Lately, I’ve found it challenging to get started on my writing each day. It isn’t that I don’t want to write; it is that there are so many other things taking up brain space that I find it hard to transition into creativity. It is a challenge to put aside my to-do list. I don’t love cleaning and making phone calls and answering email, but it usually feels urgent even if it isn’t. Besides, it feels really good to cross those items off that list.  I’m also working a side job doing yard-work, and the progress on weeding and landscaping projects is immediately evident and therefore rewarding. Add in the rest of life (raising a 6 year old, wanting to spend time with family and friends, looking for opportunities to have real conversations with my husband), and I sometimes feel like I can’t pull my mind into the focus required of creative work.

Things like meditation and breathing definitely help, but the technique I’ve found most helpful lately is practicing “micro art.” The idea came to me from life-coach Martha Beck. On her podcast, in Episode 120: Microdosing Joy, she discusses the ideas in a book called Your Brain on Art, which posits that taking 20 minutes per day to enjoy practicing your favorite art (even humming counts!) can change your brain patterns, reduce anxiety, and generally improve your overall well-being. 

To be honest, 20 minutes sounded like a lot to me. I usually set aside a precious hour and half to two hours daily to focus on my writing, and I’m always anxious to get started. So, I’ve been opening my writing sessions with just 5-10 minutes of micro art. I grab a sketchbook, a pencil, and some colored pencils or even a box of my son’s crayons, then work on a sketch while listening to a few favorite songs. Sometimes, I get in my micro art practice by drawing and coloring with my son, which double-dips on creative joy and meaningful time with him. And for the days when I’m not feeling particularly artistic, I just ordered an adult coloring book featuring horses. (I’ll admit, the coloring book feels like cheating, but it will make it easier to continue this practice even on “meh” days.) 

I’ve only been practicing micro art for about a month, but I’ve found that I feel calmer and more open after about ten minutes, and I’m far more ready to dive into my writing if I take the time to “prime the pump” in this way. It also takes the sting out of the blank page — by the time I open Word or Scrivener, I’ve already been filling white space with images and color. Sometimes, I start thinking, “You know, I really should sign up for a water color class or something.” Maybe I will, eventually. But right now, 10 minutes of micro art a day is working wonders on opening the door to creativity, and that brings me back to joy every time. Really, who could ask for more?

Every year as July burns away and August blazes in, as the low country begins to burnish to gold and brown, it is time to go to the mountains. And so, my husband, Rob, and I are gathering our gear and mulling over maps, set to carry on the tradition of an annual backpacking pilgrimage into the Wind Rivers that my parents started in the 1970s.

The trips are too hard and too far for young children, and so my brother and I didn’t join them until we were ten or so. But the cycle of preparation has been part of my life since I was born, the weeks of planning routes and dehydrating food and winnowing down clothing and cookware leading up to the trip. And this process has me thinking — one of the things I love about backpacking is the minimalism and utility it demands. 

Sometimes (frequently), I wish I could graft the simplicity of backpacking onto my daily life. But I’ve never really figured out the balance. We do need to return calls and emails and maintain our homes, and, in polite society, we should probably own more than two pairs of underwear and wash our clothes before the “truly filthy” stage. So, what hacks or tidbits of wisdom do translate beyond the backcountry? 

Maybe this: the simplicity of backpacking is earned through necessity.  When you carry everything you need on your back, you are forced to make some hard choices about what to take and what to leave. It is not as if I don’t make decisions about what to wear or what to eat or what cookware to take — it is that I make those choices once, in advance, and very deliberately. Therefore, if I want to incorporate some of the minimalism of backpacking into my daily life, I also need to incorporate the precision and foresight required of such an undertaking. This is of course easier said than done, but it is a practice I believe I’ll try. But before I clean out my closet or start making intentional meal plans at the beginning of each week, you’ll have to excuse me — I have to get to the mountains, where I’ll be extremely busy not being busy.

I am excited to share that in the last two weeks, I’ve received several requests from agents for the full manuscript of my novel! 

