238,309 Words 30x40

30x40 Acrylic/ Canvas/ Glitter/ Art Resin. Ready to hang. 

As always, there will be no shortage of layers. Sometimes the change required to live in alignment with your highest potential feels like everything around you falling apart. At least that has been my experience. I started in March because don’t they always say that everything you want is on the other side of fear? Ugh. 

And by June the truth of it all was too much so I gave up again for the tenth time in my life. It was pain, and feeling invisible, and like I was fucking crazy and making it all up and trying to figure out what was real that taught me how to articulate my writing, after all. 

I will tell all of my secrets so that the women with the same secrets might someday feel like their voice is more important than their fear. Maybe someday it will be easier to see that the power of using the truth of voice is well beyond the silence of shame or regret. Or maybe I’ll just ruin my life - it’s a toss-up. 

My first draft of my memoir is 238,209 words. Which I mean, shit. I just googled and the average in the upper range is 100,000.  If you were in my life during any period - you are most definitely in the first draft of this work. After my copyrights come back only my daughter will get that first draft. 

I swear I fell in love with everyone all over again but from a character sketch and my ability to portray them standpoint.  I am so proud to bring my characters, as I experienced them - to life in this work. And yes I am changing everybody's names. Everybody's name but mine. 

This fall to winter has been hardcore creative output, and this painting, 283,209 words - is my last piece of creative output for 2023. 

2023. The year that I started and completed my memoir. When I was 25 my mentor looked at me and said “You might not publish a book until you’re 40.” A ghastly thing to say. I was deeply insulted by this. The last day I saw her before she passed she said “Write your book. And be well.” 

And so here I am. 40th birthday in 2023. 238,309 words and a title, a likely editor, and an understanding of what it is to query. The level of work I have put in daily is to the point that it far outweighs whatever fear my imagination can conjure. 

This painting - in all of her thick, gigantic, mismatched layers -  too much of too much all the way and all at once - but in all of that too-muchness - exquisite. She is the grand finale of everything that I thought mattered around me falling apart, re-organizing, and creating something so much more possible than I could have perceived. I have nothing to lose. 

Just like a jigsaw falling into place.