November Affirmations and Gratitude

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Thanksgiving, autumn, preparing for the December holidays:  November is the perfect month for looking forward as well as looking back. What worked for you this year? What didn't go so great, and why? Most importantly: what will you still be working on as the year draws to a close? Will you finish your work-in-progress, or does the project need to carry over into the new year, perhaps with new ideas, motivation, and purpose? 

At the start of 2019, I sat down and wrote a list of twelve affirmations for each month of the year. The majority of my "you can do it" messages were connected to my writing and artwork, affirming things such as, yes, I could finish my drafts within my own set of deadlines, or, yes, I could learn to trust my own ways of painting with watercolor.

November's affirmations, however, were a little different, and centered more on reflection, gratitude, and maintaining a positive outlook about my work as a whole. Because the affirmations were less about my personal goals and more about how to simply "stay creative every day," I thought I would share them with you, starting with: 

•  Everything finds its own space and time.
• Accomplishment is more than "being finished."
• "Set-backs" are valuable opportunities for reflection and finding new directions.
• Every piece I create adds to the greater whole.
• I enjoy the creative process: mess and all!
• Step forward, step back, step sideways: keep the dance going!
• Even the most mundane of tasks can be meaningful.
• Reflect, review, revise, and remember: creation is an opportunity for contemplation.
• The creative journey is often more important than the finished piece.
• "Harvest" is much more than gathering large or impressive results. Search out and celebrate the tiny things, too.
• I make room for the new by letting go of the old.
• I keep what works and recycle what doesn't into new shapes, forms, stories, and memories.

Reading this list and "checking it twice" has been a big help during a month when things haven't gone at all the way I had planned back in January. On the days that have been particularly harried, full of long work hours and unexpected snafus, it's been helpful to choose just one affirmation at random and then keep it mind as I rush from one task to the next. Helpful because during this time I actually have been able to a) find a spare half hour or two to revise some manuscript pages, and, b) not worry about the days when I can't. 

Creativity is a continuum; the important thing is to realize and accept that the so-called "bad days" are just as important as the "good." Using my affirmations has brought me a lot closer to understanding--and being grateful for--the process whatever happens. Thank you for stopping by and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Tip of the Day: Writing affirmations is fun; turning them into artwork is even funner! For a creative holiday project, how about making yourself or a friend a deck of affirmation cards? Collage is always an excellent starting point: magazine cutouts, pre-made stickers, rubber stamps, and glitter glue are quick and easy ways to add visual interest and variety to your cards. 

Happy Blog Birthday!

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Happy Birthday to my blog: eleven years today!

It's been a journey, to say the least. Eleven years. I can't really believe how fast the time has gone, or that I could think of so many things to blog about. When I first (very nervously) considered blogging, that was my biggest fear: that I’d have nothing to say. Up until that point, I'd only ever read fashion or lifestyle blogs and I had no idea what on earth I could offer potential readers. I also wasn’t very computer literate, so I worried that I wouldn’t be able to post any pictures, create links, or make my blog very attractive. Other fears were that my posts would have a lot of typos, my grammar would be dreadful, and that I wouldn't be able to blog on a consistent basis.

Things went from bad to worse when I invited an established blogger with a large following to write a guest post and help me get started. She refused, saying it would be a waste of time because “nobody reads your blog.” I was crushed! However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I decided that if nobody was reading my blog, then I didn’t have any reason to be embarrassed. With that in mind, I started writing blog posts that I’d like to read myself, things about writing, art, and the creative process in general. And that’s remained my primary focus all these years later. 

One bloggy trick that's helped me immensely is to brainstorm my posts in advance as much as I can. Rather than sitting down on my appointed “blogging day” and facing a blank screen wondering what to write, I keep a special journal just for blog ideas. Every time something interesting occurs to me that I think would make a good post, I jot it down. This way I always have something ready to go, especially during those weeks when I am either overly-busy or running on empty.

The main thing that keeps me going, though, is that I truly enjoy the topics I write about. Blogging is always easiest when I remember it’s all about having a conversation with my readers, and to that end I plan to start blogging a little more frequently in 2020. These last couple of years have been a bit too crowded with house renovations, day job chores, manuscript revision, etc. etc., and I want to change that next year.

So with that in mind: I'm celebrating eleven years on the Blogosphere! Anyone up for cake?

Tip of the Day: This one is for my blogger friends, especially those who may be feeling a little burnt-out or thinking of calling it quits: Don't think about how many people are reading your latest post today. Blog posts last forever. No matter how old a post is, there's always a new reader for it. Almost every day I'm amazed at how many people still check out posts of mine from four, five, ten years ago. Blogging for me is as much of a creative outlet as writing a short story or experimenting with a new color palette. In other words, it's fun! Thank you all for sharing the view. See you next time!

Beads, Glorious Beads!

 So . . .  I've been bead shopping . . . 

And I kind of got more than I bargained for!

