Art Tutorial: Found Poetry Collage

If you like found poetry, you can take it one step further and create a collage with it. A few days ago, I used raw-art techniques for found poetry. Today, I’m using a different method. It’s the journaling version of NaNoWriMo –National Novel Writing Month.

While the “rules” of found poetry say you underline the words, then copy them, I like the idea of cutting out the words and pasting them down. This can get a little tricky if you are using catalogs or magazines. It gives it a visual and textural feel, as well as a heightened realism in the cut-out words.

Here is my most recent venture into found-poetry journaling, a two-page piece, including cut-out. Directions are below the photos. Words of the poem:

Sanctuary

In a seaside town
two minutes from the beach,
you grow up with nothing–
Winters hold razor-sharp edges.
Pearl moon makes the most of its small space
Still big and empty enough for
human-scaled dimensions.

Overleaf (page 1) with moon cutout backed with parchment. You can see part of the poem through the parchment.

Next page. Moon repeats--this is the piece from the previouis page. The letter "M" is large to emphasise the word "moon".

Directions

Materials: Several magazines, catalogs, old books and. . .

• Scissors, craft knife (small box cutter or X-acto knife)
• glue
• tweezers
• parchment paper, cut into 5″ x 8″ pieces.

Method: Read through catalogs, magazines, or an old book that you don’t mind cutting up. When you find a phrase you like, cut it out carefully. Leave a margin around the words you want. It makes it easier to change tenses or capital letters if the new piece overlaps, rather than butts up against, the cut-out piece.

Don’t worry too much if you don’t have perfect sentences. Right now you are gathering. It’s also a good idea to cut out a few extra words. You don’t know yet where this is going, and that’s part of the fun.

In this case, I had drawn a fancy bottle on the page, intending to make the poem about memories–the bottle was a perfume bottle, the idea that scents evoke memories. That was my idea. Poetry’s idea ran away in another direction. That necessitated the cut out page and re-thinking of the design. Leave yourself open till you have the poem. It’s much easier.

Put the strips of paper together, using lines to create phrases.

In some cases, you may want big or fancy letters for the initial capital. You could write them in, or use rubber stamps, but I find the search and cutting method to be more satisfying for this collage.

Trim the larger pieces you have to make just the words you want visible. Now use tweezers to place them as you would collage pieces, to see where you want them.

The glue choice is important. I tried a glue stick, but it doesn’t deposit enough glue and often the paper rips. Thin glue makes the paper too fragile. I like to use a PVA glue and a thin paintbrush. Put the strip face down on the parchment paper, use the tweezers to hold the paper in place, and stroke the glue over in a thin coat. This keeps the glue from oozing out underneath the paper and leaving marks on the page.

Use the tweezers to place the piece of paper, face up, in place. Pat over the entire surface, including corners, with the tweezers. You can use the paintbrush, too. I use plastic instead of painted wood paintbrushes. The paint flakes off the painted wood when you are working with glue and gets in your artwork.

Keep your journal open until the page is completely dry.

––Quinn McDonald is a writer who stands in the middle ground between words and illustrations, believing they both make meaning and create art. © Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved

Words Are Art

There is a strong connection between words and art. Not just words used to describe art, but words that form art. Some words look bold and important, others are meant to slip over a page.

Marta's amazing tree. See her website at: wordsareart.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/

My world is on paper. But there are other ways to handle words. Johnathan Harris does it in cyberspace with the Word Count. He’s an artist whose entire body of work exists on computers. Part of Harris’s mind is an engineer’s mind, part is an artist’s mind. Harris created a list of the 86,800 most common words in the English language. He sorted them and posted them. The most common word is “the” and its number is ‘1′ . “of’” and “and” are in places 2 and 3. You can look up a word to see where it is or type in a position number and see what word it is.

