I love craypas and I like to use them on black paper too! My mother, who was a great singer and artist, gave me my first box when I was little. I’m 80 now and I always have a box, even though I rarely use them. Art school beat the art out of me. I was a natural writer and I’ve published a lot of stuff. But a writers workshop that I attended for a couple of years after my father died beat the writing out of me. Now I play the piano - I started taking lessons about 7 years ago. I play for the dog and me and nobody else. Nobody is going to beat the music out of me!
It's always better to stay a beginner. Schools, especially graduate schools, can mess with your head, and displace your own voice and instincts with weird definitions for different kinds of writing, so you're shackled before you even start.."Write a hybrid essay," they tell you.WTF is a hybrid essay? Just WRITE. I'm glad you play for you and your dog. So write for yourself and your dog.I bet you can do that too.
Exactly right about schools. I went all the way through grad school in two different fields (art and anthropology). Both times I got awards and publications but both times they tried very hard to displace my voice and I was never malleable enough to please them. So both times they went out of their way to make sure my success was thwarted. My experience with the writers workshop was different but the women who ran it had MFAs in creative writing and insisted that the only way to write was some ivory tower idea about how to write that’s what the lit mags are all about . It just felt like a demand for conformity to me, and just as with grad school I was never good at conforming!
But you broke their rules by writing for real instead of for the literary boxes they invented! That’s why we’re all crazy about everything you write. It’s real!! The women who ran the writers workshop I was in for several years didn’t, so I quit the workshop and stopped writing because I can’t play by their rules!
I've been feeling guilty for two weeks because you fed me a couple of prompts and I should have been grateful and written my two pages, but I did not. I guess I'm just not motivated to write these days. I'd much rather read what YOU write :)
You can beat the art and writing right back in! It’s been lingering “outside” just waiting for your invitation. We can’t allow the harsh words of others diminish us. 🎨📝🎼❤️
You’re right. But it’s not so much harsh words as utterly uninspired teaching that dulled my enthusiasm. If anyone could inspire me to write again it would be Abby, whose words always ring true…maybe next time she does a workshop I’ll take it! (And I do occasionally get out my craypas!)
Thank you very much. Write two pages that take place in water. Or write two pages the second sentence of which is "It's not funny." Then please send them to me.
I feel this in my soul with music and writing - but thankfully I never studied art, or I feel as if it would do the same. I hope you find your way back to it. x
I also majored in Art, taught art in schools and couldn't do a damn thing as long as I taught it. After I stopped teaching, all that came roaring back for me. I sang professionally too and that was a scary grind, but now I sing my heart out and don't give a flying fig if anyone hears. My bunny also appreciates my singing to her every day when I must feed her, one dandelion leaf at a time. Carry on! Linda Clare
Actually, yes I do! I'll email one I did for a birthday card if I can find it. My sprits are always better after I read your work. :-) PS: She lives in the Playboy Mansion (a converted greenhouse) out back and you ought to see the way she rips each leaf from me--unless she's ready for pets then she ducks her head down and becomes a puddle of bunny. And she's more than 10yo!
Oh! Wow. And I wil look for your dandelion. I love them. I love to bury my nose it them, a sweet sweet smell. Plus they are yellow! And then you can blow heir tiny fluff away and make a wish. A versatile flower. Lucky bunny.
Welcome back, Abby. Your silence was deafening and worrisome. This is the brilliant travelogue of a talent that knows how to rescue itself from loss or disintegration. Praise every angel with a decent singing voice.
It's the shower curtain that got me. Could also be Marimekko sheets. I so get of what you write. In fact, I was thinking about it this morning. How even if only a smattering of words come through me, I need them.
Gratitude, Abby. What I feel when I read you. And identifying recognition, your putting into gorgeous words often similar feelings, as I, too, age - sometime gracefully and sometimes just plain crankiness (and loss and overwhelm), which, actually, I love about myself - as I love reading you and yours. You are SO far from disintegration. Welcome home....
Ps - I laughed at your "arsenal of filthy words," as I also have a reputation - admired by some and others are appalled- of quite an array of filthy words and I have no intention of cutting back on them. Sometimes I'm judicious, but rarely.... My mother told me many times that only ill-bred and uneducated people resort to swear words. I think that's what got me started and now at my 2-months-shy-of-80 years, I rarely hold back - SUCH satisfaction and they see to fit so well.
