good morning

it's been many moons since I posted. it is a quiet balmy morning. a reminder comes that each morning is brand new. not a list of cases i have to get done. if matters are pressing, then how can i regenerate this morning so that i am starting out easily with no expectation? let life be. it is so easy to want to squeeze this day into yesterday's mold.

ups and downs

One more drawing down and 8 more to go. Tonight, at around nine pm I was drawing intently and kept hearing a funny noise next to my left ear. Finally I turned my head and there was Gracie from next door peering through the window at what I was doing. She came in and sat down next to me and said wow those are great! She looked at all the illustrations and talked aboiut her own drawing. I asked if her parents knew she was here and she said brightly, "no, but it's okay." I made her go tell someone and she came right back. And was proceeding to help me put white dots on the grass I was drawing and the phone rang and Risse, sounding grim, asking if Gracie was here..."yes." "Tell her to get her butt home and that she is in trouble." so went the art lesson.

Been thinking....what if, when the website goes up, I really do get orders? That is why taking next steps is scary. They actually take you somewhere and what might have been a fond thought becomes a real prospect. Each new change creates its own logistics. If I got five orders in a month and got in lots of lab work at the same time - that would present a new kind of logistics situation in my life. So the answer to that is to have some plans, but to keep my eye on my feet.

"Rabbit whistle". I'll be the first to attend, Mary. There is great power in putting a name to a project. It is like moving from dating to commitment.After this past week it has been funny and revealing to plan a new scheme for my life. The past two weeks I decided that "seeking" was over. Analyzing issues and working hard as a lifestyle was over. So the moment I decided I'd author and illustrate and sell my children's book and become a working artist as well, the old skin of my life seemed to cave in letting in the debris of all sorts of uncanny events. A fraud attempt on my mom and my bank accounts (change all the accounts), burst pipes and a flood (new hot water heater) , mom's tooth fell out (the tip of a very large iceberg of processes and appointments to come), and a malfunctioning kiln at the lab (exploding investment rings and redoing work over and over and a tech who is telling me "well it could be an assortment of causes...let's start with step one....etc"). But in a way all these events are like a group of herding dogs guiding me, a lone lazy sheep, into a new kind of straight and narrow. Underlying each event was the necessity to find something out and then act on it. Like caring for my mom, working in my lab, maintaining the house. I could say "it is a purification process" but that is language from the me who was seeking or who needed purification. So...... I can move into no excuses mode. If I do an illustration a week for the book i'll be done in eight weeks. or....if I do two illustrations a week, then in four weeks the book is mapped out and all the next steps are awaiting. There is lots of room and space to play this out.

posted by laurie in boise

Mission

This year contains landmarks, beginning with an entry in my journal about my mission statement as a writer, "I want to find or create an organizing structure that will carry me through and provide the theme for a fine story." With "Screenwriting for Dummies" in hand, I begin to visualize my 'new' self. I start with my own story written by moi, no collaboration needed, except by the Universe. Other signposts that reinforce this as my true path: In September I meet with screenwriters/producers. I tell them about my work, ask if I can them an outline or whatever it is that Dummies tell me is needed [my goal is the entire 120-page screenplay]. They, she, Kathleen? say Yes and suggest a deadline, something like "if you get it to me by the end of the year, I can take it to Hollywood with me..."

Starting today I stop obsessing about my son's lack of communication, begin to say "no" to unrelated events, tell Brian I intend to fit writing Nelle into my life, and DO IT.

For some superstitious reason I decide not to share what I'm doing with anyone but Laurie, Ann in Boston, and Brian. What I tell friends adn family is that I'm working on a project. I deliver my work to Kathleen, who seems pleased, then I begin the next phase of the script, whatever Dummies tell me that is. I hear good things, encouragement, from Kathleen. She wants to see more, which I've written in her absence. I send it and two weeks later she calls and says she wants to make the movie, Rabbit Whistle.