Looking at them turns you into an instant numeric scholar. Click on “666″ and you get the word “easy.” There is some wonderful divine justice in that. “God” at number 376, is between “began” and “top.” It starts to make sense after a while. “Death” (number 454) is between “church” and “sometimes.” There are words in sequence that make sense. “Running” and “Feet” and numbers 698 and 699. “Contagious” (2159) is just one over from “Feverish” (2161).

Harris wasn’t finished yet. He started a count to see which words people looked at most often and created another list–the Query List. What’s the most common word people looked up? Of course, “sex.”

You can also see Harris as a speaker on TED–the conference of interesting ideas told by their fascinating creators. And read his 2007 story, the whale hunt.

Have some fun. Type in your birthday, your age, some special number. See what comes up. Words are art. In many ways.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist. See her work at raw-art-journals.com © 2007-9. All rights reserved.

Tutorial: Found Poetry, Raw Art

Found poetry is the discovery of hidden words and phrases in text that was written for another purpose entirely–a catalog or magazine article, for example. The poem is not found all together, you’ll find a word here, a few more six lines down.

I find this accidental discovery a perfect match for raw art--which is drawing abstract patterns that are pleasing, exciting, soothing, or engaging. Both are a discovery and both result in the creation of something new.

You can make up a variety of rules to make found poetry more challenging–mine are simple: You choose a set number of pages from a catalog, book, or magazine and find words or phrases that, when cut out and placed next to each other, make poetry. No fair using song lyrics or pieces that are already poetry.

Be careful to cut out words that are grammatically correct in the place you want to use them. That might mean cutting out extra letters. Because you are creating a collage  the words can be different typefaces, sizes or colors.

Then you add raw art–in this case a repetitive topographical pattern, with a suggestion of plant life, to match the seasonal theme of the poetry and to emphasize the word “freedom” and the tribal feel.

Horizon Dust

Time around us moves faster.
The seed that was sown 20 years ago
sweeps into the season raw-edged and tribal.
New growth, striped in rich autumnal hues,
moving to a new feeling and a new freedom
blossoming forth.

All the words in “Horizon Dust” comes from a variety of clothing descriptions in two pages of the Sundance fall catalog.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who stands in the middle ground between words and illustrations, believing they both make meaning and create art. © Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved

DIY: Making Meaning Your Way

Making Meaning through your creative work takes courage.
It’s an intensely private work, which in our culture is always slightly suspect. When you see the serial killer being led away from the crime scene, you always hear, “He kept to himself,” or “He was a loner,” as if those things are somehow intrinsically bad and wrong. Yet that’s where a lot of creative work is done–by yourself. Alone.

One person's chicken is another's Little Red Hen

Making Meaning starts from scratch.
Sure, you may have played with kits. And you may well be using many leftovers from various kits to make your own stuff. But you are working with your idea. You aren’t assembling anything, and you aren’t using directions supplied with a kit. You are moving into uncharted territory, and you are alone. And you love it.

Making Meaning means you write the rules.
The way you make meaning is your way. Not your neighbor’s, not the rich and successful writer, musician, dancer, or gardener you admire. You get to fail, try again, and then succeed. And that trip is what makes it so very satisfying. Because it involves creative play, messing up, and fixing it all by yourself. Making meaning brings satisfaction because it involves triumph over obstacles. The major obstacle is often your own thinking.

Making Meaning is not a consumer activity.
You can buy a kit and make something, but it doesn’t make meaning. You can buy paint-by-numbers, scrapbooking kits and cards, you can complete step-by-step wire-wrapping jewelry and wind up with a product without one scrap of meaning making. You may feel empty after such an activity, even if you have completed a gift-quality product.

Making Meaning is a Little Red Hen project.
You remember the story of the Little Red Hen. Her friends–the cat, dog, mouse, chick (it varies from story to story) don’t help her plant the wheat, cut the wheat, take it to the mill, or bake the bread. But they all show up to eat the bread. And after all that work, she doesn’t share the bread. She eats it by herself. Is she selfish? No, in this story the other animals aren’t starving, they are hoping to share in her success without having done the work. The Little Red Hen has made meaning in the bread and is eating the joy of her work.

