opportunity to contribute to the betterment of people around me.

Then, it came to me – the theme that ties my interests together.

The discipline of advertising – if you get an opportunity to do it right – allows you to look at a business and figure out how you can make it better. The things I write about in my blog allow you to look at a life situation – big or small – and figure out how you can make it better.

It seems I like to make things better.

{Our conversation ended after my ‘aha moment’ with each of us wishing the other well.}

Words Create Happy

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I adore words creatively and uncommonly crafted together. Like this…

Words are windows.

Those three words probably mean something different to me than they do to you. To me, they mean the way a few words are put together determines the way I see through them into the story they’re telling. They could also mean that a piece of writing is a window into the identity of the person who wrote it.

The words we write and the words we connect with are telling of who we are. The words I write here are ones that should inspire happiness and the creation of it. But staring at a blank page begging to be filled with inspirational thoughts is intimidating. I love practicing writing words worth reading. I jumped into college in pursuit of becoming a journalist. The way I learned the craft of professional journalism offered little room for creativity, so I abandoned that pursuit in search of more creative freedom and followed a path into the realm of advertising.

I love advertising because it offers the opportunity to be part of something that communicates to people in a meaningful way. Great advertising is like great writing. Both come from knowing the right ways to reach people.

This is a space for crafting my thoughts into words that attempt to reach people by offering windows into uncommon ideas about inspiring joy.

Words allow me to create happy.

Happy Writing

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Heard of free writing? You have a topic (or maybe you don’t) and you simply write whatever comes to mind without stopping. When you read through what you’ve written, you’ll likely find some profound thoughts to decipher. It’s actually better to do this on paper because I think we have all become too reliant on the delete button. I decided to free write about the topic “Create Happy.” Below is what came out (it’s unedited so please don’t judge the grammar and punctuation):

“Create happy and you will find that not only will you be happier but the people around you will be happier. Doing the simplest things like saying thank you. Create happy is a way of living and you will be able to follow your heart because your heart wants you to be happy. Eating Cheerios for a healthy heart? Try being happy. Not just because something out of your control happened to you that caused you to feel that way. Put effort into being happy. Happiness is a choice. You choose to live your life the way you do. The way you live your life affects how other people live theirs. Be a role model. Be a good friend. Be an inspiration to others. Do good things. Be good at heart. Doing good things doesn’t have meaning unless you mean it. Be genuine. Be unique. Be the best you. The best you is whatever you make of yourself. In the end you will have left a mark on the world. On other people. What you do today and for the rest of your days defines that mark.”

Now it’s your turn. It’ll be more fun and probably more difficult than you think because it conflicts with how you write on a daily basis. I wrote for only one minute for brevity’s sake because it was for my blog. But you can write for as long as you’d like. Try five minutes or more. Simply start writing whatever comes to mind or use the following topics:

  • Happiness
  • Life
  • Summer
  • Today

I’d love it if you’d comment below with what you come up with during your free writing – even just a few excerpts. Happy writing!