Art and Life

My Artist E-Circle is reading Julia Cameron's WALKING IN THE WORLD this winter. My favorite quote so far is this one:

“Our life is supposed to be our life and our art is supposed to be something we do in it and with it. Our life must be larger than our art, it must be the container that holds it….Rather than yearning to be full-time artists, we might aspire to being full-time human beings…art is the overflow of a heart filled with life.”

Live, Love, Laugh and Write!
Kathy-Diane

Heading into the Unknown

I always equate writing a novel with feeling my way in a dark room. As 2014 begins, and it's time to get back to the novel in progress (which is about as appealing as crocheting earmuffs from dust balls), I love this thought:

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen.

There will be something solid for us to stand on or WE WILL BE TAUGHT TO FLY.

-Patrick Overton

Off to face the dreaded blank page!

Kathy-Diane

Failure

 

Opened my daily planner to find this quote:

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -Samuel Beckett

I've learned gut-wrenching lessons from every failure.

Steve Jobs said: "Stay hungry, stay foolish."

Better to be a happy failing fool than to have never had the courage to crack open the hollow shell of longing.

Never stop. Seriously. Just do not let yourself.  Dream.  BIG.

Fling yourself!

"If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches...

 

...and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one...he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent."

 

- Honore de Balzac

Inspiration from RUMI

If your writing is calling you to a wounded place you don't have the courage to probe because it's too raw, honest and painful, contemplate these words from RUMI:

With this pain,

You are

digging a path

for yourself. 

 

Trust the process.  I find writing, like a GPS for the soul, often leads me to higher ground.  Be brave!

 

 

Kathy-Diane

ANSWERING THE CALL: Writers' Retreat

Answering the Call VIII: Releasing the Writer Within

A WORKING WRITERS’ RETREAT

WHERE: The Villa Madonna in Renforth, New Brunswick (just outside of Saint John)
WHEN: October 14, 15 and 16, 2011

FORMAT:
October 14, 2011:
5 p.m. Registration in foyer.

6 p.m. Opening Address: Answering the Call by Kathy-Diane Leveille
6 to 9 p.m. Meet and Greet Social

October 15, 2011: Full writing day.
7 to 9 p.m. Optional critique group

October 16, 2011:
11:00 a.m. Closing and wrap up.
1:00 p.m. Heading home after lunch and out by mid-afternoon.

FEE: $168.00 which includes single room and board.

All writers dream of getting a block of time for themselves to write. The Villa provides the perfect opportunity. Over the years, we've created touchstones within the weekend's framework that provide optional opportunities to connect with other writers to share work-in-progress and experience.  Rooms are single and private, so there is not excuse not to write.

E-mail shadowsfall@kathy-dianeleveille.com for more information.

"All of us can see ourselves in Leveille's characters. These are stories that speak to the complicated bonds we have with siblings and parents, who they were and who they are now and how we learn the truth of what we took for granted before."  -The Daily Gleaner