Making Meaning is a goal in itself.
You’ve written a book? That made meaning. Publishing it is another story. The joy you feel in writing is the success. Publishing is an administrative task that will make you feel proud, inadequate, fill you with “shoulds” and bring out detractors, admirers, and hangers-on. That’s a step beyond making meaning. Making meaning is a journey.   It can have many goals that don’t make meaning. Make sure you notice when meaning-making stops, you don’t want to confuse the journey with reaching a destination.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She has a website for writers who want to keep an art journal, and a website for her business training. Both have coaching sections.

Publishing Your Book: The Book Proposal, Part II

Yesterday, I wrote about getting started writing a book. People have been telling me how “lucky” I am to have a book under consideration, and I thought it would be great to help others do it the same way I did it–step by step. Because it isn’t luck. It’s a lot of hard work. And it’s worth it.

There is a giant truth about writing a book–and it’s good to know before you start. You do not write a book to publish it. You write a book to write well. To say something you wanted to say. If you write a book mainly to get published, you’ll be disappointed no matter what happens.

Book drop

Today, we’re talking about the book proposal and choosing a publisher. At this point, you have a non-fiction book outline–it’s pretty detailed, you could write it by following the outline. You also have 12-24 illustrations to show your point.

1. Write a few chapters. You don’t have to start at Chapter One, but you have to be clear on what you are writing and how it fits into the whole. Finish them, file them, forget them for a week or so. Open the file, read it. Is it still interesting? Does the sequencing seem right?  Does it make you want to write more? Is the grammar right? Show it to someone you know well enough to ask a favor of, but not so well that they will lie to you to keep your friendship. Ask them to follow the steps, see it they get the result you meant.

2. Go to a bookstore to check out similar books. Sure, you can do this online, but you need to get out of the office. Look for books that are similar to yours in content or intent. Is this a how-to? A step-by-step project book? A book for inspiration?  Is it paper arts? Mixed media? It can be more than one thing. Look at the books to see how the chapters are arranged, to see how you react to the material. And then see who published them. Take notes.

3. Look at the list of publishers. Publishers have niches. Your book should fit into their niche. You don’t want to be the author who writes, “When you read my book proposal, you will certainly want to add non-fiction to your publishing goals.” Now check out all the publishers on your list. What do they publish? Cross out all the publishers who specialize in categories your book doesn’t fit into– textbooks, coffee table books, fiction. Cross off all the publishers who want you to write about their ideas for pay. You might want to do that, but you already have a book.

4. Read their website carefully. Most publishers have submissions guidelines somewhere on the website. Don’t submit anything until you find it, read it, and understand it. Then follow it. Publishing companies receive hundreds of proposals. The first way they sort is by people who follow directions. If they take your book, you will have to follow a lot of directions with an editor. Publishers do not willingly buy trouble. Even if you are charming and special.

5. Follow the directions. If they say submissions through agents only, you will need to find an agent. That’s another step. In general, non-fiction writers don’t need agents for their first book. If the guidelines say no submissions through email, follow the instructions. Buy an envelope big enough to return your proposal, and one to hold all the material. Put enough postage on the return envelope to send it back first class.  Make a checklist of all the pieces, there may be several.

6. Write professionally about yourself. You will be asked for a biography, reasons you can write this book better than others, the outline, the illustrations, and some other questions. It is excruciating to write about yourself. Do not include everything you’ve ever done. Don’t write your bio as a poem (particularly if the publisher doesn’t publish poetry). You may need help with this part from a friend who is also a good writer. Oddly enough, a simple, straightforward approach works best.

7. Find a name. Sending your proposal to a person is better than sending it to “submissions.” This is the time to use your social network. Ask if anyone in your network knows a contact. People know people, and this is the time to ask. Phone the publisher and see if you can speak to a real person. It’s not impossible, but you may have to be inventive to get through the menus.

