Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Art Is a Great Way to Avoid Finishing Your Book!

Hi!

Well, I missed my first self-imposed weekly blogstress deadline, but I am here now, and that's what matters, right?

I hereby establish a new weekly blog deadline, and this time I will not fail or The Enforcer will come crawling out of my bathroom mirror to smother me with pages torn from a daily calendar of impossibly cute animals like that scene in "The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover." And we do NOT want to see another scene anything like that. EVER.

I've found myself inspired by numerous people, places and things since we last blogged together. I defy you to tell me that you would stick to a blog schedule or finish that last grueling and intimidating chapter of the book you're writing when faced with these delights:

  • A new letter from my famous author pen pal--- this one the very first scrawled from start to finish in his own loopy, girlish hand instead of printed by an inhuman computerized printing device and merely signed. This one also included rubber stamp art. And somehow, incredibly, I have not answered yet! How can this be? I need to answer that flipping letter!

    What else happened?

    • In my capacity as a features writer for an independent weekly newspaper, I interviewed several people who inspired me in the sense that I actually breathed their heady little personal atmospheres of creativity into my lungs and became infected beyond redemption. One is a man of 74 years whom I describe in my headline as "The Luckiest Man on Earth". Why? He has spent 40 years teaching and performing music, he is working on his second book, he gardens, he cooks, he carves things out of discarded ivory piano keys he finds at the dump, he gathers beach plums and makes them into brandy 2 to 10 gallons at a time, and he spends three months out of every year in Sicily. How fantastic is all of that? I don't want to duplicate all of those things in my own life specifically right down to the scrimshaw, but you understand--- this can be transmogrified into a Jen Sextonesque equivalent which would be even more perfect. With rescue ponies.

      • Oh, and also I interviewed a woman who mirrors back to me the same sort of creative juggernaughtiness that I feel boiling under my skin. Founder of an art and performance collective. Producer and actress and you-name-it at a local theater. Passionate! Many a thing comes second to the vital presence of creative energy in her life, and although I have some things and people in my life that must come first, I can also let some of that burble and boil and bubble come out more than I have been, which is why I made a phone call to my local art supply store this noontime to inquire about the availability of clear epoxy casting resin. Ah, yes. The art is coming out again. Photos to come.
         
      So. Although I have been distracted by these and other events, I am also redoubling my efforts and recalibrating my determination to complete my novel in a reasonable amount of time. Like how about during the month of October? That seems reasonable, right? I already have the cover figured out, complete with new title. I just have two people to speak with first. An artist and a museum director. For, you know. Verisimilitude.

      How about I call this a post and make it my life's work to post again a week from now or sooner with news of my progress? That sounds good. With art pictures and news of the unbearable finishingness of book!



      Until I blog again,
      I remain,
      Your Blogstress