Many thanks to the editors of Sad Girl Review - not for accepting my recent submission (they didn't) - but for putting the call out there in the first place.
Their fall issue will be all handwritten material: to-do lists, diary entries, rough sketches, drafts of poems, doodles. In other words, it will be FUN, as writing and drawing should be.
I love this invitation to play, to leave our advice books on the shelf and to turn the volume down (way down) on the voices in our heads (a teacher's? a relative's? our own?) - the voices that say we're not REAL artists, so why bother.
Four-year-olds don't sit and analyze their brush strokes; they just stick their fingers in the paint and go to town.
What if you do that, too? What if you pick up a pencil, a crayon, a pen, whatever and let words and images flow out? Maybe others will be amazed by your brilliance. (What fun! Go you!) Maybe not. Who cares? The main thing is to have a good time creating something new. To rev up your creative engine. To feel your voice grow stronger with time and lots of practice.
The image above was part of my rejected manuscript (a piece I called "The Hive"), which I adapted from a journal entry. Yes, I'm blushing as I share it. And yes, I prefer acceptances. But hey, I had a blast giving this handwritten stuff a whirl. I have zero training in visual arts (surprise!), but for this challenge, I let the kid in me out of her box, and she had a great run. Good thing, because rumor has it life is fleeting. As long as we're not kicking someone else in the shins, we might as well have some freewheeling times while we're here.
So go for broke, artist/friend - let fly with your creativity. And while you're at it, take a peek at the pieces that were accepted for the Sad Girl Review's issue when it comes out. And enjoy! Why not?
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