8. An acquisitions editor looks for good ideas to pitch. She or he may read your outline and make suggestions for changes. This is not the time to brush off any ideas but your own. This is not the time to prove that every word you write is golden and untouchable. This is the time to be a good listener. If the suggestion makes sense, offer to make the changes. If you don’t know how the editor’s idea fits with your project, ask. Your decisions make a big difference at this step.

9. Be polite and open to suggestions. The nicest treatment you are going to get is during the back and forth process. Be polite, prompt, and friendly. If you think the ideas won’t work for the book, say so. Be prepared that the editor knows what will work for the audience. If your book won’t, better to know early.

10. Be prepared to wait. Even if an acquisitions editor likes your work, you’ll have to wait. Wait for a proposal meeting, in which the acquisitions editor pitches her book. Each publisher has a different schedule. You could wait a week, a month, a quarter. It’s fair to ask how long the wait is, it’s not fair to email-stalk the acquisitions editor.

11. As soon as the wait begins, keep busy. See if you need to do more research. Prepare more illustrations. Think about the next book idea. Do NOT think about what you should have done differently. Now is the time to keep looking ahead, not back.

Be prepared for people to tell you how “lucky” you are–as if the book that’s been six years in the writing took a month or so. If you haven’t talked about your book a lot–a good idea to keep your ideas focused–people don’t know how long you have been working at it. Almost all “overnight success” stories have a five-year start-up. But it’s fair to tell people that luck had nothing to do with it. It takes a lot of work to write a book, and it’s fine to say so.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She has a website for writers who want to keep an art journal, and a website for her business training. Both have coaching sections.

Publishing Your Book: Step-by-Step to Getting “Lucky”, Part I

Right after I celebrated having an acquisitions editor express interest in my book, friends started congratulating me in sort of an odd way.

“You are SO lucky to be able to write a book and get interest right away.”

From school.discoveryeducation: http://tinyurl.com/yzjs7z9

“Aren’t you lucky to get interest in your first book so fast!”

“I could write a book too, but I don’t have time.”

“I’ve written a book, but it’s not ready to go out yet.”

“Ive been working on my book for years. I’m just not as lucky as you.”

You, too, can do exactly what I did, and I’m going to tell you how I did it, step by step. No secrets. No holding back. First, truth in disclosure: I do not yet have a contract. I had an acquisitions editor express interest. There is still the giant leap to acceptance. More about that part later. First, the step by step.

1. Write every day for 50 years. I wrote my first book when I was seven years old, in a spiral notebook. (It didn’t get published.) I’ve been writing almost every day since.

2. Take on different writing assignments. I wrote my first published book when I was 30. It was a “book for hire” deal. I hated it. It wasn’t my idea, it was me writing about someone else’s idea for pay. Since that time, I’ve written for ad agencies, PR firms, financial institutions, insurance companies, huge manufacturing companies, small struggling businesses. I’ve worked at a newspaper, at a magazine, at an editorial think tank. I’ve written for people I agreed with and people I despised. On topics I loved and topics so boring, watching the barometer drop was more interesting. But I wrote. Now, fast-forward to this book.

3.  Find a topic that fascinates, mesmerizes and fires you up. Mine was One Sentence Journaling. (Here’s an article I wrote about it last March.) I have notes that go back six years, but I organized and taught the course four years ago. Each time I taught it, I took notes, listened to comments and changed the course to see if it improved.

4. Do the same thing with two more topics: find topic you really like, develop a course, teach it, listen to feedback, change parts of it until you feel it is a good course that people will pay to attend. (This helps you gauge interest in the material.)

5. Once you’ve taught it in person, teach it online, to make sure you have written exercises that are clear and make sense. Teaching a class online takes about 8 x the length of time it takes to teach the class in prep, set-up, running and comments.

6. Examine the classes and discover a new path to the same information. This is called discovering another perspective. Not everyone learns the same way. You are broadening your audience. As you teach other classes, see what people wish they could develop their creativity to do, what they are missing in their lives, how they can make meaning. Take lots of notes. Be willing to be confused and not know what to do next.

