It’s a Friday and the sky is impossibly blue over the whole of the Keweenaw Peninsula! I know, I know, it’s impossible for the color blue to be impossible. After all, the bag of snowmelt is the exact color of sky-blue. The difference is that the actual blue-sky vibrates with an aliveness that the same color cannot match. All I want to be is alive beneath this sky on this day.

Sure, I’ll likely feel the same way tomorrow, But this is the moment. This is now. This is the impossibly blue sky that drove me out of the classroom earlier.

Occasionally, we get snow days. With Finlandia on its downhill slide to closing, we’ve had more snow days than usual. This morning, as I drove across the Houghton Lift Bridge, I wondered if we could call a sun day. I was on my way to a Warrior Sisters group. Ever since the Vet Center shuttered its doors, I’ve stood in the gap until they restored mental health services to our community.

Mary Gauthier asks in her song, The War After the War, “Whose gonna care for the ones who care for the ones who went to war?” Well, the real answer is each other. We take care of each other. The Vietnam vets started the Vet Centers of America when it was obvious that the VA was not taking care of the PTSD crisis after the Vietnam War. They pushed to get services. Their wives and families pushed. But they are aging. And the next crisis looms on the horizon — brain injury is the signature wound of Post 9/11 veterans. Todd squeezes invisible between the two eras and is the harbinger of what’s to come. It’s easy for the VA to ignore CTE; it’s a problem of the NFL, not the military. They can ignore Todd, but what will they do as Iraq and Afghanistan vets begin to age? CTE is not going away.

I bring this topic up because even on a blue-sky day, shadows lurk. I’ve bobbed up and down all week. My students show evidence of struggle and I’m reaching after each one of them. My colleagues are leaving and despite my plans for an online writing school, the timing of Finlandia’s closing leaves me searching for employment, too. It feels depressing and we are going to be in an uncertain mudhole until we each figure out what next. In the midst of all this, I’m not willing to watch my Warrior Sisters and their vets fall into yet another crack in society.

So, we take care of each other.

Something incredible happened this morning on this sunny Friday. We got the guys to group. If you think it’s easy to herd Vietnam vets, you have not experienced their level of stubborn self-isolation. To me, the heroes are the wives, sons, and daughters who look after these men America would rather forget. I look after them so they can look after their vets. This morning we all managed to get most of the old Vietnam veterans group reunited. It took tremendous trust on their part to gather because they have not had an in-person group since COVID, and they felt the sting of the Vet Center abandoning them last summer. They’ve never trusted the VA. But that should not be a deterrent to getting together with those who share your experiences.

I could have wept with joy, watching the men across the backroom at the Copper Depot where we meet every other Friday for a social outing (the alternate Fridays we meet on Zoom to follow the guidance of a positive psychology workbook I bought). Even Todd joined us and he was having a good brain day. We heard lots of talk about firearms and ballistics; helicopter stories; parachuting accidents; Las Vegas. I think Todd precipitated the Vegas conversation when he spoke of his desire to move to northern Nevada. They all agreed that snow sucks. They all ordered breakfasts and swilled coffee. They needed these conversations.

We spoke of medical concerns and tricks we employ to get our spouses to take their pills. My job is easy — Todd refuses all medication. One of the Warrior Sisters is also a nurse and she said she knows plenty like him. Another Warrior Sister told us she finally got her husband to consider cannabis last week and he’s been smoking ever since. Someone asked why smoke it when you can pop a gummy, and she said he believes the smoke will help his lung cancer. He’s dying so it’s not going to hurt. I told them about my first Caregiver for Living with Suspected CTE group meeting this week and how hard and yet hopeful it is to learn more about this disease. We laugh, too. A lot.

We couldn’t stop looking across the room and smiling, either.

Now that we finally got these cats herded into one place, we plan to keep it going. I’m currently taking a course in Mindfulness from PositivePsychology.com and when I’m finished, I’ll have a certificate and course materials to lead classes. I plan to create a Mindfulness for Writers class to generate income and then set up local Mindfulness for Veterans that are free. It scares me, though. Responsibility is measured in lives. You see, a big reason these vets avoid gathering in groups is that it triggers their PTSD intrusive memories/thoughts/feelings and I’m not a therapist. I’m a literary artist. But I am a Warrior Sister to the Long-Haulers and they will help me. They will soothe, listen, and protect. I will have the Veteran Crisis Hotline (Dial 988, then press 1) on speed dial. I’ll also make sure I’m maintaining my mental health.

As I head to class, I marvel at the sky. When I park on campus, two crows zip past like fighter jets and I watch their maneuvers. My classroom is empty. I open the window. Even in blizzards, I open the window because Finlandia’s boilers are set to “hellfire.” Finally, one student shows up and I think, it’s enough. We talked about the skies last night when the Northern Lights danced like a 3D green and pink phoenix over Hancock last night. My student is from Florida and had never before seen them. He’s itching to explore and I pull up a map of waterfalls for him. Two more students show up. We all decide it’s too beautiful of a day to be inside.

I declare a Blue Sky Day. The grandest container we can have as humans for hope.

March 27 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about something impossibly blue. You can go with sky or any other object. What impact does the color have on the setting or characters? Does it lead to action or create a pause? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by April 1 ( no foolin’), 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

We can all use some light in the midst of the fray.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite hillsides to comb was down a steep embankment behind my house through a thicket of red willow across a small creek with a stepping stone named Snubbie. The marshy creek bottom quickly dried out as the hill began its steep ascent to the acres of cow pasture above. Jeffrey pines grew too sparse to be a forest, but their needles and seeds scattered across the dry grass. I followed the zigzag of deer trails, searching for treasure.

I’d comb that hillside for rocks, broken purple glass, and square nails. Miner shanties used to populate this hillside but a wildfire in the 1950s razed the cabins, leaving behind only broken bottles and hand-forged nails. I didn’t know of anyone else who followed the deer trails. I never saw anybody. Who would hang out on this hillside but a curious kid who liked to collect things from the past or sit on a boulder two-thirds of the way up and ponder.

The deer had a great view of my small second hometown; a place where I had lived from the ages of seven to eighteen. From the boulder, I could see down into the bowl where Markleeville sat. I knew every house, every occupant, every shed, and every dog. I knew most of the cats. I could see the cow pastures above the old ranch behind the stone library across town, the road that rose and disappeared into the forests toward Grover Hot Springs State Park, and the old white schoolhouse. The cow pastures atop the hill behind me and the ones across town were like plateaus at the edge of forest. Towering above everything were the granite crags of Silver, Reynolds, and Raymond Peaks. When I was a kid, they still had year-round glaciers.

