Month: March 2013

Life List Workshop with Me. (Also, Want, $1,000?)

The Go Mighty team has been building a community of people who make things happen. Come be part of it.

I’m teaching a one-week Life List Workshop through Skillshare, starting April 8. It’s online, it’s only $20, and you should do it.

As part of the class, the Go Mighty team is choosing one participant (or group of participants, if you feel like doing a team project) to receive a $1,000 grant toward turning a dream into an action.

If you’ve been wanting to make a Life List, or meaning to choose a few goals to tackle, or thinking about supporting others who are working on their lists, you could do that later. But later is dumb. Instead, let’s do it right now:

Register for the Go Mighty Life List class with a $1000 grant opportunity for a goal to come to life.

See you there, doers. I will bring pizza.

Movie Night at the Barn

This post is brought to you by The New Santa Fe from Hyundai.

Do you guys remember this hubbity bubba?

That tiny man turned six in February, and he’s shaving now. He wears my socks. He is big enough that I can no longer carry him in from the car when he’s sleeping. Oh, my heart.

For his birthday I wanted to do a movie night, where everyone cozies up under blankets and you pass warm beverages around in thermoses. My sister has a red barn that was built for maximum quaint-itude, so I bribed Hank’s cousins to clean it out for us (thanks, Trevor and Emma!), and we had the party there.

All the little city kids chased goats and chickens around screaming, swung on the tire swing, roasted weenies, and posed briefly for a Norman Rockwell painting.

We had cupcakes with spray-painted farm animal toppers, fired up the popcorn machine (surprisingly cheap to rent, by the way), and ladled hot cider. As you’ll see in the video below, it was kind of an epic day.

We have video because Hyundai loaned us a car for a couple days and asked if they could film the party. Hank is way into making movies — I’ve been stalling on his oft-repeated request for his own YouTube channel — so I said yes. Of course, I was picturing some guy with a camcorder, hanging out and having cake with us.

Uh… as you will see, they went all out. It was a whole crew with a trailer and thingies to attach cameras to the car. They even complied with Hank’s request to yell “ACTION!” while we bumped up the country backroads. It was all very satisfying and movie-makey for Hank’s taste.

Of course, Hank has been asking about the movie for weeks while they edited everything together. The end result is both gorgeous and a little surreal for me, but he is very excited that you get to see it. So without further ado, Hank’s small screen debut:

Happy birthday, little buddy. I’m so lucky I get to mom you.

http://thirdparty.fmpub.net/placement/553818?fleur_de_sel=%5BRANDOM%5D

Project! Thank a Writer

When I was 15, I lived in Costa Rica for a month. I didn’t speak Spanish well, or much at all, so I spent my days in an exhausting state of presence — otherwise known as culture shock. Books let my brain relax, and one of my most poignant memories is staying up late to finish Lord of the Flies. My room was still unfamiliar and didn’t yet smell like home, and there were crickets sounding outside as I read the last passage. Closing the book, I felt overcome. I set it on my chest and felt the weight of it while I breathed.

I chase that feeling when I read. The one that makes me want to find the author, pour them a drink, and leave them to bask in the glow of their efforts. Damn.

On Go Mighty, I’ve come across a few of you who want to write thank you notes to your favorite authors. I recently mentioned it to my friend Nathan Bransford. He’s a first-order bibliophile — a children’s book author, a former literary agent, and he hosts a blog for writers at NathanBransford.com.

“Bransford!” I said. “We should do this.” And he agreed. So we both added “Write thank you notes to authors” to our Life Lists, and today we’re launching our #ThankAWriter Project on Go Mighty. Please join us in writing and delivering hand-written thank you notes to our favorite authors.

Here’s all you have to do:

1) If you don’t already have one, make a quick profile on Go Mighty.

2) Create a life list goal of thanking authors. (Here’s mine.)

3) Every time you write a thank you note, post a photo or the text on Go Mighty with the tag #ThankAWriter.

We’re doing one note a a week for five weeks, so join in. Say thank you to the strangers who have changed the way you think, and shaped who you’ve become.

My first thank you note is to an author who changed the way I think about mortality, you can read it on Go Mighty. I’ll feature some of my favorite letters here on Mighty Girl, so please do this with us! Who gets your first note?