Music & Writing

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Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite genre of music?
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This one’s a fun topic, especially when considering music listened to while writing. I’m definitely the sort of person to be heavily swayed by the moods in music so it can affect scenes. What I listen to for background focus music varies a lot on where I’m at in a manuscript or what’s going on in a scene, although I’m exclusively choosing some form of instrumental music. I’ve found this allows me to avoid song lyrics that might sneak their way into my dialogue when I’m in the zone.

For personal music listening, I lean toward punk and heavy metal than I do other genres, but it depends on my mood that day. There’s everything from Mongolian throat-singing to polka on my playlists. That being said, I never turn down listening to The Offspring or Aurelio Voltaire regardless of where my mind is at.

Foods of Childhood

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Daily writing prompt
Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?
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I am of two minds on how to best answer this one. My childhood had good moments, but it was not good overall. Some foods transport me back to my own personal hell and memories that I feel like a brand-new bruise, cut, or broken bone. I think I’d rather focus on the foods that take me back to happy moments.

I think there’s one specific happy food and related memory that I’m going to talk about today. I was staying with my maternal grandparents then. My “father” wasn’t in the picture for a few months while he looked for work where he might move us away from South Carolina. California and then later Kansas didn’t save me, but those states kept me more whole than I might have been in Saudi Arabia which was on the list of options at some point in the move planning. The happiness thrived for those summer months while the shadow was gone from our family is something I’ve been chasing to recapture most of my life.

My dear grandfather. who we always called Papa, processed one of his rabbits one day that summer to make meatballs and proceeded to serve us three kids the best spaghetti and meatballs I’ve ever had in my life. It bothered my sister once she learned where the meat came from, so she may have a different thought about this memory. But for me? This is bright, sun-shining, joy. I’m not sure even if I bought ground rabbit from a farmer today that it would taste the same if I tried to repeat the dish. The man had a magic hand when it came to the animals he raised and the fruits, vegetables, and peppers he grew.

As I travel back to the past in my mind, I can also smell the strawberries from the garden I found to be a holy space never seen between the four walls of a Southern Baptist church. Roaming and hiding in that cool, safe, space and being quiet and tranquil while my grandfather worked the garden was heaven. The cats that always roamed the neighborhood to relax in the small yard attached to the house that had been my mom and my aunts’ childhood home. Now only Aunt Ceil is left: Aunt Doris passed first in 2016, then my mom in 2021. Aunt Ceil is Papa’s other namesake besides me. No more namesakes remain in the younger generations. That magic garden shriveled up over 20 years ago with Papa’s passing when I was a newly-minted adult barely into my twenties. Truly sad, but perhaps appropriate. I fully recognize we aren’t going to mark proof of our lives on the history of the world for long. (Unless we’re Ea-Nāṣir – Ha!).

To end an entry that is probably longer than it needed to be, I think I’ve finally found the happiness out here in the PNW with John and our two ornery super-senior cats. I still wouldn’t mind sourcing some good rabbit meat this summer.

Disclaimers and mottos

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Daily writing prompt
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
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“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.” Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

“We endure” is what John and I have jokingly referred to the Mihulec family motto. (Our tiny branch of the Mihulec family anyway – this isn’t official in any way). It’s maybe a bit short for a motto or tagline. For me, it reflects what we’ve gone through in life as individuals and together as a team. Some of it’s been violent, tragic, and full of degradation, but still, we are here. Standing as firm as we can plant our feet.

I’ve adopted the idea that hell is something you carry with you, a heaviness from the atrocities and trauma that the world throws at all of us. What matters is what you do next, and for us? The slightest hint of fire and brimstone is the accepted cue for bad puns and groan-worthy gallows humor masquerading as dad jokes. Here’s one for you to take on the road: Why did the devil start a coffee shop? Because he likes brewing trouble.

A Good Life Lived

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Daily writing prompt
What are the most important things needed to live a good life?
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One of my special interests is genealogy, which is a much broader hobby than I think people realize. Anyone involved with historical recreation of any stripe is probably already nodding along. The family tree is only the baseline beginning. You’re an explorer and a detective, trying to find the story behind the names and dates. You become an expert in local and global history to understand what was happening politically and culturally in the area where your ancestors lived. Unexpected surname changes and choices for given names (unique or not) can reveal quite a bit about your family. Frances/Francis is one of, if not the, most common names in my entire family tree.

We are people who highly value personal freedom. Many of my emigrating ancestors came to the United States because they liked keeping their heads attached. I have some historical evidence that my occasional inability to keep my mouth shut is one I come by honestly. I have also seen evidence that we’re generally willing to die if necessary to live our lives as they deserve to be lived.

I think a good life requires refusing to play the games that make everyone else so miserable. It requires being authentically yourself and figuring out what that means within the broader scope of your communities: family or found family, your neighborhood, your relevant cultural groups, etc. The way of life in the Siksika Nation, part of the Northern Blackfoot Confederacy, gave Maslow the basis for his hierarchy of needs. That entire pyramid is the bare minimum and the base level for building a supportive and peaceful life and community. For the unfamiliar, the big takeaway from Maslow is that we aren’t happy or fulfilled as people if we’re always scrambling for resources and acceptance.

We know what the basics are to survive, but to thrive, you need to appropriately value yourself and your community (multiple communities for many of us). It’s about showing up and celebrating each other every day. It’s making sure everyone’s cup is full as best you can, including your own. I personally found that creating a good life involved rejecting old societal beliefs and moving away from what everyone “has” to do. I am showing up where I want to be with people whose opinions and needs matter to me. You know your life is good when you can genuinely say, “I have what I need and I am fulfilled.”

