Creating a Writing Life

Owner Maggie and her daughter, Jordan

The coffee shop/tea shop is a cliche for a reason. Writers go there not just for their caffeine fix, but for the warmth and the chance to be around other people working.

Like the also-popular library, a comfortable coffee shop is an essential place for your literary life. The synergy all those laptops and people reading is a shot in the arm for your own work.

So let's explore some wonderful places to write and refresh yourself. Especially The ClockWork Rose Tea Emporium. 

If this doesn't make you want to write a story of derring-do, nothing will.

C. Morgan Kennedy and I

My friend C. Morgan Kennedy, a steampunk fan, discovered this gorgeous place. The owners, Maggie and Harold, have lavished love, attention, and thoughtfulness all over their gorgeous space. All the little details in the tea shop inspire and encourage a writer (ok, *this* writer) to take care with all the small details that make a scene sing.

Look at those gears!

How can your writing not soar under pretty balloons?

Something about warm beverages and delicious, carefully made treats (seriously, try the scones) keeps people (ok, *this* person), alert and refreshed even during the most difficult writing tasks.

Seriously. Everything is delicious.

Harold, Maggie's Husband made nearly all their steampunk decor.

The awesome, tempting shop.

If you have to write, scout out a local coffee house or tea shop. Find a place with comfortable chairs, delicious baked goods, and excellent beverages. I promise, it will always lift you up and renew your enthusiasm for your projects.

Sex-positive: What is it and why is it good for you?

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Like many terms within feminism, sex positivity means different things to different people. As a broad ideology and world view, sex positivity is simply the idea that all sex, as long as it is healthy and explicitly consensual, is a positive thing.

 http://www.wgac.colostate.edu/sex-positivity

It's pretty obvious that I believe in the sex-positive movement. I write novels with consensual sex. My female characters own their desires and ask for what they want. My male characters not bullies who threaten or coerce their partners. And everyone in between those two poles has a chance to experience pleasure.

So I put my text where my beliefs are and wrote The Little Sexy Workbook. 

 Cleverly (I think) adorned with full color photos of statues from Italy and filled with fun, relaxed games to promote conversation, The Little Sexy Workbook is here to bring sex-positive energy to your life.

Curiosity: Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals

Exploring is very important for writers, dreamers, lovers, and well, everyone, really. I like discovering cool things about my local area. So I visited the Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals.

The museum building was originally constructed by Richard and Helen Rice as their family home in 1952. Richard Rice, a logger by profession, incorporated many rare Oregon woods, such as myrtle wood and quilted maple, in the fabrication of their house. The Rices built a gallery in their basement to display their amazing personal mineral collection. In 1997, the entire building was converted to a public museum, and an additional gallery building was constructed in 2005.

I love learning how the world works. Learning just a little bit of this geology was enough to get my imagination firing.

Enough talk! Let's look at their amazing, mind-opening stuff.

I don't even remember what this is, but wow!

The Charming Mother in Law with an enormous opal.

Imagine the forces it took to create such beauty.

The perfect place for a wizard to meditate.

These agates make these "landscapes" all on their own!

I could see a sort of fantastical entity hiding in here.

Ancient Tiger skull. Yowza!

I love Lapis Lazuli.

What story do you see in this piece?

The Rice's amazing house.

This makes me think of the wings on my angels in the Blood Wings series.

I think Lance's wings float like the chalcedony...

Can't you just see the feathers?