Don't Carry Troubles

I don't generally subscribe to newspaper horoscopes, but Free Will Astrology makes me glad it's part of my job to read the Baltimore City Paper.  This week my horoscope was so apt, I just have to share it!



(Click for an eye-friendly option)

Making Lists

Last night I sat down to write, but didn't really feel inspired to expand on any of my notes.  Instead, I found myself making a list.  Somehow I've managed to feel both overwhelmed and directionless lately, and I'm not sure whether to blame that on ADD or not having a right arm (or maybe both).

Whenever I feel like giving up on something or just need to calm down, I make lists.  The act of cataloging tasks, organizing them, breaking them down, and finally crossing them off a list is very therapeutic.

This time, I laid out the things I hope to accomplish in 2010.  I tend to set overambitious goals, so we'll see how far I get.  What seems easy now may seem ridiculous in the Fall, but then again, I wrote 50,000 words last November!

I even made a separate page to store my list, but for now I'm going to introduce it right here.  My creative goals for 2010:

1. Finish editing my NaNoWriMo 2009 manuscript and send it out into the world.
2. De-clutter my house.  The whole thing.  Seriously.
3. Begin writing a stage or screen play, preferably as a collaborative project.
4. Win NaNoWriMo again.
5. Write a short story.
6. Begin pursuing a graduate degree.
7. Compose an original song.
8. Learn to play a song fluently on the piano, including singing.
9. Audition for something.
10. See a Single Carrot Theatre performance.
11. See a Broadway musical.
12. Write a poem and share it, even if it isn't very good.
13. Write a short story.
14. Fill three notebooks.
15. Starting in May, get out of the house to write at least once per month (and document it).
16. Create a writing space in the house (with desk and comfortable chair) where I feel productive.
17. Starting in May, write for at least 15 minutes every day (or at least 90% of the time...).
18. Take a creative retreat weekend (and document it).

Sycamores

I had a drawing professor once who occasionally made us draw with our non-dominant hand.  She said we would draw more freely, using our whole arms, and our proportions would be more accurate.  This is the first drawing I think I've made in almost three years.

Pen and Ink

Recently I discovered a blog called Notebookism, which consequently led me to discover this article: How You Should Take Pen to Paper, and Why.  Seeing as I haven't been able to take pen to paper for a few weeks, this really resonated with me.


The author paints pen-and-ink writing as a nostalgic experience -- the smell of the ink, the swooping letters on the page -- but takes it a step farther, too.  He contends that "this is what we should be doing rather than email. We should be writing to people on paper with fountain pen and ink. Even broken penmanship can be as smooth as soft summer waves. And the waves can carry the thought."


He is right to say that thoughts in writing come from the heart.  For years I have kept writer's notebooks, journals, records of my thoughts.  I have never written with my heart so much as I have done in those books.  Many times I even address a "you" in my writing, like a letter never meant to be delivered. 





I've already written about how much I adore the sight of my friends' handwriting -- on letters, in margin notes in a manuscript, on post-its left on my desk.  Handwritten words carry more soul than type.


Writing with pen and paper is a tactile experience.  I am particular about the kinds of pens and paper I use for my writing, and I always have been.  I loved working at Staples as a teenager in part because it afforded me so many opportunities to examine the selection of notebooks, test their feel in my hand, fan the pages, measure them to see if they would fit in my bag.  I loved the ritual of choosing, finding.  Pens, too -- I was constantly searching for the right one.  For about 10 years now my personal choice has been the Pilot G2 7mm gel ink pen, current colors lime and carmel.  These pens feel balanced in my hand, write reliably, and allow my hand to move quickly and easily across the page.


Author Natalie Goldberg (of Writing Down the Bones, a book I refer to often) recommends writers relax their bodies, ignore the margins on the page, let their handwriting go sloppy, and just write.  Never stop to think, just set a timer and write continuously.  At its core, writing is a primal experience.  Just like music, it can exist in a very academic space, but when a performer makes a deep, raw connection to a song, we know.  Likewise, when I read back through my daily writing exercises, decode all the scribbles and find a place where I broke down my hesitations and just wrote directly from heart to hand, I feel that.  I feel it on a level I just don't get from typed letters on a screen.


Maybe this is why I've chosen to make audio recordings on a few occasions instead of typing out my daily writing in Evernote.  Stripped of my quick-writing right hand, the next best thing is to see if I can keep talking in a constant stream until my thoughts are emptied out.


As we gain more and more tools for recording our thoughts, it's important that writers not forget our craft is a tactile one, too.  We need to keep notebooks as much as a visual artist needs a sketchbook, so we can feel our words coming straight from our hearts.

Weekend Full

This weekend was full of personally significant moments, like I was getting reacquainted with my life again.  I started my application essay (finally deciding to go ahead with my non-profit MBA) and managed to articulate better than ever what I want from life.  Check it out:

My dream job is running a non-profit performing arts center that puts on provocative music and theatre performances and provides a space for youth and adults to hone their craft -- be it acting, writing for the stage or screen, or putting poetry to music. I want to create a safe space where people of all ages and backgrounds can experience the intensity and enchantment of stage performance.

And also, while at a training for work (and secretly for me, too) I heard these words:

"Life is worth the risk."

Life is worth the risk.  Yes.  What good words to hear -- really hear -- right now.  Because to get anywhere we must always be changing, always be willing to dive in headfirst.  What a good thing to remember.