Glacial snow, as I recall, was grainy like coarse salt. Up close it was dirty and compact. The Sierra glaciers are all gone. The peaks of my childhood look naked in photographs. I wish I could recall more details like the way water trickled out from under ice shelves that formed a glacier’s edge, or what types of tiny wildflowers grew nearby in the summer. Despite the crazy amount of snow dumped over the mountains by atmospheric rivers. Over 650 inches. Crazier yet is that the snow won’t fix California’s long-standing drought or humanity’s short-sightedness in damming the rivers of the West. Those glaciers are not likely to return.

Ever? Well, who knows about ever.

In a Dream, I’m back on that familiar hillside. I’m elevated like a director in a crane, overlooking a movie set. Immediately, two riders gallop their twin sorrel horses straight up that steep hillside. Hooves hit the ground hard, kicking up rocks and dirt. The tails of the horses are dark red and black. My family once had a horse with a tail like that. Deacon. A steady sure-footed quarter horse with cow-sense. It means he did his job on the trail or in the corral. He was dependable. As the riders race up the hill and I follow from my observational crane position, someone is shooting. Rifle fire rounds out the Old West vibe of this Dream image. On top of the hill, the riders are gone and I’m back on my feet.

Instead of the cow-pastures I remember, I stand in a luminous space. The grass is so tall and so vivid with an other-worldly light shining through every blade. Flowers bloom, nod, and rebloom in deep colors like LED globes. The light of this space is undeniable, yet the forest surrounding me is tall, deep, and dark. Not dark in a foreboding way. More like, impenetrable. Safe. A cow pasture sanctuary. Just me, the grass, and the reviving flowers. I’m not a cow — or a calf, bull, or steer — but I feel this image feeds me.

Last week, I didn’t really teach. I counseled. I encouraged. I asked questions, and let my students hijack a class with a lively discussion that had nothing to do with ENG I03 or writing or Our Missing Hearts. Friday was a snow day. We all stayed home and I didn’t record a class or assign any homework. We have much to process with the closing of our university.

Moving forward, I completely rewrote the second half of our class, following my intuition and passion for studying stories through the imagery of film. I’m teaching the class in a way that will also encourage my students during a difficult transformation. They will answer the same journal question every week: What possibilities do you have this week? It’s my way of reminding them that we will take each week as it comes and look for possibilities and not get hung up on problems like the two riders chasing after gunshots. We will watch video clips and correlate the analysis to our book. And, of course, we will write 99-word stories in class.

Over the weekend, I got Todd to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once. I had seen it at the Film Fest and it set my brain on fire (in a good way). I thought the story was beautiful and absurd. The acting was incredible as evidenced by all the Academy Awards. Michelle Yeoh was brilliant. Ke Huy Quan delivered a powerful performance. Todd couldn’t follow along. The flashing images that lit me up, agitated his brain. The movie made him angry, but he said he was happy that I liked it. A small balm for not being able to share the experience with him fully.

Here’s what’s in store for my students. First, we will watch a film analysis focused on the idea that Waymond Wang (played by Ke Huy Quan) has no character arc. I can’t wait to draw this on the whiteboard. It’s a profound treatment of a secondary character and one that breaks stereotypes of beta males. Then we will watch two clips that focus on the actor’s achievements as a former refugee with few opportunities in Hollywood and his inspiring Academy acceptance speech. We will discuss secondary characters in the novel we are reading and how we can relate to the actor achieving a life-long dream. By watching film clips we can learn to analyze novels.

By writing in class, we will learn to process our thoughts as well. Images are powerful whether they find us in memory, dreams, film, books, fairy tales, or in an impossibly lit cow pasture.

March 20, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about shots fired. Where is this story taking place? Is there urgency or surprise? Who is there? What happens next? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by March 25, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

I’m on a sinking ship. What’s left of it barely remains above water, and I’m clinging to a deck or maybe a crow’s nest. I’m prone on my belly, watching the water rise up to engulf me. Below me, a group of survivors gathers on a lifeboat more kayak than raft. Some people I recognize. Others I do not. The dream shifts.

To tend a dream, a rock, or a story you must embody it fully. You step into the image as an actor or observer because dreams are living. I’m not just talking about lucid dreaming, which can be a type of individual dream therapy or a way to study the collective unconscious. If images are the language of the heart as a percieving organ, then dreams are speaking to us. Our unconscious is speaking to our conscious selves — the part we recognize as our waking selves.

Depth psychology is rooted in the Jungian tradition and as psychologist and dream tender, Stephen Aizenstat, explains, “The field of Depth Psychology focuses on bringing conscious reflection to psychic
processes, attending particularly to the unconscious. ‘Depth’ refers to an imagined direction—down, behind, underneath. As a method of inquiry, its primary access to the psychic depths is the dream.” Mythology, stories, poetry, and literary art are other ways to plumb the depths.

Thus, we treat the images as a living container. If you’ve ever had the experience as a writer of a story/poem/character/setting coming to you and compelling you to work with it, you understand that what has come to you has a life outside of your waking awareness. The story becomes a living container for you to tend it. It’s the interaction between your conscious and unconscious. Once you become aware of tending stories and dreams, synchronicity happens and you receive containers to work through the unexpected — circumstances or reccommended edits.

I think as literary artists we inately understand our stories have life and that’s why we resist edits. Some of us even resist sharing our work. We fear that if we edit the original image — the raw literary art — we will kill it. If dream tending has taught me anything, the only way we kill a dream, story, or poem is to refuse to work with it as a living thing. We make a snapshot, something flat we then try to extract meaning from. Yet, meaning making comes from letting the image become a container.

But a container for what? Ah, let’s return to the dream.

I’m on an island after the ship has sunk. It’s a broad and flat expanse with abandoned factory buildings. Orderly concrete buildings squat among the nature of this place, this way-stop. Once, perhaps, it was a destination. But no longer. I walk along the outside of chain-link fencing. Vegetation grows over what was left. I pause beside a playground. I’m on the outside looking through the fence at rusted swings and slides.Vines envelop the top of an old-fashioned merry-go-round. I say out loud — “Children once played here.” And it makes me feel sad. The Dream shifts and I’m inside a factory building, going through an exiting process. We must exit the way others who once worked here left — through the front door, leaving a pouch of sorts in a glass cabinet. The Dream shifts again and I’m walking into a contemporary school building with bosses who are talking. I follow behind and notice a two-tone gold and white pickup truck, like a late ’60s or early ’70s model. The hood is up and a tiny conifer healthy and vibrant sits where one would expect a battery. From the otherside of the truck, a dream version of a loved one steps out so I get the instant message. Someone has my back and I continue to follow the bosses into the school.