This means these agents are genuinely interested in my work. For the initial query, most agents ask for a query letter, which is a little like a cover letter for a job application, and a few sample pages. Most request five to ten pages or a chapter or two, though some ask only for the query letter. If they like these preliminary materials, they will ask for a “full” (the complete manuscript) or a “partial” (a longer portion of the manuscript, but not the full thing) so that they can further assess whether the writer and project are a good fit for them.

For me, perhaps the most challenging part about querying is that you often don’t receive any response at all to your initial query — agents receive such a high volume of submissions that they simply can’t respond to every one. Therefore, if you don’t hear anything after a certain amount of time (I’ve heard everything from two to six weeks), you can generally assume that the “no response” is a rejection. 

In my limited experience, most agents seem to prefer email correspondence to snail mail. So, I’ve been spending a lot of time the last few months sending emails and then…just waiting. It is an odd feeling to send out submissions and hear nothing back — I can get too into my head and start thinking, What if it didn’t really go through? Are these messages actually landing in an inbox somewhere? Have I waited long enough to assume a rejection?

Thus, getting responses from agents — any response — is pretty exciting. And getting interested responses is even better. Like my husband said, the process is sort of like fishing. If you’re casting over and over again and not getting any strikes, you begin to feel like there might not be any fish in the water at all. And then you start to wonder why on earth you’re waving your line all over the place. But if you get a nibble, even if it is only a little bump, the whole endeavor becomes much more exhilarating — There are fish in here! I’ve got the right fly on my line after all! 

Which is where I’m at right now with querying — I haven’t landed anything yet, but I know my query letter and sample pages are working. And so I’ll keep casting away, waiting for the big strike. Until then, I’ll also try to enjoy where I am. Admittedly, it is harder to find joy in the process of sending emails than in the act of fishing, but I do enjoy researching agents, learning about who they are and what sort of books and clients they represent and why they got into the business to begin with. My “to read” list has grown exponentially as I’ve perused client lists and encountered titles that spark my interest. It is wonderful to be immersed in the literary world this way. 

Perhaps that is the most important thing I’m learning from this part of the journey — often, standing on the bank of a beautiful river or lake and watching how the light fractures off the water, being out in the world with the sun and wind on your face, is the best reason to go fishing.

Summer has come to the high plains. Cool still, and rainy most afternoons here in Laramie for the last month. But it seems as if over night, the town has turned lush. The lawns are green and studded with yellow dandelions, the trees are laden with bright leaves and purple and white blossoms, and the mountains hang blue and snow-capped in the distance. The skies have been full drama, great mounds of white clouds shaded blue and gray across their bellies that darken to black in the afternoons and bring the smell of fresh rain, and, often, rain itself, sometimes rumbling thunder. The snow is just coming down from the high country, and already the rivers have lapped beyond their banks. The air is redolent with lilacs, mown grass, water on pavement and stone.

Of course, this turn to summer did not happen overnight. I’ve been watching for it for weeks, months. But no matter how closely I watch the buds on the trees and earliest spring flowers and the hints of green at the base of bunch grass, the wash of color that is spring and early summer always takes me off guard, feels like it arrives in a rush. I open my curtain one morning and catch my breath, step outside, feel the sun, hang my jacket back on a hook. 

I don’t want to miss one moment of the spring, hungry as I am for it after a long winter. Part of me wishes it would stay like this forever. I know it won’t. In the last few days, I’ve slapped my first mosquitoes. With all this wet, more will come. Like most of the American West, we’ve already experienced days of murky smoke, born down from massive Canadian wildfires. I know that wet springs can lead to more fires, especially if the rain burns away to a dry July and August. I know that even in mild summers, the high desert and prairie will burnish golden and brown as the days spin by. I know that I will wish for frost come September, when the land is going to seed and my allergies flare. 

But for now, I try to soak in all the green and blue and splashes of yellow, red, white, and purple I can. Out at the barn along the Little Laramie, the wild irises began blooming just last week. Their’s is a short season. Always in the first few weeks of June, always over by the end of the month. I wonder if I would tire of them if they stood year round. I don’t think so. But their brevity makes me more aware of them, of the changing seasons they herald. And I am glad, and grateful, every time I see them pushing up through wet spring grass.