What’s In a Name?

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Daily writing prompt
If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?
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I had a recent discussion about this with some coworkers and made them chuckle. I would go with Robin. My husband’s name is John. You may know where I’m going with this, depending on your cultural background. (We’d be Robin Hood and Little John since he’s also taller than me.) In addition, I specifically have Disney’s Robin Hood, along with the iconic music, in mind at the moment.

Impactful books

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Daily writing prompt
List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
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I thought this was a fun exercise to try to get back into it. Only three? I could keep going but I tried to pick some of the most impactful books that came to mind. Happy reading! I look forward to seeing other people’s lists.

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien – Tolkien was a big part of mine and my siblings’ childhood growing up, and this was the first book that my mother ever read to me, so it’s been a part of my life for my entire life. Love it or hate it, it’s important to me, especially now after my mother’s passing a few years ago.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapucinski – I recommend this book highly to anyone who grew up in any sort of monoculture areas and is looking to travel and experience other countries and cultures. It’s a lovely book, and it will strike a chord if you’re a history buff. I recommend also reading the inspiration for the book’s format, The Histories by Herodotus, for deeper context.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov – This is my favorite Faustian tale that I “discovered” during an undergrad class titled Angels & Demons. I find this book perhaps less comforting under current events, now that we are dealing with the issues of the fascist rise to power and related disappearances of citizens in the United States that are akin to the social commentary elements of the novel. I always recommend everyone read this book at least once. It’s a haunting story that I return to every few years.

Computer Challenges and Superb Owls

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Sometimes my goals don’t quite come to fruition as intended:

One of my goals for this weekend is adding a bluesky feed to my writing website. I'm using WordPress and I've heard through the grapevine that it's relatively easy to add as a widget, so here's hoping.

— Frances Mihulec (@chaosmoonmage.bsky.social) Feb 7, 2025 at 5:37 AM
https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js

Was the grapevine wrong? Not entirely. You do need a business-level WordPress subscription to upload the “free” plugin or much of anything beyond Jetpack. My website writing budget isn’t that big and I’ve no desire to increase it. What I can do is embed specific bluesky posts. So I am counting this a partial success.

We call them “challenges” not “problems” these days, don’t we? In other news, my poetry manuscript is in excellent editorial hands at the moment. I will share more in the coming weeks.

Happy Superb Owl day for the rest of my fellow weirdos! If you find anything fun that’s owl related, share it to your loved ones. Bonus points if they have no idea why you’re sending it and you don’t explain. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Bone-dead tired

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It’s never the thing you think that wears you down. Yes, you’re tired. Yes, you’re hurting. But it’s always the most random thing that floors you, isn’t it? The moment where you’re so done that your tongue can’t even be bothered to move. Your fingers clench refusing to uncurl. Your legs just stop and drop you straight to the couch. the bed. the floor. The weird counter at some diner in the middle of nowhere at 2 a.m. when you can smell the half-burned cholesterol wafting from the smoke in the kitchen and your arteries reflexively harden.

“Coffee. Black.” You give to the waitress who side-eyes you and grunts, sneers. “You ain’t from around here,” is written in her body language. And maybe if you’re daring, you try a slice of pie that she recommended to a regular (oh but not to you, Mr./Mrs./Mx. Coffee Black) that’s likely been on that damn counter since 1955. Maybe you take some home with you if it doesn’t churn your stomach immediately. Because no one in here with you looks human enough to have a home to return to.

They’ve all faded like half-crushed-out Lucky Strikes left to their fates in alleyway puddles. Their bones gleaming in the chrome surfaces that have been polished like the grill of a 1958 Plymouth Fury. No blood to be drained from any of these turnips anymore. You feel yourself melt into your seat, like you’ve always meant to be right there and have never been anywhere else. That’s when the waitress’s blood-red lips curl and she takes out her pen and pad, “Where’ve you been, Stranger?”

And you realize you’ve lost who you were, although you don’t remember why you should care. “I’ll take the special and make it as rare as the law allows.”

Maybe if the cheap steak’s bloody enough, you’ll feel alive again.

Look Who’s Writing Again

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The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the night of 8 August 1779 Colored etching by Pietro Fabris, 1779.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the night of 8 August 1779. Colored etching by Pietro Fabris, 1779.

This blog post sounds like a late ’80’s to early ’90s comedic film that would probably flop as it bored audiences to tears. Me suddenly remembering how words string into sentences for reasons other than a procedural document is probably akin to an arts film about 20 hours of paint drying.

I took a much needed break from most of the social media and the doom-scrolling on my phone and the creative spark has ignited again. I’m currently a couple of pages into the draft of a new fantasy novel in addition to the poetry chapbook I intend to self-publish this year. I also have an editor lined for the poetry chapbook after I do a few passes, I’ll be turning it over to her next month. (More details to come later on that.)

I’m honestly not interested in dark deep dives for my fiction this year, at least not right now We’ll see how long it takes before my current elf protagonist exploring a seemingly-idyllic afterlife gets bored and makes everything go off the rails. I’ll let you know if (when – ha!) it happens.

I’m doing all I can to keep the creative fires burning. We’re going to need passion, diligence, and anything that looks remotely like empathy in the next four years to survive. Maybe longer if evil prevails. Here’s to everyone whose existence has always been forcibly political and to everyone else who is just now discovering how awful that actually is to experience.

Until Next Time.