writer meets editor

I used home-made onion skin pigment in a series of ink sketches. 
The handwritten text blurs into background creating interesting markings.

"How about you, Mom? How was your day?" 

 The dinner is on and so is the conversation about the events of the day. We pass around questions and answers along with serving dishes from one person to the next.

"It was pretty good. I went to a meeting..." 

 "What kind of meeting?" 

 "It was a writer-meets-editor meeting..." 

 The collective groan that interrupted my sentence is punctuated by, 

 "Oh NO! The dreamer meets the dream-CRUSHER!" 

 The experience of our family fully confirms the bitter Dreamers vs Crushers stereotype. Every day one battle erupts or another between the right-brainers and the lefties. 

The creatives and the realists. 

 The dreamers and the dream crushers. 

Sometimes it's an all-out war raging under our bobbing roof. Nobody seems to notice that in this war both sides play the part of the half-wits. 

 "I know how it sounds, but it wasn't like that at all. I really like Marianne." They look at me as if I just produced a flying pig belting out 'Let it Go' inside a winter wonderland of the Frozen over hell. 

 A 'LIKE' relationship between a writer and an editor??? Impossible! 

 "She suggested that we go through this book, kind of a workbook, together...see where it takes us..."

 "A workbook?!! But, you don't do workbooks!" 

 You would think I just sold out my soul to the devil by trampling upon yet another time-honored family stereotype. Although I have to admit here that I still cringe from the fill-in-the-blanks, right-answer-left-answer type of learning tools. 

 "Well, it's not a TYPICAL workbook ", I proceed slowly. One must carefully defend their seemingly cowardly compromise. 

 "It's called...", I pause savoring the marvel which placed these two unexpected bed-fellows - the writer and the editor, on the same crumpled up page... 

"The book is called ...The Artist's Way."

the artist's way remix

The first couple of layers of a piece I worked on
recently at an abstract art workshop. I chose to include 
this image here because of it's unintimidating
messiness. Many people find creative process
terrifying, so I hope this eases some of those fears. 
 

My friend Susan encouraged and inspired me few days ago by re-reading one of the 'home-made' books I  gave her quite awhile ago. She came across it last week while organizing her piles and had the love and patience to sit down and read it. 

How many friends do that these days??? Like, NONE!  

Except, of course, Susan.

Her enthusiasm was so contagious that I went back to my old files and re-read it too! The message was so fresh, that I decided it's worth sharing here, especially during this crazy time. 

A lot has happened since the time I wrote it - my children are older and so am I. But the truth is the truth and remains the same, it may need just a little bit of dusting off and freshening up and it's as good as new, or perhaps even better, because more layers have been added that enhance it's richness and depth. 

The one thing that changed is instead of using Morguefile photo collection to illustrate the stories, now I have my own artwork! This, in and of itself is a testimony to God's amazing creativity and his ability to teach us, old dogs some new tricks, even when everyone, including ourselves, might have given up on us.

I hope you enjoy this remix and are encouraged by it's refreshing truth.