Notes: I was slightly (okay very) distracted while completing this “creative pause,” because all the kids were home to decorate the Christmas tree and the Snoopy Christmas music was playing, which was altogether delightful, but not conducive to deep thinking. I drew myself walking on an unfamiliar path, or a new path. ; reflecting on it, I saw that the path had all the seasons and that I seemed to be many ages and abilities at once, which I chose to interpret as integration (my first thought was, wait, am I dead?). I’ve noticed that my “why” has become more important as a guiding light in my current iteration of moving through life. The why entwines with the what, and I am easier inside myself, being myself, trusting my voice to ask questions and to make space in the room for delight.
Notes: I don’t like the phrasing I’ve decided to use here, but oh well. I went with it, and just dumped a random assortment of images and words onto the page, rather late in the day, to be honest. Songs: “Runnin’ Down A Dream,” by Tom Petty and “Love is Love,” by Grace Potter. Materials: pencil crayons and black pen.
Notes. I like to draw while listening to music. If you’re on Spotify, you can follow my “Lynda Barry playlist” (carrieannesnyder) and listen along. Today’s song is “Bye River” by Sampa the Great. The song is almost 8 minutes. After that I set a timer to write for about 5 minutes (though I got into the conversation, and wrote a bit longer, till it felt complete.)
Final thought. Please change any or all of the above elements to fit your needs, interests, available materials, and time.
What project or projects would you like to pursue this coming year?
Question for you, dear reader.
Question for myself.
Does the idea of tackling a project set your heart beating with excitement? It sure does for me. The project could be as small as a bulletin board, or as big as training to run a marathon—large or small, projects are my orientation, my road maps for life.
When I settle on a project, I like to see it through to completion. More accurately I need to see it through to completion. I am compelled to do the project justice.
I’ve got lots of small projects on the go, including bulletin board artwork (my “story-time friends” are already appearing: that’s a book-sniffing bear from “Read It, Don’t Eat It!”). But the over-arching larger project is currently eluding me. The ingredients for a big project are as follows: it’s got a clear and simple-to-hold goal; it’s completed over a long period of time (a year is a tidy amount); and while the goal may be clear, the outcome is entirely uncertain; the challenges along the way can’t be predicted, nor can my response to those challenges; and finally, I don’t know in advance where the project may lead—toward what conclusions, or revelations, or experiences, or connections.
What a recipe! What fantastic potential for discovery and learning!
Projects are exciting.
A project opens a doorway to the unknown. Committing to a project fills me with hope.
From past experience, I know that an idea for a project will likely strike almost at random, seemingly out of the blue, and also that I’ll know almost immediately if it will stick. Aha! Yes! But even when I feel the pull of a possible project, I’m a cautious about committing (because when I do commit, as mentioned, I’m all in). So I test the waters. Experiment, play, mull, talk to people who are experts, float the notion past trusted ears, gather a support network of believers.
An example.
Many years ago, I got the idea to do a triathlon. What cracks me up is that my initial idea was not “do a triathlon” but “become an Olympic-level triathlete.” Sure, Carrie, why not? I was at the time of this fantastical thought, 35 years old, the mother of four young children, and not only did I not know how to swim, I panicked when putting my face under water. Despite returning to reality (within a few hours of having the enormously aspirational thought), the core of the idea stuck. Still pretty aspirational, let’s admit.
Ten months later, I completed an Olympic-length triathlon, including a 1500-metre open water swim in a lake.
In the in-between months, I’d committed fully and finessed a plan that made the goal achievable. For starters, I’d learned how to swim, and trained in the pool diligently. I’d competed in several practice races (including a half-marathon). Along the way, there were a number of unexpected outcomes: I’d changed my perception of myself, gaining a sense of greater strength, endurance and autonomy; I’d changed my routine, carved out time (early in the morning) to train, and discovered that I loved exercise in all forms, solo and with friends (still doing it!); I’d changed my relationship with my body, appreciating its strength, respecting its limitations.
And I’d had the idea for a new book (which became Girl Runner). Never saw that coming.
Girl Runner became, of course, its own big project.
And Girl Runner opened doors that led to unexpected places too. For example, after publishing Girl Runner, I was commissioned to write a magazine piece about groundbreaking women runners in Canada; months late, the magazine’s editor killed the piece; but the interviews I’d done with these amazing women led me to commit to an unexpected new big project: coaching a girls’ rep soccer team. The women I’d interviewed had talked about the importance of role models in bringing about change for women and girls in sports—that women needed to be, and to be seen, not just as athletes, but also as coaches, referees, sports administrators, decision-makers and experts.
A seed had been planted—not the seed I would have chosen or anticipated—and when the opportunity to coach arose, a few months later, I said yes. I spent years on that big project.
I think the coaching project led me, in a roundabout way, to co-founding The X Page storytelling workshop—another big and life-changing decision.
At present, I’m fresh out of projects.
Or maybe the more accurate phrasing would be: I’m nosing around for a new big project. I’m open to ideas.
The library-job/job-job project (begun in the aftermath of publishing Francie’s Got A Gun) took a few meandering routes, and I consider it a success: now it’s woven into the fabric of my every day life. It stuck.
I think I’ve got room for another project right now. I’m pursuing a certificate in conflict management and mediation, started last winter, but it’s not clear that it is yet a project in the way that I’ve come to view them. In part that’s because I’m pursuing it quite sporadically; however, it does have an uncertain outcome. So it has potential.
Beyond that, I turn 50 in a few months, and during a conversation with a friend recently, she floated the idea of celebrating 50 with a series of events … or experiences … or activities. Could celebrating be a project? Fifty weeks of [fill in the blank] to celebrate half a century of discovering and learning how to live here on planet Earth, in this particular human form?