7. Stay open to new ideas. Mine  hit me during morning walking meditation. It was a good idea but it doesn’t hang together with the rest of the material. Be willing to spend months trying out ideas, messing up, failing, starting over, trying, polishing, until one day you are too exhausted to care anymore. You put the idea aside. The next day, in the shower, you have an idea. It fits! You work another three months fitting it into the writing portion.

8. Blend the new ideas and put them in front of your audience. In my case, that was the beginning of raw-art journaling.   Blend the new approach with the old, turning it into the same step, so people who learned visually, auditorially (by hearing), and kinesthetically (by moving),  could learn.  Create a ton of examples. Create a website. Listen to comments from people who like and don’t like your website. Think them through. Be willing to be wrong, to fail again.

9. Develop a class that combines the final version of your idea. Teach this class and all the variations 10 times, each time making changes that improve the class. Listen to feedback, criticism, questions, and people who tell you it’s weird. Ignore the last one. Note on teaching: It will not make you rich. Do not teach to make money. Teach to try out your ideas, to spread your discoveries, to get better teaching. Teaching is not about you, it’s about the participants.

10. Gather up all your notes and create an outline for a book. Do this while running your own business, because no one pays you for this stage. Work on the outline until it looks like information people would pay to play with.

You now have reached the stage where you can write a book proposal. At this point, I’ve spend 50 years writing almost every day, and six years in some stage of book development. I haven’t started writing the book yet, although every shred of it has been taught and evaluated.

Tomorrow: How to write  a book proposal and find a publisher.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She has a website for writers who want to keep an art journal, and a website for her business training. Both have coaching sections.

 

To-Do Lists that Help You Work

To-do lists can work for you or make you crazy. There are many ways to create them, and the only one that works is the one that works for you.

First, I have to admit that I use a paper to-do list. Even with all the electronics, the fastest, most efficient list-making for me is done with a pencil and index. card.  I don’t have to boot it up, recharge it, or open it. It’s available to me at all times, and a pencil doesn’t need to be connected, opened, or tested. It’s always ready to go. I’ll admit I have a pencil thing.

Here are two ways to use a to-do list. Both involve 3 x 5 index cards, or 4 x 6 cards if you write big.  (I turn the cards and work on them portrait-orientation.) I work on several projects at a time, so I use one card per project. Each project’s name is written on the top of the card, and the to-do list underneath. That way, I can put all the project to-do lists next to each other and see how much work I have and which project needs to take priority. When I have a lot of projects going at the same time, it’s wonderful.

When I get really into projects, I assign one color to each project, and color code the cards to match the project. (You can also use different color cards.) Color coding gives me overviews and helps me draw conclusions faster. (“A lot of blue cards, do I need to farm some of this out?” “The yellow project is due in a week. Why so few yellow cards? Am I done early, or is there something missing?”)

Then there is the worry list to-do list. When I wake up at night, unable to sleep and busy worrying, I make a list of things I’m worrying about. Having written down the worries, I go back to sleep. The next morning, I tackle the things that need to be done.

The last to-do list is called the tag-cloud to-do list. Because I use the same method as tag clouds–the more important a task, the bigger I write it. Because I have small handwriting, I draw a box around each item on the list. The bigger the box, the more important (or worrisome, or pressing) the item. That gives me two facts at once: the item and the importance, all in one glance.

You can use a mix of these methods. Color-coding works with tag-clouding very well.  Tag-clouding works with worry-list well, too. And no matter what method I choose, writing down all the things that need to get done helps me free up more memory cells.

Image: www.ontimesupplies.com

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach and a trainer specializing in communicating. That includes Writing for the Web and Giving Powerful Presentations. See all the topics at QuinnCreative.com © 2007 -9 All rights reserved.

How Heavy is That Paper? Pounds v. GSM

If you choose paper for your brochure or  your art print,  you have seen the weight of the paper stock printed in three ways–in pounds (60-lb. or 60#),  grams per square meter (g/m² or gsm), or points (pts).  There seems to be a big difference. There is. Even if you don’t love the metric system, you’ll find the gsm method more reliable.