I can understand some of the containers, especially when I noticed my friend had the vintage tree-powered truck. I can pull that image any time I need support or want to connect to that person. To me, its a beautiful image to contain the positivity of friendship. As a whole, this is what I’d call a complex dream. Maybe I will engage with containers in my imagination for story-writing. The opening image of going down on a sinking ship was so real I felt I experienced it enough to write a short story about surviving a shipwreck. You see? The images live and we can expand them in our imaginations or use them to contain emotions we need to process. Like surviving a sinking ship as a metaphor to real life. The next night I had another Dream, less complex than the first.

The Dream title comes to me first, “Bedrooms for Profs.” Naming dreams is a way to engage with the focus or message of a dream. It’s also a technique to save your place if you need to wake up and pee in the middle of the night. As such, I’m skilled at Dream naming; lots of practice. I’ll also point out that the Dream will insist you use the words you hear even if it’s weird or simplistic, like, “My Pants” or “Tom Hanks on a C-130.” Once you dial into the title, the images become easier to recall. I enter “Bedroms for Profs.”

The walls are white without any adornment and there’s a sense of many bedrooms clustered together like nun cells. Everything is tidy and high windows let in the sunlight. Everyone here has a bed, a place to rest. A Dream version of a colleague comes in and I hand him a gift which turns out to be a slim textbook. When he opens it, I see lots of print and handwriting in turquoise ink, the color my favorite prof used and I now use. I’m curious and want to read the writing but he’s pleased with thebook and settles on a bed to read it.

The next morning I tended my Dream and still felt the curiosity of what the notes read. At noon, I received three urgent emails in succession, all of them about a mandatory staff, faculty, and student meeting. My initial reaction was annoyance because Thursdays are my one day I don’t have to leave the house (which means I don’t have to shower or get out of my sweatpants). As I shower, I wonder at the urgency of the meeting. Did Finlandia University sell the Jutila Center? Will the sale of the building disrupt classes? Several of our buildings went on the market last semester. Did a private donation come through? Was our new President leaving? We are all aware of the financial concerns, which is why I’m only teaching one class this semester. With trepidation, I gather along with my University in an assembly so full, there’s no place left to sit.

I stand at the back of the assembly as the President of Finlandia wastes no time in telling us all that as of an early morning meeting with our Board of Trustees, they voted to close our school. Finlandia will not be accepting any fall enrollment. People will be laid off. Some immediately. Classes are to be canceled the next day to start Spring Break early. We are to check our emails later the night to find out if we are “essential” or not. I sag against the wall. The ship is sinking.

And I know what it feels like to sink. I know what it feels like to look upon empty factory buildings. I know what it will be like to exit like everyone else gathered here. There will be a transparent process.

Here’s where the containers of living Dreams aid us. The image of a sinking ship is scary from my Dream perspective but I know we will survive. I can put my fear and uncertainty in this container. The image is working with me in the waking world. What comes next is even more shocking — as of immediately, all coaches were laid off and Spring Sports canceled. The emotional response rippled throughout the assembly. Disbelief. Anger. Despair.

The abandoned playground. A place where children once played. Sadness, nostalgia, concern. A cocktail of emotions I couldn’t explain had a container. More bad news, and more. Fellow staff finding out they won’t have a paycheck after Friday or health care after the month. I wonder if my students will return after Spring Break. One winds her way past me, crying. A softball student athlete. I reach for her and we hug. I tell her it’s been a privilege to teach her. One student becomes my container for how privileged I’ve bee to teach them all.

It’s not been an easy Spring Break. I graded midterms and the celebration of all students getting deserved As because they understood I was asking them to think from their own perspective on our book, “Our Missing Hearts.” They got it. They all got it. And yet, would they return? I sent them three emails to encourage and offer to support their processing. I didn’t hear back from any and I worried. So I sat with that image of an abandoned playground until I accepted that they will find another. It doesn’t mean they won’t play again. I accepted they’ll be okay even if I don’t see any of them again. I’d be okay. There was a tidy bedroom for me to find rest and encouraging notes to read, too.

I’m not saying my Dreams were preminitions. But their containers prepared me to process what happened. The images continue to live and be useful.

Today, to my great relief, students showed up to class. I wanted to cry with joy! I wouldn’t have blamed them if they hadn’t. However, they demonstrated a growth mindset. Some said this was going to be their last semester playing sports anyhow and the closure made them realize that education was their priority. Another said he felt he was better suited for a trade school and spent the break finding one that excited him for his future. Another explained that a group of teammates got together and decided that if they didn’t come back, they wouldn’t continue with school and that wasn’t what they wanted. Another told me where my missing students were and assured me they were coming back because they had all taken an epic road trip to visit schools and talk to other coaches.

Not one of them quit. They even spoke about their concern for others. One said, “Miss Charli, I was watching you at the announcement. I saw your face and knew this was real.” He explained that when the news reporter interviewed him (local news has been all over this story — it’s had a huge devastating impact on our small community) he expressed his concern for the Yoopers, for his profs, for me. It was an amazing moment to share concerns among a class thinking about each other. We decided we are all going to be okay. They now know of my plan to start an online writing school. Some even said they’d sign up for a class. We agreed to finish our semester writing, tending dreams (yes, they budding dream tenders, some of them lucid dream, too), and practicing analysis of images through documentaries and film.

In the following video, the first two interviewed, Crenston and Zadeen, I’m proud to say are excellent students in my ENG I class, the last class I will teach at Finlandia University.

Finlandia Campus Update https://t.co/0bQuO25NH4

— Charli Mills, Buckaroo Writing Coach with an MFA (@Charli_Mills) March 14, 2023

For more news, go to our website: Finlandia University, News Video, or UP Reporting.

March 13, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a place where children once played. It can be a field, a playground, or any place that attracted children to play. But now it is empty. Abandoned. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by March 18, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

But you really don’t remember, was it something that they said?
Are the voices in your head calling, Gloria?

