Laura Munson’s Personal Blog

Welcome to my blog: a place to learn how to write and about all things writerly, a place to get inspired by writing prompts, a place to take Montana and Motherhood adventures, a place to know that you are not alone…

A Team of One: letting go of perfection

A Team of One: letting go of perfection

As seen in Pangyrus I have always been more than one person. When I was married with young children, I was at least four people. A woman. A wife. A mother. A writer. When I had a party, and that was often, I upped the ante and became many more people: a musician/singer/entertainer/chef/hostess. In other words, I threw parties in overwhelm mode. You just wouldn’t know it. I certainly didn’t. I...

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Exiling the Voice by Exiling Yourself:  giving you concrete writing exercises to finally shed its destructive nature…

Exiling the Voice by Exiling Yourself: giving you concrete writing exercises to finally shed its destructive nature…

This is a three part, three week, series about how to become aware of the negative self-talk we all have on some level, and how to replace it with a kind, loving inner voice, all inspired by the plot twists of travel. Part I: In which I describe this voice, and give you concrete writing exercises to finally shed its destructive nature. Part II: In which I make a case for getting away from your...

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Happy Merry Christmas: touched by a true Christmas angel

Happy Merry Christmas: touched by a true Christmas angel

I’m bringing back this essay that I wrote six years ago when I was in the throes of impending empty nest. Every time I read it, I weep and awaken… Especially this time of year. May it land in your heart. Nothing that I planned for this Christmas season happened. And then everything that matters did. I’m looking at empty nest this fall, and so Christmas at home with the kids, in all of our best...

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What to say when someone dies

What to say when someone dies

Featured in Huffington Post and Thrive Global No one really knows what to say to someone when their loved one dies.  You can say, “You’re in my thoughts and prayers,” and maybe that’s true.  Maybe you actually know what to think or pray on that person’s behalf.  Personally, I’m never sure.  You can tell them that you’ll be there for them—that you’re their middle-of-the-night-phone-call friend,...

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No Black Friday

No Black Friday

Give yourself or someone you love a Haven Writing Retreat for the holidays! My next one is March 20-24, 2024 and it's filling fast. Click here for the other 2024 dates, more info, and to book an introductory call with me! I grew up in a suburb of Chicago with a town square flanked by shoulder-to-shoulder shops in brick and tudor. A fountain on one end, a Parthenon shaped department store on the...

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Thanksgiving Gravy Haven

Thanksgiving Gravy Haven

Well, Thanksgiving is almost here and many of us fear the gravy.   Fear NOT!  You don't need flour.  You don't need to reduce anything.  And for heaven's sake, you don't need some powdered packet from the grocery store.  I have been playing around with my gravy for years, and this is where I've landed.  It's a commitment, but you will be having "some turkey with your gravy" by the time you take...

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Someone’s in the Kitchen: allowing your kids to care for you   

Someone’s in the Kitchen: allowing your kids to care for you   

Sometimes we have to look in the rearview mirror for insights into how to move forward in our lives. The time of Covid lockdown, sick with the virus, on top of a job/income on pause, and a cancelled book tour for a novel that took eight years to write......isn't an alluring place to look. But often, that which we resist, is the very thing we need to revisit. I haven't wanted to re-read this...

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Room: how one word can turn the scared into the sacred

Room: how one word can turn the scared into the sacred

***Still a few rare spots left on my October 24-27 Haven Writing Retreat! To book an intro call, go here. As seen on Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper Montanans like to say, “You won’t know that a mountain lion’s stalking you until you feel its teeth on the back of your neck.” For years, I felt that stalking— those teeth. The thing is: I rarely felt that way in the woods. Instead, I felt that way in...

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Dust Off Your Journal. Talk With Your Soul.

Dust Off Your Journal. Talk With Your Soul.

On this summer weekend day, I awoke early, and with a little girl’s butterflies. A whole day of solitude ahead of me, to write, read, walk in the woods with my dogs, sit on my favorite stump and watch the forest theater. It occurred to me that I hadn’t written in my journal for a while, even though it’s one of the most sacred places I know to go. It’s where I check in with my soul, and have all...

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Find Your Voice in Community– You Don’t Have to Do it Alone!

Find Your Voice in Community– You Don’t Have to Do it Alone!

“I write in a solitude born out of community” —Terry Tempest Williams I am home from leading a five day writing retreat in the woods of Montana where over a thousand people have come in the last twelve years to dig deeply into their creative self-expression on the page in intimate groups. That is my invitation to them. This is my promise: We will dig deeply into what you have to say, and I will...

