Category: Inlet Inspiration

In these dark times, even taking a small step forward can feel exhausting. How do we keep going?

In 1877, poet Gerard Manley Hopkins too faced dark times. Yet he wrote: “And for all this, nature is never spent;/ there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”

He found an answer in nature which writer Patrick Kurp echoed when he praised metaphor: “For the metaphor-minded, the world is bottomlessly, rewardingly rich.”

As a writing teacher, nature lover, and meditator who celebrates the richness of metaphor, I believe one of the best ways to access that dearest freshness is by connecting with nature through metaphor in meaningful, mindful ways.

I call the practice “Metaphorestry.”

metaphorestry (n) – The practice of connecting deeply with nature through metaphor.

One of my first metaphorestry practice encounters began upon breathing startlingly fresh air in Thomas’ Cave a hot summer’s day.

We often associate caves with something cramped, dark, and dank. And this cave looked to be all three. It asked me to stoop, even crawl in.

Tinges of claustrophobia pulled at my breath.

But I had hiked over a mile, and just by leaning against the coolness of the opening something eased within me.

I often have the urge to curl in a hole under the earth—like a mole or chipmunk or rabbit. To safety myself away from the surface of the world for a while.

But was the ground about to envelope me in rock and lock me out of the outside? Or something else entirely?

In I crawled, slow. Searching. In I breathed once, twice.

Within seconds, all the claustrophobic tension around my throat vanished. Cave air moved through me expansive as mountain air.

After just a few yards, encroaching stone eased. Soon I stood and stretched my arms in a gentle open dark.

I was held in spaciousness. I saw darkness in a new light—felt in it a new dark.

A dark that wasn’t small and heavy, but wide and light within me.

I often still feel claustrophobia when I peer into a small inner darkness.

But then I remember how fresh the air felt in the cave that day. How something narrow opened so I could stretch out, stand in the darkness, breathe fresh air, and feel okay.

The day’s excursion was more than a hike and a cave encounter I happened upon. It was a metaphor to carry with me into future darknesses. A reminder to keep learning from what nature showed me, firsthand.

Finding the right words for a piece of writing can take days, months, even years.

But when we finally do, it’s empowering. Our words may even seem mystical, magical.

And that magical sense isn’t just a vibe.

Language is both deep and expansive—so complex that layers of meaning even underlie the meanings our writing creates.

At the core of those underlying meanings are metaphorical origins—often invisible—that make our writing matter even more.

Even the word “matter” is a metaphor when you crack it open. Don’t let the abstraction fool you.

The verb “to matter” is related to physical “matter” itself—the “material” substance from which everything is made.

Before the word “matter” represented what everything is made of, it meant (via Latin) the “hard inner wood of a tree.” And before “matter” was “mater,” which means “mother.” Yes, “mother” was (and is) what everything is made of—and made from.

From mother, to inner wood, to everything. Ah, the joys of metaphorical meanings: The heartwood of the matter is the mother of matter itself.

 

 

Have you ever taken your muse to a spa? Just imagine.

All the luxuries you’ve ever wanted are available (this is your imagination, after all):

Hot springs. Endless time to soak without turning into a prune.

Gentle music in the background. The flicker of rippling water bouncing from a softly lit pool.

And there’s your muse, sipping the most fragrant of teas while getting a foot massage.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

At the spa, your muse will never tire. Every chakra will be tuned to the perfect pitch.

Together you’re harmonizing your creative work. Working out the kinks and removing toxins from your creative life.

Imagine your muse refreshed, invigorated. Nothing inhibiting the creative flow.

Your muse can transform into anything: they’ll purr like a cat, roll in mud like a happy pig, fly unhindered as a bird. And they’ll be there for you, at a call, to transform your ideas into your best work yet.

The 3rd and final tip for managing the hectic holidays and raising your creative spirits (as an exercise prompt):

Tip #3: Take your muse to a spa (exercise).

• List a handful of luxuries and indulgences you might experience at a spa.
• Invite your muse to the spa. Write for 5-10 minutes on what it might be like if your muse were to visit the spa. You can frame it as an entreaty, and/or describe your muse there in the moment.
• Call your muse to help you write. Ask your muse to help you with one or more aspects of writing, but liken that aspect of writing to an experience in the spa in some way. For example, if you’re working on a poem exploring romantic love, you might submerge your muse in a virtual sauna and let things get hot and steamy on the page. Do the same for a character “in the hot seat.” Or if you’re working on a character reflecting, you may cool your muse down with a cucumber facial to help that character look inward. Or some acupressure may help you pinpoint a point a turning point—line break, plot point, or otherwise…

Give yourself some concentrated muse-spa time during the holiday season. Step away from the hustle and bustle. Get mindful, playful, and relax with the page.

