Slingshot Designs
Writing
Essays, field notes, and applied observations about how people orient under pressure, notice what systems are doing, recover agency, and decide what happens next.
This is a working library, not a niche blog. The throughline is orientation: people, systems, relationships, work, place, recovery, creativity, and the practical consequences of what we notice—or fail to notice. The communities and disciplines beside this work are treated as neighbors and collaborators, not territory to occupy.
Choose a way in
Leadership & Systems
Decision-making, communication, operations, complexity, accountability, and the structures that shape behavior.
Family & Community
Belonging, relationships, local systems, stewardship, and what it takes to remain human when the system is under load.
Steel Toes & Plaid
Manufacturing, work, women, grit, field lessons, blunt truth, and practical rebuilding.
Cardinal Chronicles
Personal essays and narrative observation where memory, place, relationships, identity, and meaning intersect.
Recovery & Repair
Survival easing, grief, repair, capacity, and the work of rebuilding without turning lived experience into a diagnosis or doctrine.
Land, Seasons & Observation
Gardens, land, seasonal work, and the lessons that appear when attention gets quieter and more precise.
Find something specific
Follow the work
Subscribe for new essays and field notes as the body of work develops. No artificial cadence is promised; the signal matters more than filling the calendar.
Latest writing
-
The Conversation Behind the Story
Michelle Formanczyk joins Kelly Anderson on The Feelin Good Academy Podcast to explore survival mode, identity, life transitions, and learning to let go.
-
What Did You Hear?
What happens when the message we intended isn’t the message someone heard? Michelle Formanczyk reflects on curiosity, VoicePrint, finding her voice, and navigating change.
-
Sticks in the Sky
When the last of Michigan’s autumn leaves fall, the trees become sticks in the sky. This year, I’m seeing something different in their bare branches: structure, growth, and a reminder that knowledge means little until we put it into practice.
-
Howdy, Neighbor. This Isn’t the Life I Planned.
What happens when the life you planned looks nothing like the one you’re living? A personal reflection on growing older, changing direction, grieving what didn’t happen, and discovering that doing things differently might be the win.
-
The Words That Find Us
When the life and routines that worked yesterday no longer fit today, how do we grow again? A reflection on one-word resolutions, midlife change, agency, discernment, and learning to reorient.
-
I’m Done Playing Plinko With My Life
Six months ago, I had 143 ways to be reached. Today, I have four. As I turn 49, here’s why redesigning access—and reclaiming attention—matters for caregivers.
-
Board Minutes: What Changed When We Changed the System?
The final question is not which bird was right. It is what changed because we did the work—and what the Board now knows that it did not know before.
-
What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen
Once new evidence changes what we can see, the work is no longer returning to the old story. It is integrating what we know now and leading from the terrain that is actually visible.
-
I Am Bringing Everything With Me
You do not need to prove the entire body of your work before you enter the room. Be present. Tell the truth. Bring what you know—and bring yourself with it.
-
Attention Is an Investment
Attention is not passive. What we repeatedly feed with time, clicks, conversation, media, and mental energy becomes part of the environment shaping us.
-
While You Stir
What you did was one loss. What you never did was another. A poem about betrayal, absence, reciprocity, and the clarity of finally protecting what is present.
-
You Shouldn’t Have to Leave Yourself at the Door
Maybe you love your work—and somewhere along the way you learn which people you can tell. A reflection on career identity, friendship, trust, crisis management, and choosing what gets access to you next.
-
My Medical Chart Has a Noncompete Clause
Two appointments. Three years ago. Apparently, we’re exclusive. A patient’s account of healthcare bureaucracy, invisible paperwork, and a care team that actually picks up a paddle.
-
Thrills of Grief
Memories of my grandmother’s balloon business in Gaylord bring unexpected birthday discoveries—and a little room to create, give, and show love again.
-
Would You Buy Another Cycle?
A relationship is not a product, and a person is not a score. But the language of value can still help us ask a useful question: knowing the pattern, would I invest in another cycle?