I am remembering your paintings on glass which in some ways I thought gave birth to your “other” evocation of imagery; the visual arts. After a really traumatic emergency surgery I had in September a writer friend of mine brought me a coloring book and a package of colored pencil markers. At times I glance at the clear package of thin markers and just the imagining of freedom ( coloring in the lines?) of selecting the colors brings a calmness.
In scientific terms it’s called “synesthesia.” Lucky you!
Next you’ll be plucking notes out the air. The creative in you is a life force.
Hoo, boy. The days had a color and image from about age 7 on. Mondays are the color of green beans. Tuesday is a different green--more olive, with little white lambs printed on little girls' underwear. (I know, right?). Wed is orange with rows of palm trees down the road. Thursday is pink fluffy clouds at midday with sunshine poking through. Friday is a navy blue. Saturday is red like a sunset when it's too hot (I grew up in AZ). Sunday is a very white light with zig-zags like lightning bolts. Don't know why. I also hear music in my head nearly all day and night--sometimes drives me nuts. Haha I'm weird.
You are the first person I've ever heard say that they hear music in their head most of the day and night - me, too! Granted, it's usually The Beatles or some old time country music, but every now and then some Souza march steps in, and I am in trouble for a few hours!
Wow! Glad to meet you! I mostly hear whatever I've heard in the past week or two but now and then it's like, "What the heck?" I'll hear a song I hadn't thought of in 50 years. Please msg me at Lindasclare.substack or Lindasclare@gmail.com. I want to find out more. Do you read Oliver saks? All Best, Linda
Ina, I'm sorry to hear about the traumatic surgery. I hope you are recovered now, even from the memory. I tried colored penccils too, but the craypas are more forgiving of ineptitude (is that the word I'm looking for?) With craypas you don't even have to color within your own lines. Get some and go a liittle crazy!
They were a mystery for a long time. I must have been thinking too hard.Because once we discover detail, and appreciate it, we are sort of ready for anything. Except this administration..
Love watching your mind unfurl, here and everywhere you express it.
Playing with color is great medicine. It allows a smile to happen and a smile is close to a laugh and we all know how laughter heals. 😊 I recommend “color pills” daily.
Color pills. Good idea, But they have to be easy to open. And yes, laughter and tears both are necessities of life. Thank you for the word unfurl. Loved that.
I love this. I've had some arid periods lately for new writing which I view exactly as you do. Before I focused on writing as a young person I spent my time with chalk and charcoal and pen and paint. Craypas are new to me but they sound like just the thing. Thank you, Abby (if I may).
Oh. My. Abby. I've designed an awful lot of shower curtains in my years on the planet, too. That made me roar. I needed that today. xo
Thank you.
Abby even when you’re not writing, some Abigail Thomas mechanism in your heart is churning words around. And holy fuck, when they come out…..
This is classic gorgeous you. So good.
Kate, a thousand thanks for what you said. Really. A thousand thanks.
I love craypas and I like to use them on black paper too! My mother, who was a great singer and artist, gave me my first box when I was little. I’m 80 now and I always have a box, even though I rarely use them. Art school beat the art out of me. I was a natural writer and I’ve published a lot of stuff. But a writers workshop that I attended for a couple of years after my father died beat the writing out of me. Now I play the piano - I started taking lessons about 7 years ago. I play for the dog and me and nobody else. Nobody is going to beat the music out of me!
It's always better to stay a beginner. Schools, especially graduate schools, can mess with your head, and displace your own voice and instincts with weird definitions for different kinds of writing, so you're shackled before you even start.."Write a hybrid essay," they tell you.WTF is a hybrid essay? Just WRITE. I'm glad you play for you and your dog. So write for yourself and your dog.I bet you can do that too.
Exactly right about schools. I went all the way through grad school in two different fields (art and anthropology). Both times I got awards and publications but both times they tried very hard to displace my voice and I was never malleable enough to please them. So both times they went out of their way to make sure my success was thwarted. My experience with the writers workshop was different but the women who ran it had MFAs in creative writing and insisted that the only way to write was some ivory tower idea about how to write that’s what the lit mags are all about . It just felt like a demand for conformity to me, and just as with grad school I was never good at conforming!