 

It sucks to be in a dry spell. When I’m not writing I just feel, well, less. Less me. Less creative. Less observant. Less engaged. And when I write, I feel “more.” More me, more inventive, alive.

Even when I’m wrestling with an image, staring at the jumbled order of a sentence, or blinking at a formless blob of text resisting revision, something deep within purrs and bubbles with a giddy delight. I made this.

Today’s tip (2 of 3) offers another way to raise your creative spirits above the claptrap of the holidays:

Tip #2: Seek joy and delight as you write.

The next time you write, bring your attention to more than the crafting of words. Periodically notice the way you feel as you write—and tune into the joyful moments.

Look for joy inside a word’s chewy syllables and gooey vowels. Inside the powerful themes that pump the heart-muscle of your work.

Find joy in the pleasing syntax of a sentence.

Listen to sounds resonating small and large from the center of your page—the creaking of trees, shuffle of children’s feet, or revving of a Chevy. Delight in the quest to capture just the right dialogue between characters at just the right time.

Feel the way joy moves through you as your pen moves across the page and a new turn of phrase changes the direction of your thinking.

Look not just within the words, but at what’s underlying them, and what’s spilling into them from the world around you. Capture it. Tease it out on the page. And feel the joy of the work percolating and then engulfing you.

Or perhaps that delight is subtle as a whisper. Soft as the fur of a resting cat.

Take it in.

Then with a deep breath, return to the page and keep writing.

Delight may be in short supply on the days you crumple your page and throw it at the wall. But what if you believed that joy in the work is always there, no matter the quality of your writing. It’s there to tap into whenever you need it.

(Bonus exercise: Do your own freewrite on what the joy of writing feels like. Five minutes.)

Sometimes it seems my creative spirit and the holiday spirit are battling it out this time of year, and I know I’m not alone. So I’ve put together a few playful tips to give us a spirited leg up.

Tip #1: Create your own secular Creative Writing Advent Calendar.

Use it for creative cheer, writing ideas, motivation, anchoring to writing while away from the page, and overall support.

It’s a gift you can give yourself—helping deepen your connection to the writing life you want to live this year and into the New Year.

And if you’re a fan of small incremental progress, like I am, a daily calendar prompt can help you get in the zone to write, even a few minutes a day, maybe a few more than planned. It’s pretty simple—but not always easy!

Below are a week’s worth of ideas to get you started. From here, you can invent your own.

But if you’d like to follow a pre-made Advent Calendar, check out my Inlet Advent Calendar. I post once a day on the Inlet Advent page, and once a day on Facebook, throughout December 2025.

Creative Writing Advent Calendar Exercise: Seven ways to keep your creative spirits up each day.

Jot these down in your calendar at least a week in advance. Strategically add tips that complement scheduled days.

1. Three minutes of notebook writing while standing in line. (Add this to your calendar on a day you know you’ll be grocery shopping or hanging out at a mall or stuck in some kind of line.)
2. Phone eclipse. (Write this in bold on a day when you know distractions will make it hard to do some writing. The eclipse may be all day, or a chosen chunk of time.)
3. Light a candle. Name an aspect of your writing. Keep it in mind all day. (This may be title, character, favorite image, difficult last line you haven’t worked out, opening line.)
4. Favorite quote. (You can use this more than once. Examples: “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” ~Jodi Picoult; “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ~Louis L’Amour; “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” ~W. Somerset Maugham)
5. Five-minute writing project ask. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. (Reflect on why you love what you’re working on right now)
6. Three-minute read of your own writing. (Read something you’ve written. Three minutes. Go.)
7. Three-minute favorite book reflection. (Take three minutes to recall a book you loved, and why.)

You can call these daily prompts “creative writing sitings,” ways to keep creative writing in your sites each day all month long. Or think of them as amusing musings. What fits your aesthetic, your needs?

In the tradition of advent, December 1st is a great day to start. Let me know how it goes!

~Angela

PS – A couple calendar tips for getting organized:

Choose either a paper calendar (recommended) or online calendar, and make sure there’s room for a tiny tip each day. You can get creative with the calendar (make your own on a sheet of posterboard, put it on a whiteboard, use a fancy 2025 calendar with enough room for a short quote), or it can be as simple as the calendar in Outlook.

Add your tips ahead of time. Fill in at least seven days ahead of today, and look ahead to strategically add tips that complement scheduled days. If one day is devoted to cooking for Christmas, concoct a tip that dovetails with stuffing and turkey prep. If another day has you online shopping for hours, you may want to pair that day with lighting a candle, saying the name of your novel’s protagonist, or the title of a piece you’re working on. Or want to work on—calling your writing to you in breaks between clicks.

Sometimes I get to the end of a book and set it aside before reading the final pages.

It’s not that I don’t want to know what happens—quite the opposite.