Laura Branigan, Gloria

The 1980s pop song Gloria came on the radio as I was driving home from college, having administered a midterm quiz to my ENG 103 class. All students had appeared, including one to which I remarked, “So, you aren’t a figment of my imagination.” He grinned sheepishly and mumbled something about getting his late assignments in soon.

Figments of my imagination are mainstream companions as a literary artist. The more I tend stories and dreams, the more I realize the language of the world resides in images, and images can be anything — a picture in the mind’s eye, a memory derived from a scent, a concept, an idea, a wash of emotion, an epiphany, a synchronicity, a sound, a song.

What’s the difference between hallucinations and receptivity to life in images? I suppose some sort of grounding in the here and now is relevant. Or perhaps the ability to balance a rationality with the input from the imaginal. I don’t know. If I’m hallucinating, let it continue as long as I can write it all down and make meaning of my experiences in the world so others can read and make meaning of theirs.

The song takes me back. Not to the ’80s but to the ’90s. It’s 1997 and my three children and I live in Helena, Montana, the Queen City of the Rockies at the Continental Divide. My daughters are second and third-graders, though in public they are frequently mistaken for twins. My son is in kindergarten and his teacher allows Pup to attend class with him provided Pup does his homework, too. Pup is Kyle’s imaginary companion. And yes, Kyle helps Pup with his homework and speaks for Pup when participating in class.

Kyle and Pup are in the audience with me. I think. Honestly, I don’t remember. But it sounds right. Students, teachers, staff, and family members are gathered in the gymnasium at Central Elementry School for the talent show. My daughters have been practicing for weeks to perfect their duo dance performance. Brianna, the younger one, throws in some amazing backhand springs, budding gymnast that she is, and Allison, the eldest of them all, provides the dance costumes and moves from her ballet classes. Their song of choice shocks the audience. Gloria blares over the speaker.

I’ve looked back at this memory container many times in my life. I can’t hear Branigan’s Gloria without thinking of two small daughters with big enough souls to pull off such a number in elementary school. Sometimes, I cringe, thinking how, in their innocence, they had no idea about the mature content of the song. Somehow, the intensity of the music became their expression of passion for their sisterhood and their individual chosen expressions of physical art. Brianna remains the adventurous one, snowmobiling across the Arctic with its crevasses, avalanches, and polar bears, while Allison teaches and choreographs modern dance.

Gloria represents what was twin-like about them as sisters, yet in its largeness, the song allows them to differentiate themselves from each other. Interestingly, it also holds space for Kyle and Pup.

Yet, this day, after midterms, in my truck, blocks from home, I feel a pull of sadness listening to Gloria on the radio. I think, ah, I’m missing my kids as Little Ones. They are all now in their 30s. But if tending images is teaching me anything it is to let go of flash judgments and agree to sit with the image until it has fully presented itself to me. So I smile and feel tears at once and sit and wait. I crank up the volume, pull into my driveway, and sit.

That’s when it hits me. Soft and gentle and undeniable. I’ve never grieved for the loss of my fourth child.

At first, I’m stupefied. Denial rises, but I stay with the image and what it’s revealing to me. I allow memories to take shape as images. I recall the first time my midwife and I heard two heartbeats. I laughed and cried. Twins! I remember her insisting I get a sonogram, which I did, and I watched in amazement as two tiny growing lives enfolded each other like fetal yin and yang. Twins. Later, as my pregnancy progressed, we stopped hearing the two heartbeats. My midwife assured me that it was common for the heartbeats to sync. I think she knew what I did not until the birth. She was not surprised when Kyle was born solo.

I don’t remember any emotion other than the exhaustion of labor, the overwhelm of a new baby, and the need to parent a trio of young ones aged three, two, and newborn. “It happens,” my midwife had said with a casual shrug. “He might have a develop an odd cyst one day.” That gave me an image I accepted with dark humor. My son devoured his twin. Oddly, I never absorbed the loss because what can one grieve about an absorption?

Gloria finishes on the radio and I fully realize the image that has always been there but I had not understood — I saw the twinness of my children. I accepted Pup as Kyle’s “other.” By the time we moved to the midwest in 1998, we would all leave Kyle’s twin behind in Montana. Pup absorbed into Kyle’s psyche; no one mistook the daughters for twins, and I occasionally joked that Kyle might find a weird cyst one day.

I’ve cried. The sadness lifts. The wonder of the song’s intensity has transformed a loss I never knew how to accept. I feel more whole. I once carried four lives in my womb. Three survived. I understand now, why Kyle has been the only one of the three to not complete his sibling tattoo. I’m going to suggest two Pups to him. He’ll understand.

For you, my literary artists, I offer the task of making sense of the lyrics to Gloria! The prompt is the name, however, so you can take inspiration from any image or story that comes to you. Listen to the song. Read the lyrics . Or take inspiration from the image of a missing twin. When I say, go where the prompt leads you, there is no right or wrong to your exploration of creative depths.

March 6, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about Gloria. You can name a character that comes to you as Gloria or you can interpret the Laura Branigan song into a story. What image comes to you? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by March 11, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Gather round to hear the tale of the Golden Onions.

No golden onion is the same. It’s the fingerprint of a literary artist. An author’s voice; a style; the secret ingredient of a savory concoction. It evolves from seed to maturity and takes a lifetime to peel back layers to expose the core.

Consider how long it takes a golden onion to grow from seed to cellar: an average of 99 days (okay, that may or may not be true but fits the tale). Compared to other veggies in the garden, onions require a longer growing season. Yet they can offer so much in immature form from sets for future planting to early harvests of green shoots.

Like literary artists, golden onions are ready for the long haul.

The tale goes like this. Golden Onions came into the world to spice up Carrot Soup. Carrots feed the people. Give them eyes to see by and nutrients to feed their families. But Carrot Soup was bland in the beginning. How could it accommodate all the different tastes? And that’s where the Golden Onions came in, each different in its complexity. No Carrot Soup was ever the same either, though each container could be recognized.

Carrot Soup is the end product of writing. There are containers of thrilling soup, fantasy soup, romance soup, poetic soup, dystopian soup, short-story soup, novella soup, mystery soup, and even hungry pirate-romance-adventure soup. These are not the bland soups of who-begat-whom stories. With Golden Onions in the world, Carrot Soup flourished, each onion adding its own unique essence.

