Synchronicity. That strange blend of coincidence and actually paying attention to the world going on around you and taking up the challenges it has on offer.
I've been working my way through the Artist Way book by Julia Cameron with several friends, so that particular word has been on my mind a lot lately. The trying to pay attention to its presence anyway. One of the things that has surprised me is the sheer volume of artists and writers going on about their process or how they look at their art- in books, on the tv, on the radio, in other people's entries on newspapers and blogs. That kind of stuff, its very energizing for me. (Even if it is also a bit like an addiction where I can't get enough and am always craving more.) Maybe because I'm just starting out in the writing regularly business and am still trying ... desperately, intentionally... to figure out how to make the stories come out onto the page, well, like stories. I've started to try to write them down when I notice them or hear them and to put down some of my thoughts on them as well. Not sure yet if that will change the actual writing much, but it surely does make them stick a little harder in the memory bank.
Here are two such quotes that have been kicking around my mind, like a pick up game of soccer, since I heard them.
Dunya Mikhail (exiled Iraqi poet)-- "I still feel that poetry is not medicine- it's an xray. it helps you see the wound and understand it."
Joann Sfar (French graphic novelist)- "Reality is to an illustrator what exercise is to an athlete."
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