We’re all recovering from something, whether it’s an addiction, trauma, 2020, setbacks in our vocation, or just… life in general. With the coming of a new month, I’m starting an experiment by hosting a month-long daily photo and writing challenge for writers out there who, like me, need to refresh after a very de-centering last…
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It’s been, for all of us, an immensely difficult time. The pandemic. The police brutality. The tragedy. And above all that, the fighting, not-listening, the social confusion. And by “difficult,” I mean disorienting, heart-wrenching, soul-crushing, deadening. This last week, for me at least, it got to be a little (ok, a lot) too much. As…
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Maybe it’s the existential tidal wave of COVID-19, maybe it’s just creative growing pains, but I’ve been asking myself–and my writing–lots of deep questions lately. And I’ve decided that one of the big obstacles in moving forward as a writer is that I don’t really know myself as a writer. In other words, I don’t…
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A passage of Scripture that has often come to mind the past week or so is St. Paul’s exhortation on contentment. Thanking the Philippians for remembering his needs–perhaps through sending supplies or monetary contributions–St. Paul points out that even in times when his earthly needs haven’t been met, he knows how to be satisfied: I…
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Today I continue my reading pilgrimage through Ronald Rolheiser’s remarkable book The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness. Rolheiser is a Catholic theologian, but in my own faith tradition–Eastern Orthodoxy–today is Holy Friday, the day of the Cross. It is, perhaps, the loneliest day of the liturgical year, albeit not when measured by external…
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You know those books that are almost too rich to read? Not in a decadent way, but in a raw, important, soul-touching way? Books you can only read by savoring slowly, and even that feels too much most of the time? That’s what kind of book The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of…
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I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hopeFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,For love would be love of the wrong thing. . . T.S. Eliot, “Wait without Hope” from East Coker Last week, I had a pitch rejected by a literary magazine I have always wanted…
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The consensus among the handful of us who were huddled into the small college chapel that night at St. Michael’s College in Toronto, waiting for the vesperal liturgy to begin, was that were worshiping on borrowed time. Only hours earlier, in response to mounting concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, the president of our university had…
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https://media.blubrry.com/writingonwednesdays/content.blubrry.com/writingonwednesdays/WoW_COVID-19_Middlesode.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSLooking for a calming refuge from the dizzying developments around the COVID-19 pandemic? This Middlesode is for you. Settle in for instrumental music, a soft discussion about what COVID-19 lockdown looks like in Nicole’s neck of the woods, and an extended reading from Viktor Frankl’s famous book, Man’s…
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Library shutting down? Toilet paper out? I can help with the former but not with the latter 🙄 Enter to win an ebook or audible copy of either #TimeandDespondency or #UndertheLaurelTree by posting a picture or quote that best sums up your life right now with the hashtag #ThisCovidLife! The funnier the better and the more the merrier. This Giveaway…
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Photo credit: Molly Sabourin Photography
Hi! I’m Nicole. This is my behind-the-scenes blog, where I share ideas and strategies for making the most of your professional creative life. (Hop over here for my personal writing.)