I didn’t seek golden onions as an analogy for literary artists; it found me. First, I scoffed. Who’d believe writers are a pungent vegetable? Not just writers, but literary artists? Golden onions? I don’t think so. But then, like dreams, I tended the image. I sat with the symbol and pondered what life it had to reveal. How are literary artists like Golden Onions?

We do take time to mature. Even when we are at our fullest, pulled from the loamy soil, we have so many layers to peel back. We cry, exposed layer by layer. We carry sensitivity because we work with the language of the heart and yet we fortify the heart. It will take us a lifetime to peel down to our core, to master our chosen craft. We may flavor our books for a decade or eons. Our essence can’t be removed.

But do we know our own essence? Who am I as a golden onion? Who are you?

It’s an important question to explore. Note, I didn’t say, to answer. We can’t answer that question without reaching maturity only to spend the rest of our days peeling back layers. We explore our essence, following trails inward as we leave signs of our passing outwardly with each batch of carrot soup.

Let’s talk about carrot soup for a moment — the recipes we write. We can put unicorns or corrupt lobbyists in the mix. We can cut off the tails of sharks or harvest grain from the purest fields. We can add anything to the mix of what we write but what makes my shark-tail-unicorn-lobbyist soup different from yours is my golden onion. The more I understand who I am as this golden onion, the better I can choose my container of carrot soup. The better I understand my container of carrot soup, the better I can feed the people who will think my carrot soup is worth devouring.

That’s the nutmeat of writing as a whole — who I am, what I write, and who reads my work.

I was sitting with symbols and letting them come to me as I contemplated a name for a signature workshop I’m naming. I feel as if this is part of a naming ceremony for a baby that’s ready to be introduced soon. When I went to school for my MFA in Creative Writing, I simultaneously earned a Master’s Certification in Teaching Creative Writing Online. Most of my peers prepared for university teaching and I built an online creative writing school. In life’s unexpected twists, I was hired by a university from the minting of my MFA.

Some thoughts ran to ease — oh, I thought, teaching university English Composition might be the easier path. I discovered I love teaching even in an academic setting. Maybe especially in an academic setting. FinnU has allowed me to develop my own syllabi, weekly lessons, and figure out what works and doesn’t work in the classroom. I’ve been refining my own courses for the Carrot Ranch Online Writing School.

What I want you to know at this point, is that I have a super fun Golden Onions workshop prepared where you can explore your literary artist, your writing goals, and your platform. It will be three weeks long and include college-level feedback. It’s also ongoing, meaning it’s not a finite course. You can take the tools you are given and continue to peel back your golden onion for life or you can sign up as many times as you like for the full peer and instructor experience. I’m most excited about this workshop because it delivers the three puzzle pieces I think every writer wants to find.

Mostly, the online school will target professional writers looking to break through career barriers. What I learned in my MFA program is distillable and teachable without having to go pay tens of thousands of dollars for an MFA. I’ve not marketed since I went back to school and I held off after I was hired by a university. It took all of last year for me to figure out an important layer of my own golden onion.

I only mention these transitions to you so you’ll understand some elements I’ll be adding to Carrot Ranch. I want to reiterate that Carrot Ranch is a place to play, practice, and grow (or peel) your onion. This is the mentorship level, the gathering place of literary artists and raw literature. The school will be an income endeavor, offering college-level training in peer critique and understanding of the commercial and independent book industry. I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m progressing like a slow-growing onion in the field.

Next month, technology gods appeased, I’ll be updating the website, alerting you to some publication dates, and launching the school in its first reveal. It won’t change the challenges or the collections. We hope to have more community offerings at the Saloon and opportunities to publish your work. We will continue to explore our literary art weekly and a school is an option that may or may not appeal to your onion. Just know it’s coming.

Now, let’s go make some literary art!

February 27, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a golden onion. Any golden onion. One planted or harvested. An onion chopped for a meal. How can you use an onion as a prop in a character’s hand? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by March 4, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

The world needs literary artists. They are more than the storytellers of the moment; they are the artistic minds open to the unconscious prompting of our era. We tell stories to understand our world and we let the world understand us.

In her latest novel, Our Missing Hearts, author Celeste Ng explores the harm we all experience when government silences the poets, literary artists, and knowledge keepers. She understands the role storytellers play:

“Why did I tell you so many stories? Because I wanted the world to make sense to you. I wanted to make sense of the world, for you. I wanted the world to make sense.”

Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts

We keep an archive of sorts through stories big or small, realistic or speculative. Literary artists do more than spin stories — we spin magic. When we write, we access a part of our brain where few humans dare to go. The imaginal is the deep realm where we dream and the heart still whispers the symbolic language all beings understand. Literary artists can talk to bees, flowers, and uni-horned dragons. The magic happens when the bees, flowers, and uni-horned dragons talk back.

Literary Artists can share a walk in the other’s boots to break down the myth of otherness. We can observe the world around us as well as the one within us. We write from a space of empathy and we teach empathy through the stories we tell. We encourage diverse voices to join the arts and we fill in the silenced spaces to give light to those silenced. Even a small story can evoke kindness. Even a dark story can offer redemption.

When literary artists use lenses previously withheld, we remove blinders. We can craft our work from lenses that expands perception. I write from the lens of women, looking for stories accepted as definitive in the psyche of the American West. And there are many more lenses excluded from the western experience that we could recreate entire genres just by retelling the stories from different perspectives.

On top of all the superpowers literary artists can claim, we can also shine at wordsmithing. No one can verb a word, dress a noun, or lyricize an awkward language like English but literary artists. We cause language to evolve not only through our wordplay but through our expansion of ideas into the lexicon.

Yet, how do we define ourselves?

The more I tend dreams, the better I understand why I’ve connected to the term literary artist. Tending dreams is all the fun stuff I love about creative writing. I can go where an image leads and get blissfully lost. Writer is broad and easy to digest for most, well, writers. Author speaks of professionalism or publishing status and novelist is a specific type of author. We can find many names to fit our roles or identity, but literary artist captures the imagination.

For me, there is a rawness in literary art because there is vulnerability in the process of creating it. It can be hard to define. But that’s exactly what I’d like us to do. What does it mean to be a literary artist? You can take the question to the page in a 99-word story and you can share your thoughts in the comments.

February 20, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about what it means to be a literary artist. You can pull from your own experience, re-imagine the idea, or embody something else in a character. Be playful, go deep, and let your story flow. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by February 25, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Despite winter, my sun porch is warm.

