Temporary Good-bye

Last December, I started posting here every day to share my illustrations and poems, highlighting some from the book that I self-published, The Dancing Fish. At first, I thought I’d stop posting after a couple months. Then I figured why not keep going, and wondered if I could manage 365 straight days.

Part of my answer was that I could’ve used my old work — which led to me rediscovering some of what I created eight to ten years ago and had forgotten. Also, I created a bunch of new material to accompany the old work. Poems, stories, and illustrations that popped in my head.

I’m proud to have reached the 365 milestone, which was on December 10. Then I felt an urge to keep going a little longer.

Along the way, I’ve met many other creatives on WordPress. I’ve enjoyed reading your poems and stories, seeing your photos and illustrations. I’ve enjoyed making friends with you in our journeys of creativity.

Thank you for reading my posts and sharing your thoughts on them. I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to do that. It’s been wonderful to read about the reactions and feedback.

Writing and drawing help me a great deal. With processing emotions. With handling depression and anxiety. To create form of the images/scenes in my head, then seeing the differences of the form compared with what was in my head. Surprises come from those differences. And the joy of making something that wasn’t in my world before.

To me, crafting something is magical.

It opens the door to frustration and disappointment when the something didn’t turn out as we had hoped. And it opens the door to discovery and surprising ourselves.

I’m going to take a break from blogging for a bit. I’m devoting more of my energy to writing a novel. I finished the first draft in summer 2020, and the story needs a lot of work. It’s science fiction-ish. I’d rather not mention details right now. Those will come later, after more of the story takes form.

This is a temporary good-bye. I’ll drop in now and then. I’ll let you know about my progress, and I’ll read your latest material.

I wish you well as we say good-bye to 2021 and say hello to 2022. I wish you much joy in experiencing where your creativity goes.