by Karlyn Coleman

The Zamboni slides around the curves in the rink. The smell of propane lingers in the air. The gate opens. Skate blades scratch against the ice. I watch my son skate around the rink, crossing one foot over the other, so effortlessly. Gliding. Flying. Long legs pushing him forward. A blur of blue and orange. Number 14. I wave to him behind the glass, and just as the game begins, I head out of the arena doors.

Out in the lobby, I find a table by the confession stand. I can’t help but call it anything else. When my son was six, the year he first started playing hockey, he came off the ice thirsty and asked if he could have a dollar for the confession stand. I laughed and gave him two. Bring me back some absolution, I said. A dollar’s worth of grace. He bought a blue Gatorade instead.

by Sarah Tieck

Confession time. I’m writing to you about organization, but there are dishes in the sink, waiting to go into the dishwasher. There’s a pizza box on the counter. Clothes are folded, but not put away. I’ve got miscellaneous papers in a basket, needing to be put … well, somewhere, and not too long ago, I misplaced a contract and a check. I’m not a hoarder or a slob. I’m a creative person in the thick of several deadlines.

There is no such thing as getting organized once and for all. Instead, learn to manage the flow of your creative life by harvesting the abundance of ideas, words, and other types of inspiration. This supports you in using your creative gifts and sharing your voice with the world—and, as with nature, provides the seeds and nourishment for your next project.

by Ben Obler

Writing a novel is a ridiculous task. If we can stop and recognize that fact every once in a while, we can ease our burden. Yes, nose to the grindstone for much of the time, scouring for the profound, the heartening, the heart-rending, the enlightening. But this effort is taxing on the constitution. We have to stop from time to time, set the keyboard on end, and take a deep breath. In these moments (in the colossal time frame of novel writing, moments may be weeks), we step back and try to assume the attitude that Buddhist writer Pema Chodron calls “no big deal.” Easier said than done.

by William Reichard

When I was 17 years old I discovered the film Cabaret while flipping through channels on late-night TV. Seven years after its premiere, I hadn’t heard of the movie.  Something about the film’s style and mood drew me in and held me. Although I usually didn’t enjoy musicals, I kept watching. Michael York’s character seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t articulate why, at first. A gay teenager in rural Minnesota in 1980, I was as clueless as Sally Bowles, and lacked her bravado. As the film came to the scene where Michael York’s and Liza Minnelli’s characters discover they’ve been sleeping with the same man, I experienced the revelation just as Sally did, in real time, and I was just as shocked. For me, however, the experience was also one of unmitigated joy, as this was the first time I’d seen a gay man portrayed on television, in the movies, anywhere. For a closeted and fearful teenager, the experience was profound. I’d never seen myself reflected in anything I’d watched or read before, and I was a voracious reader, an avid watcher. Or if I had, I wasn’t ready until that moment to recognize it. I was hungry for any kind of affirmation, any sense that I wasn’t alone in the world, and there was Cabaret, broadcast right into my living room by ABC late on a Friday night.

by Mark Herwig

I have purchased hundreds of articles, photos, and illustrations for the three outdoor magazines I’ve edited the past 13 years out of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. I’ve also sold quite a few freelance articles, including this one, so I know the game from both sides.

The writers I consistently buy from always have good ideas. People can be good writers, but if the ideas they shoot me don’t work, that’s the end of it. If I like an idea, but the writer is new to me, I ask for the story on “spec” (speculation); that is, I only agree to buy it if I like it.

If someone is a known entity or has done good work for me on several occasions, and if I’ve given the assignment or accepted the query, I’m paying for the article, period. I make one exception: if I get a great, unique idea from a rookie writer, I’ll let him or her write the article knowing I’ll end up doing a lot of editing to make it usable. I like helping new writers, and they are so grateful.