I set it down because I don’t want the book to be over. Don’t want to say goodbye to the characters, the world. It’s almost as if finishing the book means I’ll lose a relationship I don’t ever want to end.

So I savor the last few pages. And may even plan how to keep the story going after I’m done. Or at least revisit something I loved about the book in some way.

I can read other books by the same author (a bit like meeting the siblings of a partner), so might make a list of those. I can read books the author was influenced by, and might do a little research.

I can reread the book a few years later (or sooner!) so might set it aside to return to. I may do a deeper dive right away, take some notes. Reread favorite passages. Ponder the meaning and craft. As a creative writing instructor I may even add some material to a handout so I can teach a little about what I loved.

If the book is part of a series, all the better—I have more to look forward to. Unless (and this happens all too often!) the next book just isn’t quite the same. But maybe the book after it will scratch that itch.

I know that some writers even go so far as to write their own fan fiction in the worlds of the books they loved to read—a satisfying way to creatively re-enter those worlds for a while.

But as bittersweet as it is, at some point I will finish the book and close its covers and feel a little bereft. Though I take solace in the fact that I’m not really “breaking up” with the book. I can pick up another and fall in love all over again—guilt free.

The Inlet is growing—because of you, along with you. We’re growing together.

I know it’s deep winter, and about one degree outside as I write this. When I look at the trees, they’re bare and still. The grass is flattened, snow-dusted. But underneath it all, molecule by molecule, the wildness of new wisdom quietly rocks its own cradle.

I’ve chosen a theme for the year. It’s a year of growth. Your growth. My growth. The miraculous growth of trees as they stand still. Of flowers unfurling in spring. Of eggs hatching and foxes slinking stealthily in tall grasses. Growth that leads to change. Challenge. Perhaps even a new way of seeing oneself. Even the world we’re in. Despite the world we’re in.

After my brother’s sudden death this past September, leaves flared vermillion and began to fall. All the plants in my garden slowly dwindled and hunkered down for the freeze of winter.

At times I too wanted to drop all color, dwindle, and stop doing much of anything. But everything around me kept happening. The election and its shockwaves. The storms in North Carolina. The fires now raging in Los Angeles.

Some days it feels as if my brother’s death heralded this cascade of apocalypses. Others days, I feel facing his death has helped me endure them. And last night, I lay awake to a pair of owls hooting, feeling as if he was there with me, listening, nudging me toward life, renewal.

In you, in this deep midwinter, renewal may be growing, too. An idea may be growing. Insights about your work. Images. Courageous language. Your dreams may be informing your creative life under the surface—or right before your eyes.

The last conversation I had with my brother, who passionately loved music, we talked about how important listening was to him. But not just listening to music. Listening to everything from beloved music to podcasts to those creative stirrings within.

So I leave you with that sentiment, too: listen. Listen to what’s going on outside yourself. Listen inward. And let what you hear—or simply listening itself—help you grow.

If you’d like some help tuning in, join the Inlet this winter. We can be part of each other’s growth. We can support each other. Be part of something greater than ourselves—and connect more fully to the greatness that is already within us—together.

This New Year, I’m trying something new to reinvigorate my writing practice: I’m starting 2025 with a plan for reading rather than a list of writing goals.

I was talking with my mother-in-law, author Trisha Day, about how most successful authors are avid readers who have discovered the only thing that compares with the pleasure found in reading is the pleasure they find expressing themselves in writing.

So I figured, why not combine the two? As I work out my reading plan, I’m already discovering ways it’s informing my as-of-yet unwritten writing plan. Planning how to go about choosing books to read this year feels a bit like an invocation for calling not just one but multiple muses.

And the plan I’m developing is more than just a list of books I want to read. Trisha and I have been discussing her comprehensive approach to reading. It’s an approach that honors what she loves about the written word as well as how reading enriches her life overall—which dovetails nicely with her own interests and goals as a writer.

Want to create a reading plan of your own? One that best fits your creative vision and celebrates the joy you take in the written word? Trisha’s sharing her reading plan with us and you’re welcome to borrow elements you love, too.

Here is Trisha Day on how she plans to be “well read” in 2025:

Every January instead of making New Year’s Resolutions only to end up breaking them anyway, I start the year by putting together a yearly reading plan. It appeals to the list-maker in me and helps me deal with the fact that there’s never enough time for all the books I’d love to read. A reading plan helps me narrow things down a little.

It also helps me keep track of what I’ve read over the years in case I want to go back and check a title or author I want to read again. And it’s fun deciding what to include each year – a bit like it used to be putting together a Christmas wish list for Santa Claus. Only now I don’t have to worry about not getting what I asked for.

The list always includes a few classics (Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald) as well as books I’ve read before (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen). But I also add books that have been published within the last few years (James, Percival Everett) and others that have won previous Pulitzer, Booker or other awards (The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro.)