For the last week or two I've been sorting, bagging, and organizing what must be several thousand individual beads that arrived via US Post in what were called "mixed bags." Initially I thought I had ordered, oh, a few little envelopes of assorted colors. You know, some focal beads, a variety of purples, some blues, some greens. Little things. When I went to the post office to pick up my parcel, I was shocked--the box must have weighed close to twenty pounds. I was staggered--both figuratively and literally; I could barely carry it back to the car.

For the first few hours after opening the box, I just sat at my art table looking at all this bounty in utter shock. A few hours more and I had to make a decision: either I had to pack the whole lot up and store it on a very high shelf where it would remain for the next ten years, or I had to get moving. If I didn't act now, it was never. These beads weren't going to sort themselves into a zillion different categories and somebody had to take control. And thus my plan was hatched: it's time to go into business, kids!

The idea of starting a jewelry business isn't entirely new; I'm sure I've mentioned wanting to do something along these lines more than once on this very blog, but getting up the courage and determination to follow through certainly is. No more playing around with colors and bead shapes and sizes and arrangements "just to see what they look like." Instead, I'm setting up special weekend hours to work steadily on both learning my craft and creating new designs to sell. Yes, sell. It sounds so scary!

The goal is to have by next summer a full inventory of earrings, necklaces, and bracelets priced at affordable levels with enough items to keep some back so that I can replace items as they are sold. In other words--a lot of stuff! 

To make the process and adventure even more interesting, I bought my first packets of silver clay to make my own pendants and charms. I haven't opened any of them yet as I'm not quite ready to begin (our New Mexico climate is so dry that once the package is open, the pieces must be made immediately), but in the meantime I'm studying the steps involved via books and Youtube.com.

One unexpected benefit to all this abundance of shiny glass baubles is I am seeing color in an entirely new way, noticing how shades interact with each other whether I'm admiring autumn leaves or a friend's new jacket. It's a nice complement to my painting and drawing, and I'm sure it's going to spill over into my writing, too. As they say, one thing always just leads to another . . .

Tip of the Day: I don't think I'm alone in saying sales and marketing have always been terrifying concepts to me. But it's something I have to conquer and to that end, part of my "bead education" has to involve studying what's needed to become a selling artist. Thank goodness for artist and teacher Mary Gilkerson! Lately I've been taking the time to watch her excellent videos on art marketing and creativity at https://www.youtube.com/user/marygilkerson. The videos are fun, informative, and applicable to more than just art--how about book marketing too? Two thumbs up from me!

Hello Inktober 2019!

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Ready for a month of inky fun? Me too!

Now that October is here, so is Inktober, a 31-day drawing challenge where artists from all over the world make a daily drawing in ink and then post their work as they go on a social media site. 

An optional, and very helpful, aspect of the event is to use the list of word prompts provided on the Inktober website. This year the first word on the list is "ring" and because I decided to use the challenge as an opportunity to create a travel journal based on my trip to the UK last month, my first picture is . . . Stonehenge! (It's a ring, right??)

I'm not all that in love with this piece, having doodled it at my desk while at work and wearing the wrong glasses, but the whole point of Inktober is to just draw and not worry about the results or sharing them. (Or so I've been told.)

Throughout the month and in spite of my many worries and fears I'll be using a variety of inks and pens, all on a watercolor wash background in a small landscape-sized Global Arts watercolor journal. My pen choices will include bamboo pens, fountain pens, dip pens, brush pens, technical pens, and even ballpoints. Ink isn't the easiest medium in the universe, but it's a medium I enjoy despite my dozens (hundreds) of setbacks. 

I like Inktober and drawing along with a world-wide community of other artists at all skill levels. It's an inspiring challenge, one that forces me out of my comfort zone and gives me a daily art goal for the month. It also reminds me that things could be worse: it could be November and National Novel Writing Month, and believe me, 31 ink drawings is a whole lot easier than a 50K writing marathon. I think. Right. Yes. Okay, I'll let you know after Halloween. Trick or treat.

Tip of the Day: Even if you're not an artist or don't like drawing with ink, you can still use Inktober as a fun exercise. Instead of using the posted prompts as art themes, why not use them for some daily freewriting? Handwritten, of course, and in your favorite journal!

Mind the Gap: Back from the UK

Hello, everyone! I'm back from . . . England! A completely out of the blue, all of a sudden, minimal pre-planning, totally adventurous two weeks of solid forget-about-everything super-fun!

I love the UK. My husband is British, and I've lived and traveled there frequently. The country is hilarious, one Monty Python moment after another; I don't think I ever stop laughing (or at least smiling through my tears) for a single second. And that's even while things happen to me, bad things: e.g., I continually burn myself in the extremely-difficult-to-use showers. Or I get stuck in the extremely-narrow-bathtubs or fall over the extremely-high-bathtub-walls. I never can find the light switches. I have never understood why the plug for the hair dryer is on the other side of the room from the mirror. It takes me an hour to figure out how to use any appliance at all because I always forget to turn on the wall switches. I complain nonstop about the lack of dryers, abundance of warm beer, convoluted instructions on how to do anything or get anywhere, and why are the coins so heavy? And I ALWAYS hit my head on everything, from getting into the tiny cars (three times in succession on one awful day) to being squashed by the train doors in the London underground. And yet, I cannot stay away. Already I'm thinking of all the things I intend to do "next time."