I am very excited to share that I won this year’s Wyoming Arts Council Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award for an excerpt of my novel, Land Until the Sky Comes Down. One of many of the awards and fellowships the Wyoming Arts Council (WAC) offers to support the creative arts in the state, this award is given to the best the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script written by a woman writer. You can read more about this award and other creative writing fellowships on the WAC website. (You may have to scroll down a bit for the profile on the Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award.)

I have applied for this award as well as the Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award (for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script informed by a relationship with the natural world) multiple times in the past, and winning this year is a true honor. I know the caliber of applicants each year is high, and it pleases me to be part of a statewide community of artists and writers with such diverse and impressive talent. I greatly appreciate the work WAC does to cultivate and promote creativity in Wyoming.

The news that I had won the Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award came at a good time for me — as I continue to submit my manuscript to agents and wait to hear back, I needed the reminder that often it takes more than one go to be successful. Though this is a value my husband and I work to instill in our son, it is easy to take it for granted in my impatience and excitement to get my novel out into the world. 

In the meantime, I am stoking my creativity with as much time outside as possible now that we are getting some warmer spring weather. I’ve been riding my horse and taking the dogs for long walks at the Pilot Hill trail network east of Laramie. Here are a few pictures that provide tangible proof that spring is indeed coming to the high plains!

One of the biggest events of the year for my family occurred this spring — my brother, Dan Stebner, was appointed as the Wyoming Ninth Judicial District Circuit Court Judge in Riverton. He asked me to speak at his robing ceremony, which was last week, and I am so proud and pleased for him that I wanted to share my words about him here. I owe Danny many things — he is an outstanding big brother and great friend — and I can add yet another entry to the list: I have been experiencing some writer’s block since finishing my first novel and sending it to agents, and having an assignment with a deadline got me writing again. I enjoyed writing this speech, and though I was nervous to present it in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court, Governor Gordon, and many other esteemed guests, I enjoyed delivering it.

Below is the text of the speech, or, you can watch the robing ceremony here. My portion starts at 20:20 mark, but all of the speakers were excellent, and it was an honor to be included among them.

Justices, Governor, esteemed guests, all – it is my honor to address you today as we celebrate my brother’s appointment as the Circuit Judge for the Ninth Judicial District. I could not be happier for him nor prouder of him, but I have to admit up front that I simply can’t bring myself to call him Judge Stebner. To me, he’ll always be Danny.

When he asked me to speak, I was flattered, surprised, and little panicked. One of my first thoughts was that it should be our father addressing all of you today on behalf of our family, and I know we all wish he was here. Unfortunately, his health precluded that from happening. And so, over the last few days, I have reflected on what I might tell that would shed light on Danny’s character and what makes him so well suited to this profession.

I could tell you about how we wrote and illustrated stories when we were little, how my stories were always about fast, wild horses and his were about a talking gerbil who became an attorney and then a judge. I could tell you about how Danny has always been certain of his place in the world, has always loved Wyoming so much that he hesitated to pick me up from the Denver airport when I was in graduate school because doing so would break his eighteen-month streak of not leaving the state even though he lived in Laramie, a mere 2 hours from DIA. I could tell you about how, after he did pick me up, we joined our parents and friends at our family’s camp in the Red Desert and how I listened to his passionate, articulate discussion of constitutional law around the campfire.

And that’s it, that campfire. For when I think of my brother, I think of Wyoming’s wild country. You see, though Danny and I were born in Rawlins, we both came of age in the Red Desert and the Wind Rivers. As often as they could, our parents, Ken and Karey, took us camping and backpacking, and many of our formative experiences unfolded in that big country. This is a tradition we have both continued with our own families — as many of you know, Danny, Stacy, Bess, and Charlie spend more nights in the spring, summer, and fall at our family’s cabin near the Sweetwater than they do in town.

