Wander & Wonder
Climate-friendly and slow travel, equitable access to outdoor recreation, and nature’s awesomeness
daily practice
When you go slow enough, you create things
Carolyne Whelan - an adventuring writer with dysgraphia
Carolyne combines creativity as a writer with a love of outdoor adventuring and teaching. In addition to being a creative and slow traveler, Carolyne has neurological disabilities: dysgraphia, ADHD, and tinnitus. I wanted to understand better how their disabilities shaped their experience with the outdoors and learn more about what attendees of her fall retreat, Eso Terra, will be invited to explore.
Is it a walk or a hike?
Explore this meandering flowchart to discover if your latest adventure is a walk or a hike.
Making the most of book awards even when you don’t win
Book awards are one way to catch the attention of readers you might not otherwise reach, and they’re also a way to have your feelings about how awesome your work is validated publicly. On the flip side, there’s a lot of competition for awards and plenty of scammers capitalizing on the opportunity to prey on authors’ fragile feelings. Even when your book doesn’t win an award, you can still use that experience as a promotional opportunity.
Pre-publication slow travel
I’ve been wanting to write and publish a book for most of my life, and the accomplishment deserves multiple celebrations. Slow travel asks the traveler to pay attention to the moment and, often, experience the journey as the destination. With this in mind, I made a pre-publication visit to Oregon to see family and friends.
On celebrating accomplishments - ta-da!
Celebrating accomplishments demonstrates love for who you are. It might be difficult, but it’s important to recognize your efforts. This self-nourishment supports personal gratitude and love that extends beyond the self to your greater community interactions. How do you demonstrate “I love you” to yourself?
A wild spring into summer - friends, prompts and comics
Friends and prompts are integral to maintaining a creativity practice. Unexpected things can happen when other people are there to give you support and cheer you on. These surprises are a little bit of wildness to remind you of what’s fun about creativity and to keep you inspired.
Make a mark - iteration as practice
Being a creative is a matter of acknowledging and nourishing your creativity. One mark at a time. Over and over and over and over again. This is called practice, and it’s how all art and creative works get made.
Accomplishments and creative pinch points
I often forget to acknowledge the small acts of creativity that are part of my daily practice, especially when I have a big, difficult task. I still do both, but it requires adjustments, especially motivating myself to visit the difficulty day after day and managing how I feel.
Love - where I begin
Reflections on moving from self-criticism to self-love: time in nature, mantras, and becoming a warrior of love.