So warm, Mause and I are crashed in a pile of concentrated sunbeams. She sprawls across the floor as if the intensity has disentigrated her bones; a puppy puddle. I slump in a lawn chair packed into what is usually winter cold-storage. It’s early February and instead of cabin fever from endless gray skies and constant lake-effect snow, I’m mainlining vitamin D from a blazing sun warming a bank of south-facing windows.

Sipping coffee, I sigh. My afternoon snack — a bagel with cream cheese and a smear of lingonberry jam — tastes indulgent. I only buy lingonberries during the winter solstice season in anticipation of making a big batch of Swedish meatballs. They were so good, I made two batches, one for a Yule party and another for a decadent meal with Todd. The remaining lingonberry jam has become part of afternoon coffee or midnight tea, depending upon my day.

The snow and the jam are receding, and I feel sad. Sad because I know I won’t buy more lingonberry jam until next winter solstice and I’ll miss the unique tart flavor. I’ll have to find another treat. Sad, also, because the snow has not been right this year. It echos the changing weather patterns of the Great Lakes Region, as expressed in the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines report:

Duluth is perched mid-continent at the western tip of Lake Superior, and many residents are stoically proud of the harsh winters that define the place. “It keeps the riff-raff out,” they assure each other. But in recent years the weather has become almost unrecognizable. According to Kenny Blumenfeld, senior climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, winters tend to be warmer, snowfall is getting heavier, and summer thunderstorms bring more rain. The disruption begets uneasiness; people who have developed coping mechanisms for extreme cold and plenty of snow now don’t know what to expect.

~ Stephanie Hemphill, April 29, 2020

As much as I’m enjoying my bones soaked in unseasonable sunshine and a break from daily scooping, I wonder what this all means. But then I remember that I’m asking the wrong question. I shift and think what is happening. It’s a recent practice I’m cultivating as a Hag (a woman in the second half of life and my choice of symbol based on my studies with Sharon Blackie in her Hagitude program). Dream tending has led me into familiar depths and my mentors remind me not to ask for meaning but to ask for understanding. I’m yet a student, an apprentice, a learner. I’ve yet to a-ha the difference, but nonetheless, I’m practicing the question, what is happening.

My journey thus far has led me to depth psychology (not to be confused with my recent commitment to positive psychology for the sake of addressing mental health in my veteran community). I’m having fun and enlightening and confounding conversations with my son. When I called to talk to him about the positive psychology workbook I bought to use with my Warrior Sisters, he was delighted. He uses his Masters in IO Psychology in his work for Epic. He says his specific role as a BFF to accounts is like that of a coach, using positive psychology.

However, he wondered if depth psychology was outdated Jungian theory. He encouraged me to explore and understand its roots and current place in the field of psychology. It turns out, IO psychologists like my son are in a different world of psychology. His work does not include psychoanalysis. Depth psychology is modern, current, and relevant; it’s a completely different field and yes, it is based on Jung’s work in symbols as a foundation. The reason I’m so drawn to depth psychology is its familiarity.

Depth psychology, according to Susan Rowland, is writing.

For years, I’ve tried to understand and articulate what we are doing here at Carrot Ranch in a collective way. Yes, the weekly challenge is about making literary art accessible, but what is literary art? According to Pacifica Graduate Institute (where Susan Rowland teaches), “Depth Psychology is an interdisciplinary endeavor, drawing on literature, philosophy, mythology, the arts, and critical studies.” Literary art is the process of going deep. Depth psychology defines the deep as psyche. According to Jung, the mind has two distinct depths: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. Further, the Hagitude program I’m absorbing explains the unconscious as the Sacred. The Sacred is Nature. We can experience the Sacred by snowshoeing or kayaking or walking outside or we can experience the Sacred through the realm of dreams — the imaginal.

All these terms swirl about in my head like a friendly flock of chickadees. What I know from experience is that when I write, I go deep. This is what I began to understand as raw literature; the result of writing from the deep places of one’s mind. What if inspiration is the call of the psyche for each of us to remember who we are? According to depth psychologists, this is the purpose of dreams — to remember who we are and to access the Sacred. It makes me wonder if all along, my desire to serve others in a literary community has been to reconnect to Nature. When I learned about the existence of a Masters Program in Psychology and Creativity, I was struck by how it aligned with the forces that drive me: “…deep purpose, enlivened creativity, and devoted service.”

Holy smokes. That’s exactly what I want Carrot Ranch to foster in others. The mission is to make literary art accessible in 99 words. I better understand what I’ve meant by accessibility. I want writers to engage with creative writing in such a way that it gives us purpose, engages our creativity, and leads us to serve humanity through what we write. I want this for all writers not just experienced writers, or educated writers, or whatever limiting label we can apply. Writing is a tool of exploration and I’ve known that tool to be healing. I’ve never wanted Carrot Ranch to be “the best of the west” or “serious writers only.” Writing our individual stories weekly is an exercise in accessing our personal unconscious; submitting our personal stories to form a collection is a creation of our collective unconscious.

Literary art is also read and here is where we serve humanity with deep reflections. The collections have always been inclusive. Because raw literature does not require mastery of writing craft. We practice going into the deep and bringing something back. Every story does that no matter how well one articulates a sentence or punctuates dialog. Every story reflects some aspect of the prompt. And going where the prompt leads is daring to go into the psyche. When people read the collections, its not the “best” stories that make the impact; it’s the impact of the whole because it speaks from and to the collective unconscious.

We are modern-day mythmakers seeking to understand our world one prompt at a time.

A world in peril. Through depth psychology I have also come to understand that Science without the Sacred is out of balance. Science deals in signals, hard facts and empirical evidence. The Sacred deals in symbols. Nature is the Sacred. Humans exist because nature exists, not the other way around. The more advanced we become through industry and technology, the more energy we consume. Energy consumption is marvelous — it gives us lights to see by, warmth for our homes, healing for our hospitals. But energy consumption has a shadow. Climate change. The greater our reliance on energy consumption, the greater the shadow grows. We need more than science. We need the sacred. We need nature.

Reconnecting to the Sacred, transforming the Self — this is the work of tending dreams and writing fiction.

My deep dive is done for now. My smear of lingonberry jam is gone. Until next time. Sweet dreams and deep writing!