And when I think about being with my brother in the wilderness, I see him most clearly walking ahead of me over Windy Ridge. Our parents started backpacking in the Winds in the 1970s, and they discovered many beautiful spots that they later shared with us. The fastest route to and from one of those camps is over Windy Ridge. If you are especially motivated, you can walk out from our camp and back to the truck in one day. And I do mean one day – it is over 15 miles, with a two-thousand, three-hundred-foot elevation gain in the first two-mile stretch, and if done well, it easily takes 10 hours of steady walking with only a handful of thirty minute breaks. Those of you who know our father and mother will recognize that they think this sort of thing is normal.

So, Danny and I grew up believing this is what most families did for vacation, and we have walked over Windy Ridge together many times. Danny walks faster than I do, and the image of the back of his pack is indelibly etched in my mind.

My brother is fond of saying that you never remember the trips where everything goes perfectly – he usually says this when we’re stuck in a bad crossing or standing around a campfire in the backcountry in a five-day downpour. But I remember with clarity a trip over Windy Ridge that did go perfectly, or at least as perfectly as a 10-hour hike can go. Our parents left camp a day before Danny and I did, opting to take a different way out that they could split up with an overnight. So, it was just the two of us walking over Windy Ridge.

Most of the trip is above timber line, over rocky ground and through multiple boulder fields. It requires attentive route-finding – there is no trail. One saddle in particular is especially tricky to navigate – if you get too high, you end up stuck in the boulders. If you get too low, you get stuck in the boulders. Pick the wrong route through the middle, you get stuck in the boulders. These rocks are huge slabs and chunks of granite – if you’re on a good path, you can walk across them and take small hops between them. But if you get sucked off course, you find yourself scrabbling around in scree fields and having to crawl down into the pits between the boulders, which are favorite haunts of rather large, black spiders. You can spend hours trying to get across this boulder field if things go awry.

What I remember best is this – my brother deliberating on our parents’ stories and our own previous trips through this saddle, the topo map spread between us, and the landscape and moment before us. That we discussed all of this, the precedent and the current facts, that we used that information to chart a course through the boulders. That my brother made decisions based on history and advice but not rigidly beholden to it, that, as we walked, he adjusted our path as the circumstances dictated.

It was the smoothest route I have ever taken through that patch of boulders, the fastest we have ever traversed that saddle. I will always remember that sterling trek over Windy Ridge. It wasn’t easy – it never is. Yet, the sun was bright, the eponymous wind was still, and my brother walked before me, studying the country and waiting for me to catch up when it was time to ponder what line we would take.

Danny, I know that your time in Wyoming’s wild places will serve you well in this new adventure. You will bring the same thoughtful, careful consideration to your judicial decisions that you do to choosing backpacking routes. You will treat those who appear before you with the same compassion and fairness you bring to your companions in the country, listening carefully to what they have to say. You will bring to bear both your intelligence and your sense of humor. You will respect the law as you respect the mountains and desert, as something you are a part of but not in control of. The Wyoming legal community and Wyoming at large are lucky to have you serve in this role, just as I am lucky to call you my brother and my friend.

And when you need to get away from the pressures of your job, you know I’ll be ready to go to the hills with you, just like our parents showed us how to do.

Every November is National Novel Writing Novel Month, or NaNoWrMo. The goal of the event is to write a 50,000 word novel in four weeks. I feel like I just completed the opposite of that, which was to cut 77,000 words from my novel in five weeks. Using the strategies I wrote about last month was effective, and I got the novel to under 100,000 words. That makes it a 350 page manuscript, double-spaced in Word in Times New Roman font.

Now I am headed back into sending the novel to agents and waiting to hear what they think. This is perhaps the hardest part of the writing game for me. Writing new material sometime comes easily, but even when it doesn’t, it is an active process. Cutting the novel back so substantially involved questioning every chapter, scene, page, sentence, and word I’ve written over the last ten years, and that was challenging. But it was focused and tangible. Waiting, on the other hand, involves letting things go, letting them be, and admitting that I have no more control over the outcome. 

I think this is a tricky practice for all of us, no matter the specific application. We apply for jobs and then have to wait. We go to medical appointments and get labs drawn and then have to wait. We send that email or text, make that phone call, leave that message, and then have to wait. We schedule that vacation and then have to wait. And waiting can feel like slowly going mad, if we keep thinking about the potential results. 

