Tag: art

It Might All Be About the Margarita Bucket

Dude. You drink it.

Photo by Jonathon Burton on Pexels.com

I don’t even know where to start with last night. I’m in Virginia, a fellow at an artists residency, where sometimes we share what we’re working on. Visual artists have open studios, composers play either live or recorded original music, and writers have readings. Last night, I read from my memoir-in-progress, Terrible Daughter, sharing the stage with another writer.

It went really well! I truly enjoy reading my work for an audience. It was gratifying to hear that people enjoyed it. If you’re a writer and the open-mic thing scares you, take the leap and try it anyway. It’s okay to be scared. This is the only way writers can get immediate feedback and engagement with their craft. And the writing doesn’t have to be perfect or even polished to be a good read.

Continue reading It Might All Be About the Margarita Bucket

Art and Wine and Progress and Wine

WINE, you guys

(Photo by Jill Burrow on Pexels.com)

Last night the visual artists here hosted open studios. I love open studios. Writers love visual art, don’t we? It’s so inspiring to immerse into a different art form. It fills me up, feeds my own creativity, and I’ve felt so deprived since lockdown began a year and a half ago.

So I walked around studios and was stunned at the amazing work happening here: acrylic and oil paintings, abstracts, portraiture with a twist, geometric imagery, sculpture with leftover plastic combined with strung lights, all sorts of things I’d never think of. What a delight.

And I get to talk to all these people about what we do and why it matters to us and how hard it is but also wonderful. We sat around afterwards and drank wine and talked until it was dark and late and hazy. I slept late this morning.

And today I’ve made progress on my manuscript. Will someone keep reminding me, please, that new writing is supposed to be crappy? To let it be crappy until it’s time for editing? Because that’s what I’m trying to do here: write and move forward and keep moving forward. No piecemeal editing here. That’s for FUTURE AMY. I’m sure glad I’m not her!