February 13, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a smear of jam. Is it across a slice of toast, a white shirt, or something unexpected? The jam could be the focus or detail that ads a twist. Who are the characters with the jam and where are they situated in space and time? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by February 18, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Three dark-eyed juncos flutter in a small maple tree stripped to bare branches. A veil of softly falling snow obscures the sharp details of their feathers from my view. The birds seek food as I wash dishes after breakfast. I feel a hopeful sensation beat time with bird wings.

Maybe I’m hopeful of spring and the return of birds; a cycle so ingrained in me that I know with every cell it’s coming. Later than sooner. In the Keweenaw, February and March are full of false springs.

What is this connection I feel to nature all around me? Birds never cease to stir wonder no matter how common they might be. Chickadees speak to me no matter the season. Crows strike up conversations from the oak across Roberts Street. Pigeons ignore me.

What they say (or don’t, as with the pigeons) feels fleeting. Like almost understanding another language or remembering a dream in the morning. If I could understand what a bird has to say to me, how would I respond?

It’s not far-fetched to think that birds speak to me. After all, birds speak in mythology as messengers of the divine. The poet, Poe, quothed a raven. Scientists even agree, pointing out collaborative efforts to communicate between birds and humans; birds and wolves.

The calls of birds are symbolic. The screech of an eagle becomes a cry for freedom while the song of the robin signals spring. I think about the juncos outside and resiliency comes to mind. Their presence symbolizes the ability to face hard times — bare trees, banks of snow, and fierce winds. The juncos are thriving and so can we. We are interconnected. I recognize the truth that humans exist because nature exists. It’s never been the other way around.

As a founding member of People of the Heart Water Walkers, I’ve learned to offer petitions to the water and acknowledge all our kin. Anishinaabe teachings hold that all life is soveirgn. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, writes, “The land knows you, even when you are lost.” Dr. Suzanne Simmard’s work to understand how trees grow, discovered that trees are sentient beings. Pat McCabe, Weyakpa Najin Win, is a Dine activists, speaker, and cultural laison. She calls us to connect with nature to thrive:

Since “learning to kiss the hag” with the reknown psychologist and mythologist, Sharon Blackie, I’ve begun to reflect more deeply on the psyche through mythology and dreams. Nature plays an ever present role. When I joined the Water Walkers, I longed for a way to retrieve my own lost lineage. The Anishinaabe talk about blood memory (collective memories of one’s ancestors) and I’ve wondered if I could tap into my own through deep inward explorations.

As if to answer my thoughts, Sharon Blackie recently posted this:

Both mentors are going to present at This Animate Earth to “Remember a world that is alive and ensouled, an animate earth where everything has place, purpose and meaning and all life is sacred.”

With Valentine’s Day coming up next week, my thoughts turn from birds to love. What would it be to write a love letter to nature? And if you are in the romantic frame of mind, be sure to catch up with the Cowsino story slots and spine now playing at the Saddle Up Saloon. Lots of characters are already over there playing with ranch mythology and more.

February 6, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story as a love letter to nature. You could reach back to more pastoral times of writing or enter into the future. Who is writing the letter — an ant or an aunt? Is it a lifetime of love or eons? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by February 11, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

I was asked to mark this day on the calendar — Todd did the dishes. It’s his little joke and we are rolling in the jokes big, small, and best not repeated. When you are a brain-challenged former Army Ranger with PTSD, debilitating body pain, and comorbidities, you can have a questionable sense of humor. As the spouse who decided to stay on this sinking battleship, I’m allowed to laugh inappropriately, too.

Sometimes Todd does the dishes. Remarkably, he gathers all the garbage every week as the self-appointed trash czar. I’m not sure why he remembers the garbage every week but can’t remember the shipwreck YouTube video we watched last night. But there is something to be said for rhythm and patterns. If he has garbage collection imprinted on a solid spot in his brain, he can go for it.

I was serious when I told him that my one and only concern is to be happy.

When his mood slips or his triggered brain needs a reset, I remind him of the happiness threshold. It’s enough to get through to him. The simplicity works. I just want to be happy, I say. No longer do I track episodes or worriedly watch for signs of escalation. I grab the happiness sheers and nip the negativity in a way he understands and (gratefully) agrees to. I note if he’s hurting, tired, hungry, or Mause-frazzled.

My caregiver skills have grown since I was accepted into the VA program at the end of 2021. And, I’ve added new tools to my mental health toolkit that align with my ambition to be happy — positive psychology (not to be confused with Pollyanna or toxic positivity because neither are authentic cultivations of a positive mindset). It aligns with the appreciative inquiry I’ve cultivated in my career. Let me explain both because the latter is vital to understanding the mission at Carrot Ranch, and the former has become a tool to nourish my writer’s life.

In the 1990s, I discovered appreciative inquiry, and it changed how I approached my college education and resulting career as a marketing communicator and successful freelance writer. Until my mid-20s, I sucked as a student. I didn’t know how to study. I didn’t understand why my writing was considered “good” and I hid inside books, dreaming of discoveries I felt I couldn’t make because schooling was a barrier to me. Back then, I was committed to cognitive behavioral therapy, how to heal as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and break generational cycles. I knew I had c-PTSD. I also had three incredible children and a hero for a husband. They were my incentive to be well. Appreciative inquiry became my ladder out of what I called pit-thinking.

The pit might be filled with all my hardships, weaknesses, and human flaws but the ladder was built from my strengths. Each rung taught me to appreciate who I am. As the saying goes, “Energy flows where the focus goes.” When I learned to appreciate my strengths, a foundation emerged. I built a solid education, career, and writing life from that base. In the workplace, I used appreciative inquiry to build strengths-based teams and projects. From the start, I saw the possibility of play and collaboration at Carrot Ranch. Each week, the Collections prove to me the magic of collaborative creativity (even when the collecting goes awry).

Positive psychology popped up on my radar when I sought support to continue with the veteran spouse group after the regional Vet Center abandoned our remote outpost in the Keweenaw. Our fearless combat leader moved on to a justice job within the VA hospital south of here and we were promised by her superiors that her position would be filled. They lied, which is immensely harmful to a veteran population suffering from moral injury. We have a high number of Vietnam veterans and their families living in our area who helped start the Vet Centers across America because they distrusted the US government so deeply. Thus, it damaged many when their legacy organization left them and lied about replacement.

“It’s happened so many times before in the past 24 years, I lost count,” says one Vietnam veteran spouse. I only meant to stand in the gap until we could get another group going. But the Vet Center remains closed down, their flags, posters, and brochures about their promise to vets abandoned in a mostly empty shopping mall. Over winter break, I created a syllabus of sorts for my Warrior Sisters. We are back to meeting weekly every Friday. One every other week we lunch and write letters to our shut-ins. On alternate weeks we Zoom to allow greater access for those who can’t go out. The VA Caregiver Support Program is great but far away. We need closer interaction.