So, what I’m trying to figure out is how to let waiting be a process of becoming, of drawing inward and trying to recommit to the present moment. I am working on a second novel, and though the brainstorming and planning is slower than I would like, I am curious to see where it takes me. I am trying to let it show me the way into it. 

I am riding my horse in the indoor arena at the barn where I keep her and waiting for spring, trying to concentrate each time on the exercises we practice, to see how much progress we can make during this fallow period rather than longing for rides in the hills. I am smelling woodsmoke on the wind and trying to appreciate the taste of cold on my tongue instead of counting the days until a true thaw. 

So it feels right to me, then, to be sending my first novel to agents at this time of year, when we can almost imagine that winter will indeed end but before we can feel spring in our bones. What comes next is a new season.

After receiving feedback from a couple of key reviewers, I have decided to shorten my novel considerably before submitting to more agents. Thus, my current project is to cut about 77,000 words in hopes of hitting a length closer to recommended industry standards for literary and upmarket fiction. When all is said and done, I hope the book will be just under 100,000 words.

When I shared this goal with a friend, saying that I needed to make the novel shorter, he asked, “Does it need to be shorter or simply more precise?” What a wonderful question. I’ve used it as a guide as I decide what to cut and what to keep. Does a scene move the story forward in a precise way? Does a description cut to the core of a landscape or character? Can I say the same thing with one word instead of ten?

I have identified a good handful of scenes that I could cut without really affecting the main arc of the story, and so I pulled those out wholesale even when it pained me to do so. But by and large, I have made most cuts by evaluating the precision of the line-by-line writing. After reviewing whether every scene is truly serving the story, I have tried to cut each chapter by one third. I do the math, set a target word count, and start asking myself if every scene, every paragraph, every line, and every word is earning its keep. I have cut over 60,000 words so far, and most of them have pained me. To ease the sting, I cut and paste longer passages into a “notes” file for each chapter. Then all that (I think) beautiful but nonessential (probably) writing doesn’t get totally deleted. It’s mostly a mind game, but it helps. And if I need to, I can always go back and find a sentence or paragraph to reintroduce.

Additionally, I’ve discovered a few “easy” cuts. Initially, I wasn’t using contractions in the main narrative, choosing to write out “will not,” “do not,” “is not,” etc. Doing a find and replace search of those common contractions cut nearly 2,000 words from the novel. I also tend to describe things through the point of view of a character when I could simply state what is happening. For example, “She watched the horses stamp in the dusty corral” becomes “The horses stamped in the dusty corral.” And in that same example, chances are that I can cut “dusty” because I’ve probably already described the corral in some way in another sentence. Taking a close look at descriptive action (“he paused,” “he walked to the door,”) and choosing one detail or action instead of listening three or four has also yielded a high number of deleted words.

Ultimately, I hope that cutting the story down makes it more marketable and gives it a better chance of making it to readers. I also believe that the novel will be better—easier to read and more tightly paced—as a result. I am learning a lot about my own writing style through this revision. I’m a maximalist and will likely always “over-write” my drafts, which means I will need to be committed to precision in each subsequent rewrite and edit. Have I spent some time wishing I’d done this work a year ago, and certainly before I sent to my first round of agents? You bet. But agonizing about the past is extraneous and unproductive work, so I’m cutting it out and moving the story forward.

When people ask me what I’m writing, I usually fumble around a little bit and give a vague answer. But I don’t want to do that here — I want to tell you what I’m really working on and where I am in the process.

Right now, I am getting ready to submit my first novel to agents, and it is an exciting and scary time in my writing career. The novel’s working title is Land Until the Sky Comes Down, which comes from the last line of James Galvin’s poem “Utah Ghost Town.” It is the story of two brothers bound and broken by tradition and ritual, the passionate and lyrical woman they both come to love, and how the three of them struggle to hold onto each other and themselves as they reimagine their own places in a family defined by Wyoming’s hard, beautiful country.

