i need a creative kick in the pants.
any ideas? what do you do when you feel creatively empty, lost, and uninspired? do you fake it ’til you make it? wait for the feeling to pass? dabble in new things? call a creative friend?
this is such a sad state of being for a creative person. send help fast!
on this day, i was wearing a blue dress.
before that and since then, the days have sort of melded together. life is just ticking past, and i’m afraid i’m not living in the moment very often. always running — in my mind or around in my life.
i need to practice slowing down. sitting still. dreaming again. or i’m afraid i’ll wake up one morning and not recognize myself.
i miss writing here. so much.
although maybe that’s not such a good idea. i’m such a bad influence.
whining about creative angst when i’m overworked. sighing in boredom, lost and flailing, when there’s free time to be found. will the tides ever match up? the tides of free time and inspiration. will they ever pull together in sync?
is it a ruse — the creative, premeditated twinkle in my eye? here to put me off course or here to guide me? something to honor or something to lose? something made of wishes? or made of promise?
are we really meant to spend our entire lifetime searching? or is it someday going to stop? or is that what i’m afraid of?
consider this…before you follow me.
can you believe my black phoebe friend. isn’t he the loveliest. and such a good pal, visiting me every day.
don’t miss today’s new this joy+ride, issue #35, featuring some lovely small new works by painter elizabeth schuppe. i’ve been loving her work for so long. it’s a tremendous privilege to be featuring her work today.
enjoy!
tomorrow i will start the “23 stories for a fried chicken sandwich” project.
“what’s that?” you ask.
well, it’s a bet, of sorts, with my writing partner and friend m. i really need something to kick start my writing again. competition, yes. accountability, sure. pure writing joyfulness, i wish. would any of this really be enough? maybe not.
so m and i decided we had to make the project truly more meaningful. you see, i’ll do ANYTHING for a fried chicken sandwich at bake sale betty in oakland. ANYTHING (you wouldn’t believe its goodness, seriously…).
so me and m made a bet. or a pact. or whatever you want to call it, in which the winner gets a fried chicken sandwich. because i will do anything, even vow to write 23 times in a month when i think i’m too busy writing for work to write for myself.
the 23 stories will follow here. 23 stories in march (the idea is 5 days a week). some will be non-fiction, some will be fiction, some might even be poetry, who knows? one piece might even be about the above house in my neighborhood, which i always think is winking at me.
so wish me luck. i hope you’ll visit often. or, better yet, join me. i can’t promise you a fried chicken sandwich, but if you’re competitive, i can promise you’ll write 23 things this month. you will sit down and write 23 times and wow, that is something (but still not really as good as a BSB fried chicken sandwich).
today is pretty 