Michaels Craft Store: Supplying Love’s Creativity

After reading Ken Fuson’s example of how fantastic writing can be, even in a short article reporting on weather in Iowa, my teacher challenged the class to observe a scene and write 10 sentences using “sexy” verbs, good details, and active voice (subject, verb, then object). So over the weekend, while replenishing my kanban on resin, I decided to observe a free craft class at Michaels craft store. I’m no ASNE prizewinner, but this is what I came up with:

Crafting hopefuls saunter through the doors of Michaels, despite the overcast sky and bursts of rainfall. This weekend’s craft class would serve two functions: an opportunity to make a Valentine’s card and a simple way to distract children while their parents fulfill their crafty needs. Eager little bodies fill most of the seats, ready to create a token of their love for someone special. Inspiration was sure to be found, buried among a plethora of embellishments: ribbons in various shades of reds, pinks, and polka dots, tins of markers and colored pencils, pads of colorful inks, clear stamps and block letters, cut-out hearts, and glitter.Two pre-teen crafters trickle in late, hoping to rush creativity in order to finish cards by the end of the class, or until their ride is ready to go. Over the hum of excitement the instructor warned, “You don’t want to make a card too busy, but make sure you have enough.” She then slowly circled the table on the prowl for an attention-worthy example of the right amount of embellishment; she found it and held it high for the rest of the class to admire. One intense bedazzler with a look of determined focus chose an approach of finding the perfect placement for a faux rhinestone. While the “minimalist” decided to wrap the bottom edge of the card with a red wavy-patterned ribbon, glue three cut-out hearts to the front, stamped “Happy Valentine’s Day” on the inner right side of the card, and call it a day. Embodied by a little girl with pink-framed glasses smiling as she excitedly pointed out the red glitter and fluffy yellow cotton balls to her mother, Michaels is a place that fosters creativity.

Now you have one great example (Fuson’s article) and my first attempt. So get out there and do some of your own practice. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but some guy said during some era that practice makes perfect. I’ll keep practicing and let you know if he was a liar. In the meantime, share/post/link what you come up with too.

Glen Martin: Find Your Happy Place

For a Communications class, we recently had a guest speaker, Glen Martin. He’s a featured blogger for The Huffington Post, former environmental reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and author of three books. With over 20 years of experience in the writing industry, I was eager to absorb all the wisdom I was sure he’d impart about breaking into the industry and succeeding as a writer. In my mind, writing is an art form that can paint a picture just as well, if not better, than any paintbrush can. So, anyone who’s been able to make a profession of writing would be a valuable source, right? Wrong.

From atop his soapbox, this self-proclaimed Mastodon stuck roaming a new world of digital media overpopulated by Gen-Xers whose “truncated speech has impoverished the speaking language,” made clear that the end is nigh. Martin foretold the coming of a time where the newspaper, with the discoloration of age and tattered edges, would take its place in history alongside the “Dodo bird and the appendix.” It would be nothing more than a relic of an age long ago when times were simple, there was “real reporting”, and the world was a better place.

I did my part as a good student and listened to this cynical man drone on about being reduced to a consultant, who freelance writes, and daily peruses the writer-wanted ads on Craigslist. All I could hear, though, were orations eerily reminiscent of my own moment of teenage angst. It was rich with over-dramatic declarations of how horrible life was, with a family just didn’t “get me”, and ideas that I could fade away into nothing completely unnoticed by anyone in the world (don’t judge me; I already admitted that I was dramatic).Ironic that it’s a man in his early 60s that helps me understand why my mom likes to refer to that period as my “dark ages”. I get it now. It’s easy to focus on the doom and gloom. There will always be some obstacle to face and a line of naysayers and pessimists. There’s going to be some reason to feel like you can’t, and yes, the world will change. But adversity is a poor excuse for quitting. Instead, look for some motivation or find your happy place, but keep going.

So, as this century moves into its own teenage years think on these words from the ever brilliant, Anonymous: “Our world is one where people don’t know what they want, but are willing to go through hell to get it.” So if writing is your medium, write. Besides, if the newspaper went extinct what would moms and crafters cover their tables with before arts and crafts time?