But none of that was on my mind when we jumped on our plane from Albuquerque, unexpectedly arriving at the start of a three-day bank holiday (the downside of minimal planning). Given that England was having the hottest weather on record at the time, it seemed the entire population chose the same road we did to get out of London for the coast. 

Our first destination, however, wasn't the beach, but Yeovil and the Somerset village of Kingsbury Episcopi to visit my husband's brother and his wife. What should have taken two hours took four and a half. But we did see Stonehenge . . . !

 And eventually some beautiful Somerset architecture:

This 1000-year-old Saxon church is literally in my in-law's backyard. The last time I was there we walked around in freezing July weather battling wind and rain and warmed up back inside the house with nettle soup. This year we had a wine and pizza picnic where everyone kept saying: "It's so hot!!!" and we worried about sunburn.

A few days later we headed for Cornwall, stopping in Torquay followed by Plymouth for African curry, and then driving to, well, I actually have no idea where except the roads were too narrow for two cars and they all looked like the picture above. 

We just kept driving and driving and driving--over 1000 miles by the time we were finished, stopping at strange places such as a vintage fairground museum, an ancient hotel hosting a model train show . . . Some days were definitely pure Twilight Zone, one of the reasons I love being England. You just never know what you'll find next.

 After Cornwall, we were off to the Beaulieu motor museum, one of my husband's favorite museums, and one I enjoy too with its palace gardens, ruined abbey, and of course all the car-related activity.

Next stop was one of the few things we had pre-booked the day before we left: five nights staying in a cottage on a now-disused watercress farm. Naturally we were the most lost ever getting there, finally arriving in the middle of the night down so many dark, dinky lanes I still don't know how we managed it. The farm itself had a coded gate we had to figure out in the dark, and when we drove to our cottage down a dirt path we couldn't find the cottages (because it was so dark) and when we did find them, we couldn't see where our particular cottage was. To find it we had to keep opening other people's doors, stumbling up and down staircases, ending up in the laundry room, all the while asking "Where's the lights?" At last we found what had to be our cottage, discovering the welcome sign behind the closed curtains which is where you always put welcome signs on dark nights, I guess. Must be a British custom I never learned about. 

The reason we were at the farm was to spend time with a good friend who lives in Faversham, Kent.

While we were there, we still couldn't stop driving, so we also drove to Whitstable:

As well as a day trip to Dover:

We did start walking along that little path up there along the cliff top, but after a few yards I froze in sheer terror and couldn't go any further. The wind was blowing very hard and I just kept imagining a giant gust hurling me to the sea, so we had to take the "wimpy trail" situated further up the hill which was still scary but I did feel a whole lot safer. 

We then walked to the top of Dover Castle for more seaside views and more vertigo.

After our visit to Kent we then went back to London for several days, turning in our car and using trains for transport. Our first compulsory stop after the British Museum and Fortnum and Mason's was to check on the Marylebone flat where we lived for two amazing years several decades ago. At the time I was an executive secretary in Europe's largest advertising agency situated in St. James's Square, writing my first stories at my desk during off-hours. The entire area has changed dramatically since the days I used to go to the health food store on Baker Street to play with the ginger cat, but it was still wonderful to see the same front door!

After all that nostalgia, it was time to visit the top of the Shard and something new:

We were there for hours, drinking wine and just soaking in the views before going downstairs for a Chinese lunch on the 33rd floor. Which leads me to one of my favorite topics: food! British food has truly gone global, with some of the best choices you'll find anywhere in the world, especially if you're a vegetarian or need to be gluten-free. That said, it did appear that some of my old favorites have, at least commercially, disappeared. No rum babas! No sherry trifle! No Chorley cakes! Not even a fresh cucumber sandwich to get me through the afternoon. I was eventually forced to realize that all these staples, just like the ginger cat, will have to reside in my memories for now. My biggest wake-up call was when I saw people eating outside atop Covent Garden Market and said to my husband, "Oh, let's go up there. They'll have sandwiches, betcha." When we got upstairs we learned it was a Brazilian sushi restaurant without a single sandwich to be had. Despite my initial disappointment, the food was excellent, and I will never forget eating vegetarian sushi overlooking Covent Garden, but I mean, really. I wanted my cucumber sandwich.

However, all ended well on our final day with a visit to our favorite London restaurant, The Belvedere in Holland Park. The building and interior is still as lovely as ever, the food is delicious, and the entire experience of eating there is magical. I will be back, rum baba or no. Can't wait!