Sometimes You Just Gotta Cut Up Some Wood Kevin and I were running on the trail, chugging along, talking about why people write. Because if you ask a writer, they’ll tell you it’s often essentially a form of self-torture. Yet, we—writers—are compelled to keep doing it. But why? We were on the fire road that cuts across the face of Mt. Sentinel about 800 feet above town, a double-track of dirt that goes for almost two miles of wide-open views and is a fantastic place to go if you enjoy talking...
1 day ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 519 A heads-up: Registration opened for my Running To Stand Still writing + trail running course on Tuesday, and we have a $300 Early Registration discount if you sign up by midnight MST on Saturday January 17 (that’s tomorrow). If you like the sound of six days of mellow trail running, talking about writing and creativity with a group of fun people, and hanging out in the mountains of Montana, here’s the link for more info. — This [professional enduro mountain biker] guy...
7 days ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 518 QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT: Next Tuesday morning (January 13), we are opening registration for my 2026 “Running to Stand Still” Freeflow Institute writing + trail running workshop. It’s June 7-12 on Homestake Pass in Montana (10 miles from Butte, a couple miles from the Continental Divide Trail). We run every day (as a group, so not fast), we do two workshop/discussion sessions each day, and we eat lots of good food. This workshop sells out every year, so if you’re interested,...
14 days ago • 2 min read
I Would Like To Address Some Clichés And Surprises About Parenting One of my newish favorite images of my kid, among the thousands, is him standing on the front of a lumber cart at a big-box home improvement store, holding his “sword” that his mom made for him out of parts from a toddler tool kit, wearing a dress that his mom also made him—really just kind of a skirt made out of a piece of fabric with beetles printed on it. You could probably read a lot into his outfit, I suppose. But he has...
15 days ago • 7 min read
Friday Inspiration 517 This is a fun idea, and as someone pointed out in the comments, probably one of the safer things Red Bull has sponsored (thanks, Hilary) (video) I don’t know what it is but something in these Illustrations from "The House Of The Future” scratched a nostalgic itch for me, probably involving photos of humans using jetpacks and flying cars in a school textbook when I was in third or fourth grade. Gabe Bullard moved to Switzerland and found himself suddenly caring very much...
21 days ago • 1 min read
Friday Inspiration 516 As 2025 winds down, I've been revisiting all my Friday Inspiration newsletters from the year and picking out my favorite links from each of them. I was going to do one "best of 2025" post at the end of the year, but there was a lot of good stuff, so this week's Friday Inspiration is a collection of my favorites from the second half of the year, July through December 2025. -- I wrote a whole newsletter about Listers the day after I watched it this past fall, and the gist...
28 days ago • 8 min read
The Busy Coffee Drinker's Guide To Being Present This time of year, many of us are looking back on the previous year, or looking forward to the next year, or both. When I am mulling over ideas to write about in late December, I often catch myself thinking too big, trying to solve all the world's problems with an essay. So this year, I thought I'd re-publish a very brief piece I wrote a few years ago, because I still think about it often. And it's based on something my friend Tom said to me in...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 515 As 2025 winds down, I've been revisiting all my Friday Inspiration newsletters from the year and picking out my favorite links from each of them. I was going to do one "best of 2025" post at the end of the year, but there was a lot of good stuff, so this week's Friday Inspiration is a collection of my favorites from the first half of the year, January through June 2025. First things first, though: I convinced newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration to put together...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
Friday Inspiration 514 I was not prepared to learn so much about the human body when I started watching this new-to-me video about why kids don’t get cold as easily as adults do. But if you have five minutes to watch this, prepare to be armed with several pieces of information that will make you sound really smart. (video) I linked to this series in December 2024, and totally forgot about it until the emails for this year's series started popping up in my inbox again this December. There are...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
