An Update on The Big Draw and Be Brave

It's been a busy week around here. Richard had to go to another conference (he's been a presenter now twice for the State Department of Education, talking to other administrators about a new and innovative program he's implemented at his school). That left just me with the three munchkins--well, one of the munchkins is 5'10" now, but in my mind he's still a little boy. Then Jenny got sick, and so between that and pumpkin patch field trips and driving to town to pick Joel up from baseball, and Katie's chorus practice after school, and then doing every day mundane things like feeding the animals and the children--well, I haven't gotten all that much done out here in the studio.

However, I did sell two paintings this week! Up the Endless Stairs and Is It a Very Very Big Flower or Just a Small Girl went quickly--I'll ship those today.

I've been drawing lots, especially in the evenings, pages and pages of faces and my 'girls'. It seems as though I can sit forever and draw while the kids do homework and listen to the audio tape of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. To make all that drawing even more delightful, other people seem to like 'my girls' as much as I do. It's a very joyful process, almost like putting a little bit of my soul on each canvas.

As for Be Brave, I've made a rather brave commitment to definitely positively absolutely PUBLICLY do NaNoWriMo this year. I've joined officially at the NaNoWriMo website, and so far Olivia and Sue have promised to join in with me. I'm hoping that others of you will, as well. Of course, many of you know that I taught advanced math for many years, but my major at Michigan State was English education with an emphasis on writing, and as an English teacher I always wanted kids to know that each of us--every single one--has a story to tell. I believe that writing is about sharing part of oneself and that often school teaches us that writing is about grammar and spelling and punctuation FIRST and communication second, which of course makes people stop writing entirely.

So, I've been brave and signed up at NaNoWriMo. I also took my birthday money (ahead of time, of course, since I don't turn 44 until November 22nd) and bought myself an AlphaSmart Neo, inspired by Olivia. It should arrive tomorrow, and I am so excited! The Neo is a small laptop wordprocessor that runs for up to 700 hours on three AA batteries. I'll be able to take it everywhere with me during November and then transfer my writing to my big computer once a day. It was scary to make a big purchase like that (the Neos are on sale during October for $199), but I know that having spent the money, I will feel even more committed to completing my 50,000 words during November.

I'll try to take time to scan some of my drawings, but I'm really itching to start painting, so I'll do that first!