Ream of paper from ecosalon.com

For years, I could feel a piece of paper and know with great certainty its weight in pounds, if it was cover or text stock, and with some certainty, the manufacturer. Well, not every paper, but I could tell cover and text stock and the manufacturing mill for about 30 different mills. It was my job in those days.  I had more trouble if the weight was card stock, which is given in points. When the gsm method first came up, it seemed to be random–that it didn’t match with the pounds weights from paper to paper. I started losing bar bets. Here’s the difference, in simple words.

Pounds measure weight, no matter what the size. The pound weight of paper is set by the weight (in pounds) of a ream of paper–500 sheets. It doesn’t matter how big the paper is– cover stock is cut from a “standard” size sheet that measures 20″ x 26.” Text stock is cut from a “standard” size sheet  that 25″ x 38″–considerably bigger. But a ream of 500 sheets, regardless of size, is put on a scale and

Strathmore drawing paper: 24 sheets, 80-lb or 130 gsm.

weighed.  That measurement is accurate, but very variable.

Points measure height, no matter what the size. The point size is a bit more reliable.  It measures the height of a ream of paper. A 10-pt card stock means a ream of paper (500 sheets)  measures 10 inches. In this case, the flat size of the sheet doesn’t matter.

To get a feel for the difference: Most business cards are 10-pt or 15-pt stock, the post office’s minimum measurement for a post card is 7-point stock. A point is 0.007″ or one-one-thousandths of an inch.  This is a better measurement for comparison, but it still doesn’t sort out heavy-bulk differences for paper that’s been compressed more.

Gsm measures the weight of a standard size paper.  Gsm is the reliable because it is standard across all papers. It measure the weight of a square meter of paper. That sets the size as the constant, and allows the weight to vary by heaviness of paper stock.  A square meter of  a light stock might be 90 gsm, and a square meter of heavier stock might be 140 gsm. In each case, the size is the same–a square meter.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach who trains people how to communicate clearly.

SPARK Collaboration for Writers, Photographers

Amy Souza runs the blog SPARK. It’s a creative jump start for collaborations between writers and artists. Souza says, ” Writers send artists a story or poem, and artists send writers an image of their painting, photograph, or sculpture. During the 10-day project period, each person uses their partner’s piece as a jumping off point for new work of their own.”

The goal is simply to give writers and artists a challenge, a new way of looking at the world and their work, and a chance to inspire another creative soul.” The project runs four times a year, and you can sign up any time.

The project continues each month and new examples go up. (See the most recent contest.)  My friend Lin Jorgensen participated in this imaginative exchange with Louisa Di Pietro.  Lin’s poem is below.

Lullabies for a Rainy House

I wouldn’t leave my house
Though the roof, unmended
For decades, sent rain seeping
Down through the walls
To meet water seeping
Up through broken pipes.

I stayed when the walls lifted
Away from floorboards
That sank, gaping.
With hell close underfoot
I stumbled tilting from
Room to room, amazed by
This decaying ark
Covered by a tattered tarp
Always damp and mostly dark
That I called home

Until, fifty years standing,
Thirty of them mine
Through ice and rainstorm
The elm tree let go

A quarter-ton bouquet
A rude awakening
A roaring boom across
The bow of the roof
Twelve feet from my bed
Shook the house
And ran my ark aground.
I knew it was bad before
I saw it: We’re sunk
I whispered to the cats.
It’ll never stop raining now.

The dog and I blinked
Through 3 a.m. murk
At a huge limb leaning
The length of the roof
Balanced on a single eave,
The crushing weight scarcely
Piercing a little room
I thought might be spared.
But already rain swept in. Soon
Every surface would I knew
Brimming, buckling, fall asunder

No more praying the elm
Tossing above in ice or rain
Stands fast until the morning.
Free from all hope, but things
Could always be worse!
That’s what we always said.
That’s boats for you. That’s
Staying afloat. That’s being
An elm tree, that’s living
Under one!  The dog and I
Crept back inside, weary from
Staring at the damage.