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Making Friends with New Holiday Traditions and Adult Children

Making Friends with New Holiday Traditions and Adult Children

As seen on Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper My twenty-something children called a family meeting. I readied myself. These are always emotionally-loaded, especially in the way of surrender. “Let’s have an experience for Christmas this year,” said my daughter. “We need new traditions.” My son added, “We have enough stuff. Let’s go somewhere.” Don’t talk. Just listen. A good mantra if you want your...

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A Lesson from the Land of Lack: saying “yes” to everyone but yourself…

A Lesson from the Land of Lack: saying “yes” to everyone but yourself…

You know that thing you want so badly but you’ve told yourself you just can’t have? For decades? That thing which you know would change your health, your happiness, your creativity, your general outlook on life, your hope in yourself and in your future? That thing? I’m not talking about something that you think would be good for someone else. Although I’m sure you would be very good at helping...

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Just Us: Traveling with young adult children

Just Us: Traveling with young adult children

Last fall, on a family Zoom call with my adult children, my twenty-five year old daughter said, “Let’s do Christmas differently this year. Let’s not spend money on presents or decorations or on our big Christmas party. Let’s have an experience! Just us.” My twenty-one year old son said, “I agree. We have enough stuff. Let’s go somewhere and have an adventure!” And then he added, “Just us.” It...

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Grateful for Gathering

Grateful for Gathering

It’s been two years since I’ve led my Haven Writing Retreats live in Montana and this month I led two back-to-back. I was deliriously happy. I sort of expected that happiness, but not to be so totally stunned by how hungry I was to gather again and in this profound way. To be with true word wanderers again. Seekers who long for their self-expression, especially after so much isolation and...

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Re-entry: To Dance Again

Re-entry: To Dance Again

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. Around here, people are going out in public and gathering in large groups again. Re-entry is an intense experience after the last year and a half of social distancing, sheltering in place, not being able to see people's smiles, not being able to hug. How is it going for you? Have you been to a restaurant? A concert? A farmer's market? In an airport?...

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Our Long Spring break: how a pandemic posse of young adults filled this mother’s empty nest

Our Long Spring break: how a pandemic posse of young adults filled this mother’s empty nest

Now booking Haven Writing Retreats this fall!! There's still room...but spaces are filling fast. People are STARVED for the healing power of small gatherings, writing, self-expression, and Montana... Click here for more info and to set up an introductory phone call. September 8 – 12, 2021 (still room) September 15 – 19, 2021 (one spot left) October 27 – 31, 2021 (still room) As seen on Maria...

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Pass It On: random acts of pandemic kindness

Pass It On: random acts of pandemic kindness

This week…it finally happened: I got out into the actual world of “adulting” as my twenty-year olds call it, versus the virtual one. In one year I haven’t been on one flight. I haven’t gone into one government building, one box store, one large supermarket. I have a “town day” and that’s Thursdays and it consists of going to a small market for groceries, a Pilates studio for a one-hour private...

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An Ode to Migration and the “Willa’s Grove” Paperback Book Tour

An Ode to Migration and the “Willa’s Grove” Paperback Book Tour

The Paperback Release of Willa's Grove is TODAY! My March Virtual Book Tour info is below... Join me "on the road!" A year ago today in NYC on pub day! An Ode to Migration: Every year in early March, just when I start seriously considering moving to Mexico or Arizona or the Bahamas or Belize or…just anywhere that’s not Montana every-day-grey and encrusted…a sound emerges. And promises that the...

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Bed, Bon Bons, and Book Tour

Bed, Bon Bons, and Book Tour

There was a line that drifted out of adult mouths quite often when I was a child: “She’s taken to her bed.” It was up there with “She’s let herself go” and “She needs to go away for a while and rest.” These lines usually came along with “The poor dear.” They were the opposite from the line “sitting around and eating bon bons all day,” which I also heard a lot, mostly from my work-ethic-driven...

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A Crash Course in Fearless Writing— by Haven Home Expert William Kenower

A Crash Course in Fearless Writing— by Haven Home Expert William Kenower

Here is some brilliance about not just writing, but self expression, from my friend the author, author advocate, teacher, podcaster, magazine editor, and a whole lot more...Bill Kenower. Read and learn! If you’ve ever written and actually enjoyed the experience, if you’ve ever allowed yourself to become lost in the dream of the story you are telling so much that you temporarily forget what time...

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