John is teaching T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" tomorrow, and he reviewed it in bed tonight, asking my opinion on this or that. I've also been perusing Fictionaut--our friend Jurgen's (sorry, Jurgen--I don't don't how to make an umlaut) online fiction-publishing-reading-commenting-etc. community. I've even been tempted to whip out Tom Robbins and read a favorite paragraph or two.
So, just when I thought that literary works had all but drifted out of my life, they are popping up organically. I have been reading mostly childbirth and parenting books lately--very interesting nonfiction--and I have been writing mostly nonfiction as well. That has been fine with me, but I have been feeling less and less like an artist, especially now that John has just turned the 150-page corner of the new novel he's writing. But, ready or not, here it all comes back to me in sneaky, secret ways.
So, I was thinking...the artist is back! I'm reading and writing for pleasure again!
Welcome back, little artista! Welcome back to delicious words and the juicy poetry of life. Welcome back to stolen dog-eared moments and thin veins of Helvetica marching across pages. Welcome back to words that do not have to make sense, as long as they create an image. Banana elephant trumpet palm river basin! Giant purple peanut slumber visions!
This is good timing, too, considering that there has been a lot of chatter about John and me hosting yet another summer of writing workshops. I am taking the leap right here: the Nashville Fiction Workshop is back! [Now that I'm feeling writer-y again and stuff...]
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