The worst had come and
It staggered, it beggared, it
Knocked all the wind out
And made me long for shelter

So I took what I could of the garden
And a slice of the elm and moved house.
New people bought my ark, razed it.
Built clean over my streaming sadness.
Cut down the elm.  I could never go back.
It’s safe here. The worst is over.
But comes a strong rain, I swear
A blue tarp frays and flaps like sails
I hear the steady hiss of hidden water
Leaking soaking sinking and
The elm tosses fifty feet above
Us, quaking, praying for morning.

Our old lullabies wake us:
The little cats keep close, the dog eyes
My face, then the window, and sighs.
We grow still, comforted, waiting for
The crack of doom together. Trusting
The ark of sleep to carry us home

—Lin Jorgensen

“The Power of Slow” –Interview with the Author

Christine Louise Hohlbaum is a recovering speedaholic who recognized the power of slow while one day eating ice cream with her then three-year-old daughter. Life is in the details. Don’t let it whiz by.

Christine’s new book, The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in Our 24/7 World is being released this week. She was kind enough to make time in her schedule for an interview. This is a heavily edited version, you can read the entire interview on my website, Raw-Art-Journals.com

Christine Hohlbaum, author, mom, and expat.

Quinn: You are the mother of two school-age kids. “Slow” is not something I associate with busy moms. What made you decide to write the book?

Christine: Ironically, I dedicated my book to my two kids because they were my first teachers in slow. It is no secret that life changes when children arrive on the scene. They taught me that life can go at a slower pace and still be equally effective and productive. You see I am a recovering speed demon who used to think fast was the only tempo there was.

Quinn: Tell me what “slow” means in your world.

Christine: Slow means mindful living. It is embedded in the wisdom of choice. When we engage in the power of slow, we unleash shackled energy we have wasted stressing, rushing and worrying about things at a pace that obviously does not work for us.

Quinn: Most of us have to work to pay the bills and feed the family. How can we establish boundaries at work without losing our jobs?

Christine: Years ago my husband took a vacation, then lost his job right after. It was a frightening experience. It is important for employers to get on board with the notion that a well-rested worker is a productive one. Learning to say ‘no’ with kindness and clarity is something I talk a lot about in [the book].  When we say ‘no’ to others, we say ‘yes’ to ourselves. I find formulations such as “Here’s what I can do” and “I have an idea that might improve this even more” help sustain your boss or client’s listening far better than a flat-out ‘no’. Offer alternatives and constructive advice.

Quinn: Women are often the caretakers of both young children and older parents, squashing their time into ridiculous expectations. What advice do you have for the “sandwich generation” of women?

Christine: We women are indeed pulled in many directions at once. Learning to take ‘me-time’ is mission critical when you are a caretaker. Celebrate the ‘ma’, a Japanese term referring to the space between things. Plan your activities such that you have ten or fifteen minutes between them. Back-to-back action is often draining and over the long-term will wear you down. Bring back the ‘ma’ in me.

Quinn: People seem to take some pride in being “crazy busy.” Any danger in that?

Christine: I have noticed that ‘busy’ is the new fine. What I mean by that is people respond to ‘How are you?’ with ‘busy’ or ‘crazy busy’ much more often than the old stand-by ‘fine!’ Busy implies you are successful, but I would caution that activity does not always equal productivity.

Quinn: Are there any rules worth breaking in the standard time management advice? (Keep a to-do list, prioritize it into A, B, C-level tasks, tackle all the A-level first, etc.)

Christine: Oh, how I LOVE this question! Surely, the Eisenhower principle that helps you discern urgent from important tasks is a key strategy, and I talk about it in the book. Fundamentally, however, it is about your personal relationship with time itself. I do not believe in time management. First, time is an organizing principle we established to make sense of our live so it is a construct based on mutual agreement. Second, we cannot manage or control time. We can only manage or control the things we do within the time that we have.