That’s when I found and purchased an online positive psychology workbook to incorporate videos, worksheets, and practical tools to cultivate a positive mindset. The definitions help us recognize and honor our resiliency, too. If you are interested in this path for yourself, you can start with this in-depth article and a list of references (mostly books). It helps me stay centered in my quest to be happy in this grand adventure I call my writing life (where lots of unintentional non-writing things happen).

I needed deep breathing and a positivity exercise after last week’s collecting, that’s for sure. The stories stirred, surprised, and inspired me but the snafus with collecting chomped me like a coyote on a ski slope. The situation is what it is for now, and I’m doing my best, staying close to the happy side of life. What was lost was restored. The new website is out for at least another month, so be patient with me, and don’t hesitate to speak up if your story is missing.

A new path slowly emerges. I see familiar faces and places, but the flow has changed. Do you feel it, too? I wonder what future historians will call this period in time? I wonder what will shift in our writing? Refind the path if you’ve awoken in the weeds. Roll over and remember the joy of finding shapes in clouds or peering into the blue eye of the sky. A writer’s life is made up of cyclical seasons anyhow. If the writing calls to you, then write. If not, read, dream, and readjust the vision. It’ll come back.

And, mark this day in your calendar. Todd did the dishes.

January 30, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about the dishes. It can be the every-single-day activity, a precious collection, or any other interpretation of dishes as objects or activities. Who is stuck with the dishes and why? Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by February 4, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.

Optimism needs care and feeding. It’s as fragile and mighty as a chickadee faced with enduring heaps of winter snow. They dart from one bare tree to another in search of the seeds they need to sustain them. Where they go on snowy days, I do not know. Optimism can slip away like that, too. A seed here, a seed there, and then hard times force me to shelter, forgetting the hunt for sustenance.

Is optimism necessary?

My answer is yes. Optimism gives me hope for the future despite the past. Optimism gives me roots in the here and now; a practice of mindfulness. When I think of possibilities, I can overcome problems. Like where to find seeds in sparse times. Optimism is why I believe in unicorns.

I created a Unicorn Room because I needed space for optimism. I craved a sanctuary where I could breathe, stretch, talk to the Ancestors, and map novels. If unicorns exist they exist in the form of possibilities worth seeking. First I painted the room pale pink, then I filled it with things to brighten the shine of optimism.

Magic unfolded in the way of synchronicity. Unicorns emerged. The first miracle of the room was completing my MFA. The second came when I overcame a spinal injury to cultivate yoga again. During dark times when optimism flitted dim like a hunkered chickadee, I learned to breathe through it and sit with my fears. When optimism rose, so did synchronicity. My room now houses treasure like a magic wand from my dad who is a mountain man (apparently he’s discovered Amazon from his remote high desert ranges). And a glass globe from Africa to ward off the evil eye. Not that I had been thinking about such things, but the gift is from an octogenarian whom I admire greatly. She once danced with Katherine Dunham and in a voodoo troupe with a python. My unicorns are highly protected.

When I think of the magic of unicorns, I consider the words of an American author an activist:

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”

Helen Keller

I want to explore and discover and never stop learning. My over-arching goal in life is to be happy. Optimism can be cultivated and shared. Though the Vet Center has abandoned our local veteran community, I made sure my Warrior Sisters stayed connected. This year, while no offers to help us have emerged, I’ve purchased materials to spend the year focusing our veteran spouses’ group on developing an optimistic mindset. It’s something these long-haulers of caregiving to Vietnam veterans know about naturally. They are resilient. But they also deserve to be lifelong learners, too.

It’s a long and rich article, but you too can join us in our journey to optimism by learning more about positive psychology. I’ve never been interested in the Pollyanna kind of fake optimism because the authentic mindset is real. It’s work to cultivate, but worth the effort. After all, there are unicorns of possibility at the end of the mindfully constructed rainbow.

Even the earth holds onto hope. If Greta Thurnberg demanded of me an answer to what I’m doing about climate change, I’d take her to meet my Anishinaabe friend, Kathy Smith (holding the Water Walkers’ Eagle STaff). To witness a tribe regain their teachings is like watching a buckaroo saddle up a horned horse. It seems like magic but it is really the hard work of optimism to follow the path of caring for earth like kin.

We need to find our way back to center as humanity, seed by seed. In a brilliant book that reminds us of the power of hope, Celeste Ng (pronounced “ing”) has released her latest novel, Our Missing Hearts. Recommended by my mentor, Sharon Blackie, I didn’t hesitate to select the novel for my current ENG 103 class at Finlandia University. Listening to Celeste’s beautiful writing on audiobook has become an optimism tonic for me weekly. I’m also blessed with some deep thinking and feeling students this semester.

I’m buoyant with possibility in the uncertainty of right now.

A note that might bring relief or joy to some who blog — I’m lifting the no-links ban on the Challenge posts. It fizzled as an experiment. Please keep in mind, not all writers at Carrot Ranch are bloggers and I do not consider this space to be a blog but rather a literary community. There are intersections between the Ranch, the Keweenaw, and the publishing industry at large that remain unseen but give us all possibilities for connecting through literary art.

If you are going to share your links, please add meaning through thoughtful discourse. This is not a blog hop. Do not get your pants in a bunch if others do not go to your blog (this is not a blog hop). We have a strong and loyal readership at the Ranch who genuinely enjoy the stories and many have indeed found their way to your blogs and books. You are well-served to promote outside this community to find new readers (especially your specific target readers) through your participation here. For example, if you are published in the collection, add that to your author credibility and use it to bring new readers to your blogs or websites.

Keep our community space accessible and optimistic for all literary enthusiasts. Our weekly challenges are meant to cultivate a weekly creative writing practice and our collections remain fascinating curations of endless creative expression. It is a simple but optimistic premise for writers. We make literary art accessible in 99 words. Go write, read, and shine!

January 23, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that is optimistic. Feel free to explore optimism in all its forms from a positive mindset to toxic positivity. Is it a heartfelt story or a devious one? So much wiggle room for the optimistic writer. Go where the prompt leads!

1. Submit by January 28, 2022. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
2. Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
3. A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
4. Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
5. Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.

Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.