roses

roses

Saturday, June 18, 2011

On writing, knitting, & other art projects

It has been a grueling week for me artistically speaking. The only form of artwork that hasn't been semi-painful to endure is my knitting. I've been forcing myself to write. It hasn't been fun in any sense of the word. The morning pages feel like they're filled with epic failure and minutia that really shouldn't be penned.

The Sanctuary manuscript only has a handful of pages added to it. Most of them are just flat and have been excruciating to write. It's funny, according to the word count, I have it finished. That's how I won NaNoWriMo. The story, however, isn't done. I still need to find a way to marry the work I have typed on the computer with what I have hand written in a note book. I haven't even fleshed out the scenes that I barely put to paper in something of an outline.

I'm struggling with an enormous sense of apathy and creative drought (Julia Cameron really hit the nail on the head with coming up with that expression) in my textile arts. The knitting is like a band-aid. My crochet washcloth book is languishing for want of writing down patterns.

My loom is idle. I have it warped but I just can't muster up the emotional effort to sit down and weave. I can't seem to figure out what I want to even use for my weft here. I used my handspun purple merino to warp it. I adore the color but now... I can't figure out what I want to use to weave. A part of me says I have to use wool while another part says I need to just grab what ever I have on hand and start throwing the shuttle.

Some how, my sketch book has gone missing. The project room ate it, I think. I have been mourning the loss of that particular item, though I haven't felt particularly pressured to draw or paint. I feel pretty bad about the fact that I haven't been painting. I just can't get past this enormous sense of failure. I don't know why I feel like a failure in my painting, but I do.

It all comes together in this black morass of misery. The morning pages, I suppose, are like my lifeline or something. I'd prefer a golden thread to help me get out of this labyrinth of a block, to be honest.

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