dailyprompt

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.

Writing Prompt: Comfort food

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Daily writing prompt
What’s your go-to comfort food?
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I can’t find or even really make my comfort foods anymore. They taste of my grandfather’s impossible, magical, garden in summer, homemade sauces that still have fresh and dirt in the flavor notes, and meatballs made from his raised hares.

Or they taste like my mother’s chicken pot pies and casseroles, or chicken and dumplings that singed my tongue due to my impatience. Fried okra, fried chicken, and greens or green beans. Pink Stuff. And no one’s version, even mine, will do anything but pale in comparison.

There are more lost examples of these old comfort foods, tied to memories, some happy, many bittersweet, even more tragic.

Memory, nostalgia, and grief are my comfort foods. I eat them regularly when I sit with my coffee and a blank document page. Then I pour out my veins and tear ducts to create something I hope is bigger than myself. Something that might make the ancestors proud. Food is fuel, after all.

Writing Prompt: “What’s Your Dream Job?”

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What’s your dream job?

I don’t dream of jobs. That being said, I do dream of positions in terms of direction and how I contribute to society. I’ve always felt fulfilled in roles that allow me to solve problems and be helpful. I seek those kind of jobs that have enough structure and clear systems to make sense, but offer room for creative thinking. I need the job that allows me space and refills my cup so that I can create on my own terms outside of work.

I dream of jobs that do not take without giving, and that can stop at the end of the workday. I like to work hard but I want energy to still play hard at the end of the day, so that I have a life outside of the hours I’ve sold to my employer. I had dreams when I was younger to work under my own terms, write and paint at home, with only my adventures to new places while traveling to drag me away from the artist’s single-minded devotion to craft.

As an adult, I definitely need stability for contribution outside my own worlds, many of which were born out of trauma and bad events. I get mental sunshine with every problem I solve, or the person I help. I craft moon shine (or moonshine) out of my thoughts put to paper or canvas. There has to be balance. I don’t think I’d be satisfied with a full-time writer or artist position, however, there’s a part of me that still would like the chance to try. I think I would need to know that what I was doing offered something essential for society. I’d be volunteering more if I felt that wasn’t the case.

The day job that funds my life and my creative investments without taking everything else is the dream job these days. Retirement one day might be nice, but I know that’s asking for a lot. I dream of not dying at work, for an employer, who gives perhaps two shits about me, and that’s only if they’re a halfway decent company. I dream of not leaving with regrets. But I am no longer in my twenties, even if I can’t quantify the two decades that passed between 21 and 41. Wisdom I can pass on, however, is that we work to live; we do not live to work. Don’t lose sight of that, even if the years fly by faster than you’re anticipating.