When I Can't Write, I Draw

Working on some new visual material.

I have a cinematic brain - as I write, I'll see snippets of scenes and hear the dialogue. And when I can't pick out just the right words, it flows out in other ways.

For some things, I can't really imagine it any other way.

The Faceless Woman and Quiet Creativity

I've felt quietly creative lately. On my bucket list, there is a section of creative goals. They include things like reviving my Creative Every Day project and finishing the draft of my long novel by the end of November, but these are all in motion rather than right here on the page. So, I want to dedicate Wednesdays to making my quiet creativity more public than private, in hopes that it will spur me to complete my bucket list parameters for this semester. And for you, dear readers, that means a little break from the literal and more of the artistic each Wednesday. Hope you enjoy it!

***

I was concerned when the faceless woman boarded the subway car and began walking towards me. I glanced up from my reading briefly and when I looked down again my eyes hooked themselves on individual words from the page, words like "stuck" and "craft," breaking the flow of my concentration. I wondered whether she wanted to talk with me, opening the conversation with that guttural sound I know too well. It's the machine, I know, but even if it facilitates their speech, I still detest the background gurgle, like water being poured into an empty jug.

I Know, I Know...

(...the picture above is one that I took in my mini-photo shoot yesterday - I just came home and I definitely don't have time to create a new one. So sue me, if thou canst!)

Here are today's highlights:
New dawn, new day, but what is to come of it? A soft rain falls from the grey-tinted sky.
We are shepherded through hallways and stairwells, governed by bells... they close our fate with the sound of a closing airplane door. Ding, ding, ding, ding...
My age wears on me today - well, I'm not sure. The negativity and criticism falls from my lips and my fingertips; words are thrown by others in a cloud of furious smoke. I wish I could take it, but four months seems like an extended torture sentence.
Am I being an angst-ridden teenager? Perhaps, yes, and definitely. I feel the crush of Speak setting down upon my waist and hips, tightening my shoulders and holding on with all possible defiance. The love from my lower back may heal us all. If only, if only...
Laughter is the only solution. Rehearsal provides the much-needed reprieve; a high school just as crazy but not so serious. Ah, if only, if only...
We glide through the water, freeze in the murk, then push ourselves forward as if we were doves on land. Aerobics without the air. Now, returning, we are land-locked and heavy. Soft thoughts and soft hands... adieu.


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Semi-Automatic Learning

Today I attended Righting the Craft - a class on revisions - and guess what? I actually want to revise! Throughout the class, we gathered many writing exercises that help you unlock your own work (it's very similar, actually, to analyzing published works in English class - I just never thought of applying the same principles to drafts of mine).
Aside from that, I realized that I probably should finish some of my work before it can be edited. Therefore, my new Goals of the Month are going to be: finish a story at the end of each month and edit at least 250 words per day. This is alongside the 250 word generative writing exercises; sounds like a good plan to just become an overall better writer and reader, I think.

When I'm feeling more awake, I think I will document some of the class, but for right now I am just going to show off this picture of my desk in all its glory. Enjoy!

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.
Writing and stories are also available for your reading pleasure.

"Our Love Don't Have to Change... No It Don't... Have to Change..."

I wish I could photograph sound, because I have been listening to John Legend's first CD [Get Lifted] over and over again in my car, at my house and in my head... My goodness, so much soul music! It preserves me emotionally.
There is really little to say otherwise. Here is the latest on my Goal of the Month Plus+ plan.

“Jeza! How are you doing? What’s going on? I feel like I haven’t talked to you in ages…” Leo’s voice rang with excitement and Jezabelle could almost feel the phone vibrating in her fingers.
“Leo, when can I fly down and see you?” she responded, covering her head with a corduroy pillow.
“What’s up, babe? Man in your life? Or are you just homesick?”
Whenever she spoke to him on the phone, Leo’s voice was perched somewhere between ADHD and springing puppy; even when he was concerned, she could hear the excitement leap from his throat. She wondered if that was the reason he had married so early – Sylvia could keep him at bay whenever his emotions got the better of him.
She breathed out a tired sigh. “There’s no one…”
“So is that the reason? No one is the codeword for ‘I’m lonely and need to hide on my friend Leo’s couch for three days’?”
“Can we make it three weeks?”
“Sorry, babe, we just can’t keep a downer in the house for that long. You’ll mess up the sheets if you cry for three weeks!”
Jezabelle snickered, wondering why she had ever moved away.
“Well, if I can’t invite you in, what else can I do for you? Set you up an e-profile? Find you a blind date? Mix up an airborne love potion that will make all men fall at your feet?”
“The last one would be nice.”
“Cheer up – you sound like a wet cat.” Now he was really getting concerned.
“No, Leo, I’m fine… I just need to see people that I actually like, you know? There’s no one around here for me and I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels…”
“Well, why not take a vacation? Go to the beach, meet someone, have a torrid romance… and then decide whether you want to come back home or not. Couldn’t hurt, could it?”
Leo’s ideas were always so childlike and simple – she wondered why she couldn’t think of them. She mouthed words of protest, but he wouldn’t take any of them.
“Take a few days, seriously. Get out of the house and don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”

The picture for today is of my billowy sleeve (can you tell I love these thrift store finds?), the red beret I wore today and my lucky bracelet. It is a testament to getting my tripod back - oh Gloria, how I missed you.

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.
More writing and stories are also available for your reading pleasure.

Pure Emotion

Paint with the wind. I don't want to talk about today, I don't want to talk about tomorrow, I don't want to talk about the past or the present or the future. All I want to talk about is you.
Call it conceited, call it a 'burst of passion,' call it what you will but I want to find you stroking the sheets so that we can play our dangerous game. So that we can forget our names and remember that we are only children, playing in the attic and wondering how we came to be.
Let's make it happen.
I don't want to sit down or stand up, I want to sprawl - I want to fly across paint-splattered walls and divulge myself to the greatest power I have yet found on Earth. Is that you? It could be. For I have fallen amoureuse, headlong into the soft undercurrent of your heartbeat. Is that you? Ticking away at my heartstrings, bearing down with kisses on my succulent nape. It could be the victim in me, but I want you to draw blood. Perhaps then you would understand.
I don't want to talk about me, I want to talk about you.
Let's find you in the open landscape of blue crepe and feathers; the down blanket that you spread over us both has everything to do with your fair skin. Bring yourself to me, I want the challenge. I can say no or send you away but, for all eventualities, I have heard that you are one smooth talker and perhaps there is a liability issue at stake.
Let's find ourselves between powder blue sheets with nothing but our first names. Then maybe we'll have won.

(I don't want to have to think about anything today - I have spent my anger through venting and I have spent my tears. I want to fall in love with someone who will support me on my journey to find me, and maybe find themself in the spaces between. Right now, I am in the checkout line, waiting for the cashier to ring me up and send me on my way; out to the great blue yonder where I might cast my lot in another betting pool. Soon I will be saved, soon I will be saved, soon I will be saved. I am not a realist, nor an optimist, but pessimism has recently gotten me down. I turn off the newscast and forget that people exist.)

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