What is this space I’ve created for myself?
I’m practicing here.
I’m a girl with words and cameras; moods and anecdotes. Sometimes a bit of prose emerges and when that happens it’s always quick and natural; the patter of words light up the screen as my fingers tap the keys. Okay, I’ll think, now that was good.
It feels right, to be here and create vignettes and embellish the ordinary with words and pictures of my own making. Behind the lens, I can be in the world but absorbed in its details. When the images are purged from the camera onto the laptop’s hard drive it’s a delicious moment of discovery because oftentimes the pictures are so different from what I’d anticipated.
Part of a comment that I’ve culled from a different conversation has stayed with me because it felt a bit derisive: “… from living at the beach which you obviously find so important …” reading that I knew that the writer missed the point of what I’m doing here. Being happy with where I’m at is a wonderful gift, when so much of life is chaotic and unexpected and even disappointing. So yes, I’ll write about it and photograph it and celebrate lifestyle because in doing so, it facilitates my getting to the something that’s inside of me, whorling about, unnamed as of yet but making its presence known.
Writing and photography is the only way I know to coax it from within so that when it’s mature and we are both ready, I will make something big.
You are ready, and something big has already happened – your initiation into the writing life has begun. Writing claims our world, and to quote Julia Cameron, "We write because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not." Blogging however has changed the face of the publishing world. Not all blogger can write. Your writing is fresh and wonderful. But too many blogs are filled with lots of words, like the slush pile in the editors office. Although I have two blogs, I'm hoping this is only a passing thing and that soon literary journals and magazines will make a return.
Recently the New York Times ran an article about the give-away that we are experiencing for writers and photographers. Instead of being paid, like in the days before blogging, now we are working for free.
Jeannie, I love your blog, and I look forward to reading your forthcoming book(s) and articles in print.