How do you feel about critique? Is it useful to you, at least some of the time, or do you find it painful, even unsettling? (That should be the other way round — unsettling, even painful.) Yes! And that’s the kind of critique I give myself regularly, and which I’m reasonably comfortable receiving — critique on language, syntax, effectiveness of words packed together to create a particular kind of experience and meaning.
I wonder if it’s a confidence factor. Maybe? I’m comfortable with my own facility with language, I know what I like, what effect I’m aiming for, and I’m willing to try and try and try again to test out possibilities. I’m familiar with my limitations and I like what I can do with words. There’s an intrinsic pleasure to playing with language, and critique is necessary — if it’s provided in a spirit of kindness, of support, of interest, of acceptance. What matters to me may not be what matters to someone else, when it comes to writing. I admire so many different genres and styles, voices and techniques. Critique works when we’re playing together, when we like and admire each other’s unique gifts, when there is an equal exchange of energies. (A phrase I only recently learned, and which seems to speak to a core need within me.)
I just opened and read the student evaluations from the course I taught this winter. I’ve been putting it off. This is critique that I believe is necessary and important and valuable. So I read it. And now I feel like I’ve eaten a shame sandwich. The silly thing is that the bulk of the comments and assessments (all anonymous) were extremely positive. Of course not everyone clicked with what I was offering — that’s understandable, reasonable. Not everything is for everyone. There were some suggestions for improvements, almost all of which I do not disagree with. But here’s the thing: I feel like a total failure. That’s my gut response. The shame sandwich bloats me with self-pity and fear. Why would I ever dream of teaching again? Cut and run, pull the parachute, jump ship — that’s my gut instinct.
I don’t always know what will send me spiralling.
I have not found a way to solve this particular problem. Is it a character flaw, a bug in the system, the way that I’m wired? I’ve tried therapy, I’ve tried journalling. I put myself out in public again and again, and almost ask for it — for critique. And then I don’t know what to do when it arrives.
Even good news.
Even compliments, I reject, I wobble on the inside. This can’t be right, I think.
But here’s something curious and unexpected: I’ve found a job that I can do without eating a shame sandwich every day that I do it. At this job, I feel competent, capable. I like myself when I do this job. I’m busy and useful, and sometimes even a little bit bored, but I feel surprisingly joyful.
Do you need joy in your work? I do. Nibbling on a joy snack is way more nourishing than eating a shame sandwich. Every day that I do this job, I experience joy. I’m not sure what that means, I’ll be honest. This wasn’t a job that I set out to do, ever. I never once dreamed of or even considered doing this job, till I started doing it, and every day I am glad that I gave myself permission to try something so different from what I’d expected to do, unhitched from ambition, out of the spotlight, the kind of job that should pay better, but because it’s caring work, it isn’t honoured or rewarded in that way. Reminds me of coaching soccer or looking after small children. And I just love doing it.
I love being the calm grounded centre in a storm of activity. I love being surrounded by noise and bustle and in the midst of all this tending to a stream of needs. I do this work and I never ever eat a shame sandwich while doing it because I know deep down that I’ve done my best, and I forgive myself instinctively for lapses or forgetting or dropping a ball somewhere. I love doing work for which there is no way — exactly — to prepare, you just need to dive in. I don’t have to be an expert. (I don’t want to be an expert, and have never ever felt like one, which may factor into why those critiques of my teaching strike home; why would I dare to teach if I’m not an expert? Shame sandwich, here I come.)
At this job-job, this work I’ve been doing since November, critique is almost an irrelevant term. Talking things through, debriefing, considering alternative routes or responses, sharing tips and resources — that’s useful, and it doesn’t feel like critique because it comes from a place of support and mutuality. I’ve never had a job like this before; I’ve mostly worked solo, self-employed or contract by contract. I hadn’t appreciated before now how much harder it is to work like that — alone. Working solo, any support system has been of my own devising; debriefing is scattered and requires explaining the situation to others who weren’t directly involved; there’s less direction, less of a sense of belonging. You know? If you work solo, contract to contract, self-employed, I’m guessing you know.
Okay, my blog platform is kind of dying here, on my dying ancient laptop, so I’m going to sign off without a proper ending. Just know that joy snacks are out there. And you might just find joy in something you’ve never considered trying before.
Super thrilled to discover this review of Francie’s Got a Gun, on Kerry Clare’s blog, Pickle Me This. I respect Kerry’s keen reader’s eye immensely, and I’m overflowing with gratitude for her deep and layered reading of the novel. As book-coverage shrinks in traditional media outlets, reviews like Kerry’s are ever-more meaningful and important (as are reader reviews on sites like Goodreads, Amazon and Indigo). Kerry’s long been a terrific booster of Canadian writers and writing, not to mention she’s a talented novelist herself (Waiting for a Star to Fall).
Here’s an excerpt.
I loved Francie’s Got a Gun, a new novel by Carrie Snyder…. It’s a taut, tension-filled story of a young girl who’s running with a gun in her hand, the question of “where did she come from” taking precedent over “where is she going?” because maybe the ending it inevitable. But is it? … I started reading this book and found it hard to put it down, but refrained from posting about it until I’d reached the very end, so I’d be able to tell you with certainty that Carrie Snyder has pulled off, with flawless execution, a rich and sprawling story, and she really, really has.
Wherever you've come from, wherever you're going, consider this space a place for reflection and pause. Thank you for stopping by. Your comments are welcome.
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About me
My name is Carrie Snyder. I work in an elementary school library. I’m a fiction writer, reader, editor, dreamer, arts organizer, workshop leader, forever curious. Currently pursuing a certificate in conflict management and mediation. I believe words are powerful, storytelling is healing, and art is for everyone.
