Tag: writing life

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Destination Inspiration: Scandinavian Specialties

Scandinavian Specialties

When it comes to writing about various cultures, sometimes it’s helpful to dive in and surround oneself with the trappings of that heritage, be it the food, people, decor, or art. Today’s Destination Inspiration post takes us to a Seattle store and cafe focused on Scandinavian products and food, showing us how you don’t have to travel far from home to get a little bit of a taste that will give your writing a boost.

Food and Beverages

Walking into Scandinavian Specialties, you’re instantly surrounded by Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish memorablia, decorations, and food. The young staff members are warm and friendly, and if you’re hungry, you’re drawn in by the pastries and sandwiches on display by the checkstand.

Go ahead and peruse the Norwegian sweaters, various Scandinavian baking equipment, candies, and delicacies, and the jewelry to your left, and the crystal and servingware on your right. And don’t miss the little book room in the back of the store (Daytona loves checking out the cookbooks back there to see if there are any new ones to add to her collection). But before you leave be sure to order an open sandwich–called smørrebrød–topped with smoked salmon, shrimp, or roast beef, and one of the Scandinavian pastries. Sit down with a cup of coffee and enjoy the casual hospitality that Scandinavians are so good at.

Scandinavian Specialties Smorrebrod

Location and Atmosphere

Located on 15th Avenue Northwest–a main street in Ballard–you can’t miss the brightly colored building with Scandinavian-inspired murals. Inside, you’ll find yourself surrounded by a mix of authentic and kitchy Scandianvainn items, which please everyone from the immigrants who shop there for a taste of the home they left behind or the people who are looking for a souvenir-style gift for a friend. Even on the greyest Seattle day, you can’t help but be cheered up and warmed up by coming here and staying for a while.

Writeability and Purchased Presence

The tables here are placed alongside the mercheandise, making it less of a restaurant and more like a cafe, but it’s a great place for people watching, and you’ll be sure to be tempted to buy a colorful bowl or cakestand.

Price: $$

With pastries starting at less than $2 and sandwiches running just a few dollars more, you can have a satisfying and delicious lunch that’s fairly inexpensive.

Parking

With a small parking lot on site, you can usually find a spot pretty easily.

Writer’s Tip

Immerse yourself in the cultural atmosphere of this cafe. Take in the buttery scent of the pastries, the chatter of the patrons and the colors of the merchandise and artwork. Take a moment to write a quick scene that includes all these elements and see where that snippet of writing takes you.

Find it:

Scandinavian Specialties
6719 15th Ave NW
Seattle, WA 98117
Website

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A Productive February

February is an important month. It’s often a defining time where resolutions either loose steam or pick up their pace. At Nooks & Cranberries, we stayed busy, kept our momentum and came out with a lot of inspiration to share.

We introduced you to some destinations from our visit to San Francisco, including 21st Amendment with great brews and the mouth watering pastries of Tartine.

Tartine Pastry Case

We took on challenges by trying to add a little romance to our writing with the Valentine’s Day Special and stamina with Christina Katz’s 21 Moments writing challenge.

Romance and Roses

Finally, in the Writer’s Kitchen, we explored the delicious possibilities of asparagus and quick meals for the writing life.

Roasted Vegetables

Another productive month! We hope you’ve had great momentum as well and we look forward to sharing more inspiration next month.

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Yoga Pants

There are a handful of books I come back to whenever I’m in a writing bind. They are like a lucky shirt or an old pair of jeans – the things I slip into when I feel blah. They are my yoga pants.

I’ve been in a writing pickle lately. Overwhelmed and not sure where to start. So I turned to one of my all time favorite default books, Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. She is one of my writing heroes and this book has the magical ability to pull me back from the edge of despair and remind me that when you are overwhelmed, just take it one chunk at a time.

Bird by Bird

She says in her book that if when you sit down to write and are bombarded by the mountain of laundry that needs to be done, or the dishes or that thing you needed to take care of last week that you forgot about until just now – when all that stuff comes to the surface, take a breathe and tell yourself all you’re going to do right now is write one small paragraph. One small paragraph of one small scene, perhaps the scene where we first meet your character at the bus stop. Or the moment your character walks into a restaurant and sees the woman he is going to marry, or maybe that moment you decided to quit your job and become – oh, I don’t know – a writer. The point is, take baby steps. Start with these little snapshots and allow the rest of the world to slide off your back as you fall into your groove.

This is where I convince myself that I did buy these yoga pants to work out in, I am working out my writing muscles. I know, bad joke…but it’s the truth. We all need those comfort items to go back to when we feel overwhelmed, those things that steady us in the turbulence and bring clarity in the fog. Consider your writing comforts, do you have a book that inspires you every time you pick it up and read that first sentence? What are your safety defaults in times of writing stagnation?

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Valentine’s Day Special

Today is Valentine’s Day, so it only seems appropriate that we talk about romance. I don’t mean the romance in your own life, I mean the romance in your fiction life.

Romance and Roses

I know what you’re thinking…”Harlequin novels? Bodice rippers? Ew, no thank you. I’ll pass.” Let me assure you right now, that’s not where I’m going with this. I’d just like to share a few tips to add romantic tension, perhaps even create a little chemistry between two unassuming characters. So here are the basics:

-Start with two strong, appealing, sympathetic characters. Be sure they are three-dimensional so you can mess with their heart strings.

-Add conflict. There are two kinds of conflict: Internal and External.