Never much of a conformist myself either. Why is that such a draw?
It drew me lots of hostility from the little men who ran academia!
But you broke their rules by writing for real instead of for the literary boxes they invented! That’s why we’re all crazy about everything you write. It’s real!! The women who ran the writers workshop I was in for several years didn’t, so I quit the workshop and stopped writing because I can’t play by their rules!
How very irritating of them. Fuck them, is what I crudely say.
I've been feeling guilty for two weeks because you fed me a couple of prompts and I should have been grateful and written my two pages, but I did not. I guess I'm just not motivated to write these days. I'd much rather read what YOU write :)
You can beat the art and writing right back in! It’s been lingering “outside” just waiting for your invitation. We can’t allow the harsh words of others diminish us. 🎨📝🎼❤️
You’re right. But it’s not so much harsh words as utterly uninspired teaching that dulled my enthusiasm. If anyone could inspire me to write again it would be Abby, whose words always ring true…maybe next time she does a workshop I’ll take it! (And I do occasionally get out my craypas!)
Thank you very much. Write two pages that take place in water. Or write two pages the second sentence of which is "It's not funny." Then please send them to me.
abbythomas11941@gmail,com
Ok. For you, I’ll write. But not till later on Monday or maybe Tuesday. My piano lesson is Monday and I’m focused on practicing!
ok. I can wait.
Yes!! Only gentle the art and writing...then you will beat this who stomped on your style and essence. Recapture it.
I play piano for Cooper🐾 too! I love this Susan!
I love how we meet kindred spirits on Abigail's substack!
Yes! Abby’s corner is an amazing place to hang out!
Thnk you, I love that.
ANd it's true! I love everyone I meet here.
Oh. I love that.
I feel this in my soul with music and writing - but thankfully I never studied art, or I feel as if it would do the same. I hope you find your way back to it. x
I’m too old to find my way back. I’m pushing forward at the keyboard instead!
I'm not sure we're ever too old.
Maybe not, but we’ve earned the right to use the age card when we feel like it :)
damned straight.
I also majored in Art, taught art in schools and couldn't do a damn thing as long as I taught it. After I stopped teaching, all that came roaring back for me. I sang professionally too and that was a scary grind, but now I sing my heart out and don't give a flying fig if anyone hears. My bunny also appreciates my singing to her every day when I must feed her, one dandelion leaf at a time. Carry on! Linda Clare
One dandelion at a time. How I love that. Do you daw the occasional dandelion? I would love to see that.
Actually, yes I do! I'll email one I did for a birthday card if I can find it. My sprits are always better after I read your work. :-) PS: She lives in the Playboy Mansion (a converted greenhouse) out back and you ought to see the way she rips each leaf from me--unless she's ready for pets then she ducks her head down and becomes a puddle of bunny. And she's more than 10yo!
Oh! Wow. And I wil look for your dandelion. I love them. I love to bury my nose it them, a sweet sweet smell. Plus they are yellow! And then you can blow heir tiny fluff away and make a wish. A versatile flower. Lucky bunny.
Yes! Give her some dandelion leaves for me!
I know the feeling. So glad you’ve found the last refuge. I may or may not have found mine. Appreciate your thoughts.
Welcome back, Abby. Your silence was deafening and worrisome. This is the brilliant travelogue of a talent that knows how to rescue itself from loss or disintegration. Praise every angel with a decent singing voice.
A travelogue. What a wonderful description. Thank you, dear Susan.
It's the shower curtain that got me. Could also be Marimekko sheets. I so get of what you write. In fact, I was thinking about it this morning. How even if only a smattering of words come through me, I need them.
And so badly, so badly, Nancy. Me too!
yessss the shower curtain. or maybe a dish towel from anthropology?????
Thanks, it really made me laugh. Still does. But definitely a shower curtain.
LOL
Gratitude, Abby. What I feel when I read you. And identifying recognition, your putting into gorgeous words often similar feelings, as I, too, age - sometime gracefully and sometimes just plain crankiness (and loss and overwhelm), which, actually, I love about myself - as I love reading you and yours. You are SO far from disintegration. Welcome home....
Thank you, Rickey. Cranky, yeah. with my arsenal of filthy words always at the ready.
But thank you for your kind and lovely words.