Bouncing Back

Yesterday I heard some words that hurt a little bit.  No, no one was picking on me.  I'm talking about those people in my life who I can depend on to give the honest (and sometimes obvious) advice I'm not quite ready to hear.

So the truth? If I really, really wanted to be actively productive right now, I probably would be. I'd be stubbornly perfecting the left-hand part on some new songs.  I'd be typing one-handed, wearing out my wrist on my manuscript every day.  Instead, I've been reading and watching movies and eating animal crackers.

As an ADD person, this can be a big sensitive spot when said the wrong way.  After all, we hear a lot of hurtful (read: ignorant) words labeling us lazy, unmotivated, inconsiderate, unconcerned.
        
The truth is, that has nothing to do with it.  This is just where I am right now.  Maybe I just need to, well, recuperate.  Despite having only one arm, there's not a whole lot I can't do...just some things I shouldn't.  Examples include: hunching over a piano or computer, going on too many long car rides, and dancing around and acting silly.  

Since these things aren't impossible, it's easy to overdo it.  Really, I should be sitting still and watching movies.  Even more, it's okay to let myself want that.  Maybe I feel like that's a wrong thing and I want my old self back, but this takes time.  I've never had a bounce-back period this long before.  More than likely, I need to stop moping, stop sneaking in two-handed typing, and just accept the fact that I want to take some time off.  Because that's the natural -- and most healthy -- way to recover from surgery.


And hey, at least I'll be able to say I watched five seasons of Weeds and all the 2010 Oscar winners when it's all said and done.

Picturing My Way Out the Other Side: 6

Today was this color:

Picturing My Way Out the Other Side: 5

I-83.  Backdrop: Rilo Kiley, Pictures of Success.

Picturing My Way Out the Other Side: 4

Picturing My Way Out the Other Side: 3

Picturing My Way Out the Other Side: 2

Pleasure seeking.

Picturing My Way Out the Other Side: 1

You'd think life would be returning to normal two weeks after my surgery, but not quite.  Not being able to write has been disorienting, I'm surrounded -- or not, it's turning into a ghost town -- by illness at the office, my husband has been pushing to meet deadlines at work, and the house is in a bit of a state due to my reduced capacity for general upkeep.  On top of that, I've almost certainly been infected with mono, so I'm sort of waiting around to see if I actually get sick.

A couple years ago when I felt a little lost, I started documenting the places life took me on foot.  I collected little grainy pictures in my plastic camera, snippets of sights seen in Baltimore.

This time I'm just using my phone.  I'm going to take a picture of each day until life irons out again.  Look, I even made this one look like it came from my 110 camera!

(Oh, and welcome back to daily posting!)

Disability & Disorientation

There have been plenty of times when I've said that I generally lack ambition.   In art school my professors talked about a drive to create, an insatiable need to keep working.  They even used it as a cautionary note about choosing a partner who would understand and give us the necessary intangible room for art-making.  I always thought that that was something that applied to other people, not me.  After all, I had never created anything great. But times like this, more than anything else, show me what that need to create really means.  


Most of my friends keep telling me I'm lucky.  I'm lucky to have so much time to sit and watch movies, reruns of Weeds, to read a book or just not to do anything.  And isn't that really enviable?  Don't we all want extra leeway at work, plenty of down time, guilt-free television watching, an excuse not to accomplish anything for a while?

And maybe we do, generally speaking.  Maybe I do.  But when it comes down to it, I just can't enjoy it. I can't.  


Do we call that an unfortunate excess of ambition that I'm suffering from? Maybe.  All I know is when I wake up in the morning and realize I have all of these songs, all these words running through
my head and I'm not able to get them out in the way I'm used to, it's hard to get up and get going. I feel extra needy of support from my friends.  When I'm by myself, I start feeling like life means less,
somehow. This is really unusual for me. Usually, alone time is full of creative energy.    


This is all to say that being prohibited -- physically or otherwise -- from creating in the way we are used to can be very traumatizing for an artist.  It removes part of our sense of belonging in the world. I'm not sure how to get around this.  I guess the only choice is to find ways of creating anyway, ways of doing what I do anyway, despite physical limitations. 


So far I've a few things that work.  Among them:

• Voice memos.  Unable to write as quickly with my left hand, I've spent more and more time hiding in far corners of the house whispering voice journals, secrets, letters I'll never send.  This amounts to my daily writing exercises, and even though speaking is hard to acclimate to, it's something.
• Talking about my work.  Some of these Evernote voice notes are about my manuscript, and I'm seriously hoping for a chance to talk some things over with a writing buddy sometime soon.  At least then I'll be able to create a list of work to do when I can really type again.
• Karajan!  I may not be able to practice my usual stack of songs on the piano, but plunking out things by ear should be fine, right?  Playing by ear has always been my weakest point, so I shelled out 15 bucks for this iPhone/iPod Touch app and wow, was it worth it.  I've spent the past few days drilling on intervals and recognizing augmented, diminished, and suspended chords.  This is what it's going to take for me to realize this is just another skill, and not a terribly hard one for me to learn.  I want to write out a piano version of "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod" by the end of the week.

Other than that, I'm just left to wait it out, watch those movies, and hope my best friends are able to make a little special time for me while I wander around like a lost lamb.