Internal conflict should be the writer’s main focus: defined by either character—the opposing forces within a personality, motivations and aspirations—or by an emotional situation within a relationship—for example, an unexpected pregnancy or an arranged marriage.

External conflict should only be brought in as additional support to the developing romance and plot. External conflict is defined by misunderstandings, circumstances or a secondary character’s influence.

Ideally, give the characters something they have to overcome together…this is where they bond, not necessarily where they connect. Throw several conflicts their way that they work through to create emotional highs and lows. Have them grow closer with each resolution.

-Just as they are starting to realize their chemistry and connect…throw a wrench in it! Heartbreak!

-Many writers will be tempted to bring in a secondary character at this point. It’s an option, but be warned…use secondary characters with caution. You don’t want to muddy the focus on your main couple.

-Then add the final conflict…this one usually requires a lot of sensational dialogue.  Dialogue is the key tool to give life, energy and pace to your writing. This is the epiphany moment! Remember to keep it relevant and consistent to your characters. Let them realize and come to terms with their differences and come together as a couple at last. Hooray!

So that’s writing romance in a nutshell. Strong characters, lots of conflict with emotional highs and lows, all driven by great dialogue to a happy and satisfying ending.

Cheers and Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Leftovers

Have you ever had a great line that you had to pull from a piece because it just didn’t work? Did you save it? I usually do. I have a pile of great lines and paragraphs left over just waiting to be used. Try pulling those out and re-inventing them into something new.

English muffin

Just yesterday I had some a little bit of chili, a lone English muffin and a hand full of shredded mozzarella. These leftover scraps came together to make a tasty lunch. In the same way, your cast off lines or dialogue snippets can come together to start a great new work. Give it a shot this week and see what you come up with.

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Friday Forum: 2/1

Vintage Typewriter

It’s the start of a new month. All of January we’ve been discussing how to keep up the momentum of resolutions made in the new year. How did your January go? What are your plans for February? I’m planning on giving my goals for writing fiction a second look. Cheers to you if you’ve stayed strong in your goals through January, and godspeed for an equally productive February!

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A Productive January

The month of January is a crucial time for writers; the new year sets the stage for new goals and new habits, and the first few weeks can set the tone for momentum moving on through the rest of the year.

Poem

Since one of the common struggles amongst writers is coming up with ideas, we launched the Idea Generator at the beginning of the year, and have been dedicating our Daily Writer’s Fix time this month to helping you build a pool of writing ideas to last you well into 2013.

Blue Bottle Line

We have also been excited to share with you some of our favorite San Francisco writing and brainstorming spots with a special Destination Inspiration series based in that city. From Blue Bottle Coffee to La Boulange and Samovar, we had a great time discovering new creative spots to help you drum up inspiration and creativity if you visit San Francisco.

2013 Writing Goals

We talked about some of our own writing goals and created a worksheet to help you develop a strategy for setting and keeping your 2013 goals. We shared thoughts on the writing life with writing as an excuse to explore and the experience of working with divided attention.

A savory cup

We shared a favorite tea that was the result of a delightful accident, and an overnight coffee cake that’s easy to whip together even when you’re on deadline.

Salted Rye Cookies

And, of course, we talked about the writing ritual and shared a recipe for a delightful cookie that would be just right for pairing with your writing tea when you sit down to work.

It’s been a good month for us here at Nooks & Cranberries, and I hope it’s been good for you too. We’d love to hear what you’ve been working on this month!

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Goal Setting Guide

The beginning

Our mission with Nooks & Cranberries has always been to provide inspiration and tools to help you along your writing journey. Sometimes our support comes in the form of photos or destinations, and sometimes in the form of writing gossip and recipes. This time we’d like to share a worksheet put together to help you organize your writing goals.

This guide can be useful for setting goals in all genres and areas of writing, be it a book that’s been brewing in your head for a while, or beginning work as a freelance writer and building your platform. Regardless of where you’d like to take your writing, we’d like to be there to support you all the way in accomplishing your goals. So grab a cup of your favorite coffee or tea and take a peek at this guide. Let the journey begin!

Nooks & Cranberries Goal Setting Guide

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Special Writing Tea – A Delightful Accident

A savory cup

Tea is a crucial part of my  life in many ways, but one of the biggest roles it plays is in my writing ritual. I always brew a cup to enjoy while immersing myself in a couple hours of writing. Beyond that connection, this post has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with a special tea I have added to my collection.

Recently my father-in-law brought back some tea and spices for me from his ministry trip to India. Among the tea he brought back was chai, some Darjeeling and mamri tea. This is the first time I had ever come across “mamri” tea so I was excited to investigate. I brewed up a cup and was blown away with an interestingly savory flavor. It was unlike any tea I’ve ever had. It’s rich, strong, dark and surprisingly full bodied. It packed quite a caffeine punch too!

I did a bit of research to see if this was a common flavor panel for mamri tea. I learned that mamri is a specific type of Assam tea that has been cured in a special way that creates granules as opposed to “leaf” tea. It is inexpensive and the tea most often used in India.

Mamri tea granules

This tea was like no Assam I’ve ever tasted and that’s when it hit me. The spices. The surprising spice flavor had to have come from somewhere else. The tea was stored in a plastic bag. So were the spices. And they were transported together. The spices infused the tea in transport!  The tea was sandwiched between curry powder, saffron and cardamon seeds. What a delightful accident.

This special tea has become such a treat and this new discovery makes me want to experiment with other unusual infusions. Any suggestions? Have you come across any accidental combinations that have turned out to be favorites?