On Tuesday, October 11th 2011, I will begin reading aloud from the sequel to The Nancy Who Drew. This is indeed a work-in-progress, and yet it is progressing, which is the main thing.
I began writing this Book Two last June after I published what I now think of as the first memoir, but it was slow going. I kept getting bogged down in the feelings the memories brought up, and was racked by all sorts of doubts, the main one being, how to present the story.
It is the story of what happened after I returned to New York after seven years abroad and took up painting. Sounds simple enough, but it was far from simple, because I only really became a serious painter out of spite. Out of hurt feelings and, well, spite.
Yet it was this journey, this journey that began in anger and through desperation, that took me through the dark passage and finally over the threshold and into the light.
It is the story behind my own personal experience of Art and Ascension, the title of
Oil on canvas by NW 1980s
the Blog Talk Radio show I have been hosting for almost two and a half years now. Then last month, September, I suddenly had the idea to tell my story out loud on the radio show. To write Episodes instead of Chapters. The format is called The Host Interviews Herself, because I found that the story and the writing and the telling, flowed like a river, streaming out of me when I opened my mouth and read it aloud. I was now the Host of the show, the Interviewer asking questions, and the Guest, answering. Somehow this sort of ‘taking control of the show’ was the impetus I needed to ‘take control’ of my story. Or rather the next part of it.
I seem to have found a way to turn on the faucet that fills up the pages. The first book took so long to complete, partly because I was learning how to write as well as coming to a realization of ‘voice,’ and what my voice was in terms of the text. In a way this telling the story out loud as it gets written is just an extension of the realization of voice on the next level.
(Detail) by NW 1980s
This second book picks up where the first one left off, after my Awakening and return to the States. I am also going to be taking advantage of the added benefit of being on Internet Radio, by playing music at those crucial moments that fit in with the theme. So hopefully it will be entertaining as well.
The theme is that of confronting the Shadow, and how I took it to the canvas, and dealt with my own darkness by painting it, transforming the dark into light.
LINK to Show ~ Episode One
