2019 & Writing.

If I were one of my characters, I’d say that 2018 was a monster from the depths of hell, but I am not, so I’ll just call it a terrible year and lock it up in my diaries.

Now about 2019…

A story is out there milling in the slush-pile of a publisher, another is lounging here in my desk-drawer, a couple are waiting to be yanked out of the dark recesses of my mind so that they find their true form. But being a writer-artist (or an artist-writer, depending on who rules the roost at the time of speaking,) makes the tussle even greater. When a story peeps out, the artist brandishes her brush and shoo-es it back in; and when the writer finally gets down to writing it, the artist seduces the writer with her colorful palette and the promises of an incredible visual treat.

I know that this struggles and tussles; these scuffles and skirmishes – they’ll go on…year after year. But this year, I promise to buckle my belt and pull up my boot-straps – I promise to go knocking at the doors of agents and publishers…five manuscripts is one too many.

Yonder worlds is my little world away from the terrifying big world that I live in, and I promise to seek solace here when the big world bares its teeth and snarls at me.

And now to end this post on a positive note, a friend gave me five books to read. One of them is “Strange Weather in Tokyo,” by Hiromi Kawakami. It’s a translation of a Japanese novella, a book intrinsically different from the kind of books I read, but I liked it – mostly like a coffee to break a hangover. I think I’ll write a short post about it.

Until the next post then…