Breathless

Dear Friends,

I’m feeling a little breathless right now from the wind and/or the pace of life lately. But what’s life without a few races interspersed with hurdles? And several gusts of wind strong enough to blow the garbage cans into the street? Ah, spring!

I am happy to report that I finished a revision of the picture book manuscript I’ve been working on forever. I’m hoping to buckle down and crank out the illustrations over the summer—or at least have finished sketches for my agent before we head to Asia.

Yes, I’ll be in Tokyo for a good part of the summer, as well as Seoul for a few weeks, too. I’ve just begun thinking and planning for it, and I’m so looking forward to All The Things. I admit to feeling a bit intimidated by this trip; I’m having a hard time nailing down all the Japanese phrases that will be necessary to know. They seem to slide off my brain with no opposition. However, Google Translate to the rescue—I hope! If nothing else, I will have my fill of wandering through museums and exploring gardens and experiencing life in Japan (and bonus—revisiting Korea) even if I can’t say a blessed thing other than “arigatou gozaimasu.”

On the art front, I had a piece accepted into the show “On the Merrimack” at the Arts League of Lowell, which will be running until June 28. A reception will be held this weekend on the 9th from 3:00-5:00 if you’d care to join us. I’ve also switched out several of the pieces I have in my co-op space. Go check them out if you’re in the area.

The genesis retreat plans are shaping up. I’ll be announcing our visiting writer shortly, and I can’t wait because our author is absolutely thrilling! In the meantime, applications are currently being accepted as we have a few spots left.

As for my reading goals, huzzah! I finally finished The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (the book from my shelf of red books that was the third in the series) after hunting down and reading/listening to the first two in the series. I did check out the audiobook of the next in the series, The Brothers Hawthorne, but I didn’t finish it before it was due, and considering I’m supposed to be focusing on my own red books, I didn’t renew it.

So I went on to the next book on the bookshelf: The Law of Love by Steve Young. It’s not my usual fare, but he has some good points in it, and I will finish it. I did interrupt my reading of it, though, because of a required book club reading: Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown. Unfortunately, I didn’t dare greatly enough to finish it. I had to go out of town for a funeral, and the combination of packing + not enough time + not being at the book club led me to lapse on this book as well.

Besides. Red books, Ginger. Red books.

I will return to it sometime in the future because I know it has some nuggets in there that I absolutely need to hear.

Then I got a notification from the library that a book I ordered was in: Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. I have Thoughts About This Book. Ask me if you’re curious. However, it is not a Red Book.

And THEN I got a notification that the next book club book I ordered (What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama) was ironically in at the book store not the library, so once again, Steve Young was put on the back burner. I also have Thoughts About This Book.

I finished listening to the audiobook of The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud because it’s just so dang good, and we had a roadtrip to the above-mentioned funeral. I swear, I would listen to just about anything that Simon Jones narrates. Also Genevieve Gaunt, the narrator for the Emma Lion series.

Which brings me to my guilty pleasures of both reading and listening to volumes 5, 6, and 7 of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower, none of which are Red Books. I held off on reading volume 8 until May began so I can read it in “real time,” prolonging the enjoyment until volume 9 releases in July.

And last but not least, I’m still working my way through The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing by Adam Moss. It’s a beast of a book (in terms of length), and I’m sipping from it daily. I suspect I’ll be finished by the end of this month.

If you’re in the market for some trippy visual acrobatics, I can recommend the Museum of Illusions, especially if you go with a group of friends at a time when it’s not particularly busy. It’s enlightening to consider all the many ways our minds are tricked by false things, even if they’re right in front of our eyes. (Oh, was that a pointed message for Our Times? Indeed.)

Happy May, my friends! May your month be filled with flowers and frosted cupcakes!

All the best,

Ginger