Ps - I laughed at your "arsenal of filthy words," as I also have a reputation - admired by some and others are appalled- of quite an array of filthy words and I have no intention of cutting back on them. Sometimes I'm judicious, but rarely.... My mother told me many times that only ill-bred and uneducated people resort to swear words. I think that's what got me started and now at my 2-months-shy-of-80 years, I rarely hold back - SUCH satisfaction and they see to fit so well.
I am remembering your paintings on glass which in some ways I thought gave birth to your “other” evocation of imagery; the visual arts. After a really traumatic emergency surgery I had in September a writer friend of mine brought me a coloring book and a package of colored pencil markers. At times I glance at the clear package of thin markers and just the imagining of freedom ( coloring in the lines?) of selecting the colors brings a calmness.
In scientific terms it’s called “synesthesia.” Lucky you!
Next you’ll be plucking notes out the air. The creative in you is a life force.
I too have synesthesia. All the days of the week have specific colors plus a bunch of other weirdness that continually mixes the senses.
What color is Monday? Actually what are your colors for all seven days of the week. Dying to know.
Hoo, boy. The days had a color and image from about age 7 on. Mondays are the color of green beans. Tuesday is a different green--more olive, with little white lambs printed on little girls' underwear. (I know, right?). Wed is orange with rows of palm trees down the road. Thursday is pink fluffy clouds at midday with sunshine poking through. Friday is a navy blue. Saturday is red like a sunset when it's too hot (I grew up in AZ). Sunday is a very white light with zig-zags like lightning bolts. Don't know why. I also hear music in my head nearly all day and night--sometimes drives me nuts. Haha I'm weird.
You are the first person I've ever heard say that they hear music in their head most of the day and night - me, too! Granted, it's usually The Beatles or some old time country music, but every now and then some Souza march steps in, and I am in trouble for a few hours!
Wow! Glad to meet you! I mostly hear whatever I've heard in the past week or two but now and then it's like, "What the heck?" I'll hear a song I hadn't thought of in 50 years. Please msg me at Lindasclare.substack or Lindasclare@gmail.com. I want to find out more. Do you read Oliver saks? All Best, Linda
Can’t help but wonder if the world would be a sweeter place if we all saw the colors of the days.
I bet it would. How to make this happen?
I love these! You must live a very interesting colorful life. Thank you for telling me!! Green beans.
Ina, I'm sorry to hear about the traumatic surgery. I hope you are recovered now, even from the memory. I tried colored penccils too, but the craypas are more forgiving of ineptitude (is that the word I'm looking for?) With craypas you don't even have to color within your own lines. Get some and go a liittle crazy!
Thank you for this beautiful prescription.
Thank you very much. So nice of you.
Those words that stuck with you about suffering teaching you details do make sense. I’m glad you are finding new ways to create.
They were a mystery for a long time. I must have been thinking too hard.Because once we discover detail, and appreciate it, we are sort of ready for anything. Except this administration..
Absolutely. And thank you as always for your words, Abigail.
A great read to start my day. Thank you!
Thank you very much, Debra, so happy uou liked it.
Thank you Abigail
For the tip on Craypas
Gotta get some!
No home is complete without them. And try the black paper, too.
Thank you for this, Abigail. Thank you for all you share with us.
Kathy, thank you, the marvel that you are.
Thanks for putting a new spin on “the devil is in the details.” Depressed, empty, useless, alive…you always manage to be utterly charming.
Oh Blair, thank you. I forgot all about the devil. I wish I'd remembered that.
Glad you’re still here sharing your details and bringing tears to my eyes.
How very nice of you, thank you very much, Alice..
Love watching your mind unfurl, here and everywhere you express it.
Playing with color is great medicine. It allows a smile to happen and a smile is close to a laugh and we all know how laughter heals. 😊 I recommend “color pills” daily.
Color pills. Good idea, But they have to be easy to open. And yes, laughter and tears both are necessities of life. Thank you for the word unfurl. Loved that.
I love this. I've had some arid periods lately for new writing which I view exactly as you do. Before I focused on writing as a young person I spent my time with chalk and charcoal and pen and paint. Craypas are new to me but they sound like just the thing. Thank you, Abby (if I may).
Of course you may. Chalk and charcoal and pen and paint. What a wonderful way to start a life. Craypas are a lot of fun. Try them out.
I will!