For several years I worked at a startup as a content marketer.I need to pause for a moment and just take a beat because that was a little awful.This was a reluctant career, and I frequently have (and will continue) to push back against some of the things…

We're told our big dreams are all we need to succeed. If we dream big, we achieve big. If you imagine the end, you'll get there.But in everything you do, consider the seeds.Few things are as frustrating as working with someone whose decision-making process…

Photo © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved."Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute," Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote.What we do not want to think about, what we…

Sometimes the ideas are just not there.You have deadlines, problems to solve, and whatever else...and there's nuthin' in your head.Years ago I wrote several blog articles for clients and my employer that had to do with brainstorming techniques. They got a…

Northern Kentucky woods. Photo © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.[My sisters, niece, and two grand-nieces recently took a road trip. This is our story.]Weeds poked up through the rocks in the steep dirt driveway that led to the cabin in the northern…

Image © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.Somehow, on the night of the June 11, 2024 North Dakota District 30 primary election, not long after cleaning up the supper dishes, I ended up on the phone with my ISP. Concerning network issues prompted the…

What if you're a writer and you have nothing to write about?One of the great joys of having an archive of thousands of blog posts from the past twenty years is simply looking back and seeing what I thought was worth writing about in my 20s, 30s, and 40s.I’d…

I do not like Star Wars. I never really have, though I stood outside a movie theater for two hours in Fargo in the January and February cold when the original trilogy was re-released into theaters in the mid-1990s. It seemed like the thing to do.Yet I never…

Ark Encounter, Kentucky. Photo © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.

Image © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.A 2013 blog post about Diet Coke went truly viral (millions of views), and I lived to tell the tale.But here's the trick: anyone telling you how to write a viral blog post is pulling your leg. No one knows.…

Boundaries are your friend. You might think that boundaries (like deadlines) are killing you, but this is not the case.At the end of my year of teaching art, I found I had more days left than curriculum and I decided to let students experience the challenge…

Photo taken by my grandparents. North Dakota tornado from long ago.I’m sure Reed Timmer is a nice guy, but when you see him and his Dominator vehicle in your town, it’s not a happy thing. It means the weather is about to get ugly and people are going to be…

Turn right out of Icelandic State Park, and drive past the Cavalier Space Force site. Turn north on a road so rutted and full of holes that you’re not sure you’re on the right path—though maybe such a rough journey makes perfect sense—to Valhalla.Or, as we…

During the Great Squirrel Wars of 2017, 2020, 2021, et al. I learned many things in battle.Mostly, you can’t win against squirrel—especially if your neighbor has a black walnut tree—and that we ought to junk the AI battle tech and just put armor on squirrels…

Parts from this post originally ran on March 13, 2007, and May 4, 2012. It has been edited and reworked with additional content added.Leon, Nicaragua—birthplace of the revolution with murals celebrating it at every turn—has a giant cathedral that wasn't supposed…

Discover the truth about judging as a Christian and how Candace Cameron Bure embodies grace and kindness in the face of criticism.

Allison Bechdel, an indie cartoonist whose subject matter isn't my thing, still did everyone a solid and accidentally created a standard to measure films by. In a cartoon in the mid 1980's, she created what's known today as the Bechdel test. To pass the test…

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” — AristotleIn our nation's history, we’ve had a few presidents assaulted by stairs. Few things symbolize inequality more than stairs and ladders, tools that serve only to elevate (or de…

The best way to create a consistent writing habit is to be a freelancer in need of money.But that's not the answer you're looking for, I know.In September 2023, Substack published a three-part series on how to create a consistent writing habit. They broke…

People come to ND for a lot of reasons.Well, no they don’t.But if you were making a list of the few people who do vacation here, it would first include “traveling through to someplace else” and then would have Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, the…