My plan covers a wide range of genres from Science Fiction/ Fantasy (Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury); historical fiction (The Little Red Chairs, Edna O’Brien); biography (King: A Life, Jonathan Eig) and memoir (Piano Lessons, Noah Adams) to poetry (Delights and Shadows, Ted Kooser ); non fiction (On Vanishing, Lynn Casteel Harper); history (How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith); short stories (Normal Rules Don’t Apply, Kate Atkinson); mysteries (Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers); nature writing (Landmarks, Robert MacFarlane) and spirituality (My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman.)

I like to include a few books that were published the year I was born (Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh); books that are set in other countries (The End of Drum Time, Hanna Pylvainen) and books that take place in different regions of the U.S. (The Heart is Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers).

I always include one or two titles that have been recommended by friends or found on reading websites or blogs. Finally, I add a few books from the previous year that I never did get around to reading after all. That’s because I have two rules I stick to all throughout my reading year: 1) It’s okay not to read everything on the list. And 2) it’s also okay to keep adding to it. Because when it comes to reading, enough is never enough and no matter how many books I read I’ll always want more.

As holiday intensity peaks, I crave getting away from “getting and spending.”

A favorite refuge of mine is curling up with a good book—and I know I’m not alone. Perhaps you too fight to make time to simply sit and read amidst the holiday hustle and bustle.

I recently talked with my mother-in-law Trisha Day about her reading habits this time of year. She’s perhaps the most well-read person I know, and I always learn so much from her approach to reading.

So I asked her to share a little with me—and us—about both what she’s reading, and how she goes about reading in the midst of the holiday busyness:

Here’s Trisha Day on her reading list, and finding just five or ten minutes for slow reading:

I am not a one-book-at-a-time reader probably because once I start a book, I keep finding others I want to read as well. So, it’s not unusual for me to have four or five books going at the same time. Life, after all, takes me off in all kinds of different directions and I have become adept at skipping along from one thing to the other with as much energy as I can muster.

It means trying to be fully present to whatever it is I’m doing at the moment instead of pretending there is such a thing as multi-tasking. (There’s not. “Multi-tasking” just means switching back and forth between different things you’re trying to do without giving your full attention to any of them.)

Reading several books “at the same time” simply means giving my full attention to whichever one I’ve picked up at the moment. And that’s easier to do when I slow down because as Georgia O’Keefe once said, “it’s impossible to pay attention in a hurry.”

Slowing down to pay attention to what I’m reading is a little like what happens on a walk when I take the time to stop and look around at what’s worth noticing instead of hurrying right past it.

Five or ten minutes of slow reading can be much more satisfying than half an hour spent rushing through the pages of a book I feel I need to read for a book club discussion.

This month my slow reading is taking me back and forth through the following books:

My Antonia by Willa Cather – set in the late 19th century as homesteaders were struggling with the hardships of prairie life just like my own immigrant ancestors did, this is a book I’ve read many years ago and am enjoying all over again.

Gone Fishin’ by Walter Mosely – about as far removed from Willa Cather as is possible, this prequel to Mosely’s detective series introduces us to the gritty, often rather raunchy but always likable Easy Rawlins.

Taking London: Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization by Martin Dugard – based on the lives of some of the major figures involved in protecting London from the threat imposed by Nazi Germany, this makes me wish I would have paid more attention to my history classes.

Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser former Poet Laureate and one of my favorite poets – this slim volume is a collection of short poems he wrote each day beginning in late November and copied onto postcards to send to his friend and fellow poet Jim Harrison. I’ve been reading one of them each morning.

That’s what I’m reading as of now. But given how much I enjoy finding new books to read, I suppose I’ll be adding to that list before the month is over.

You too deserve to give yourself space and time—even just five minutes—for slow reading. I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading lately, whether you have five minutes or five hours.

The other day I realized my personal metaphors were getting a seasonal overhaul.

I had put away my “sun and fun” Hawaiian shirt and replaced it with my “geese-flying-into-the-sunset” tee. And while journaling, I likened my shifting thoughts to turning leaves rather then blooming flowers.

Do you have metaphors you’d like to put back into circulation too?

Metaphors can keep our thinking fresh—yes, even familiar metaphors like geese migrating south or turning leaves—especially when they invite meaningful reflection.

Metaphors can keep our writing lively on the level of the sentence, and on the level of structure too—from plot to the arc of epiphany.

They can even help us reflect on the quality and efficacy of our writing practice. Liken our habits to those of dancers. Borrow from the wisdom of grandma’s improvisational cooking.

Like geese flying south, the wisdom of metaphor can guide us as we orient to where we’ve been and where we’re going, draft after draft, and help us write our way to done.