I have been working on the book in earnest since 2012, though the idea originated with a dream I had in 2009. It has been a constant companion for over ten years, and I am both elated and frightened to move onto this next stage. I have gone through it one last time to check grammar and spelling, and now it is ready to go out into the world. Finding an agent is the next step towards publishing it since I have decided to go the traditional publishing route. (I am intrigued by self-publishing but believe this book, a literary, place-based novel, will do better through traditional channels.)

Several people have asked me how I’ve decided which agents to submit to. My process was relatively simple — I went to my bookshelf and pulled down all my favorite books that are in a similar genre to Land. Then I mined the acknowledgements and the authors’ websites to find out who represents them. Because I admire these authors and their writing, I believe that their agents and I would also work well together.

I have read several places that it is best not to submit to agents between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and so I am drafting my query emails and getting them ready to go. On January 17^th, I’ll officially hit send and Land will take a huge leap on its journey. My great hope is that, after I find an agent and a publisher, the book will reach you and make a positive impact in your life, whether it simply entertains you, makes you feel less alone, or leaves you contemplating your own love of place and sense of belonging.

Here are those links to a few things that have caught my attention and which you might find interesting as well:

• I just read Celeste Ng’s compelling and beautifully written novel Everything I Never Told You. Her use of multiple perspectives is masterful: https://www.celesteng.com/everything-i-never-told-you.
• I love Gregor Barnett’s song “Don’t Go Throwing Roses on My Grave”: https://open.spotify.com/album/6CNGmca27f0qYpHWxWbxwU.
• I’ve been enjoying the interviews on Linda Siversten’s the Beautiful Writer’s podcast: https://www.beautifulwriterspodcast.com/.

“What do you do?” It is long been one of the toughest questions I receive on a regular basis. It used to be easier to answer, back when I was working full-time as an academic advisor at the University of Wyoming, though even then I’d sometimes tack on a weak, “And I write, too.” It has gotten more complicated as I moved to a part-time role split between advising and teaching and then to part-time teaching only so that I could focus on my writing more in my “off” hours.

When I was advising and teaching full-time, people usually asked me follow up questions about that work, not the writing, which made sense since I was leading with the more understandable, contained career. And it seemed easier to answer those questions, simpler, cleaner. Less revealing.

But my answers weren’t quite true, though they were factual. Because at my core, I am a writer. For years, I have written regularly, and now I write nearly every day and have recently finished the manuscript for my first novel. I am researching and beginning to query agents. I have published essays in literary journals (you can find links to those journals here) and hope to place more of my writing soon. I have cut my teaching back even further, a decision predicated almost entirely on my drive to prioritize my writing. Now, I am at a jumping off point, trying to move from doing the work behind the scenes to putting it out into the world.

Though I still feel awkward when people ask me what I do, I tell them I write. Then I struggle to gracefully explain what I, you know, really do as a writer because there are a lot of ways to be a writer, a lot of reasons to write, and a lot of things to write about. Through this blog, I intend to practice answering those questions, and I want to make it easy for people to find my writing so they can experience it for themselves.

Why? Because, as I’ve stated elsewhere, I believe stories matter, that they connect us, make us feel less alone, and enrich and inform our experiences as human beings. I feel the most authentic, the most in my internal integrity, when I write regularly and when I am brave enough to share that work. And I want to own my vocation when people ask me what I do. Because when we ask each other that question, we are, at least in part, asking, “Who are you?”

Thanks for reading this author’s update! This is the first of many posts I will be making from here out. Throughout the month, I want to share a little about my process and my author’s journey with you. I will also write short pieces of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry and some reviews of books, films, and music that have inspired me as an artist and that I think you might want to check out.

In each author’s update, I will also link to a few things that have caught my attention and which you might find interesting as well. Here are those links for this inaugural update:

• I just re-read Patricia McKillip’s the Riddle Master trilogy. It is one of my favorite epic fantasy books, and I highly recommend it. http://patriciamckillip.com/portfolio/riddletrilogy/  
• I’ve been listing to a lot of the Vandolier’s music. Many of their songs are thematically resonant with the sorts of relationships, experiences, and characters I write about in my fiction. http://vandoliers.com/music
• I have stuck with a meditation practice for almost two months (a record for me) thanks in large part to Insight Timer. https://insighttimer.com/