Some things you can plunge in and do. Other things need to be done in steps. Like writing. I love writing  quotations and poetry  in my art work. I wanted the writing to get really big, so I gradually wrote bigger and bigger. I'm now more confident about the whole thing. This piece is BIG.

Ná bris do loigrín ar stól nach bhfuil i do shlí. (Do not break your shin on a stool that is not in your way.)

Pen and ink on kozuke paper. I resisted crushing this one.
I love the act of writing, slowly, largely, dipping my pen into the ink and forming the letters.

The words are by Michelangelo. His poetry was part of my university course, Italian language and literature being my minor. They are as moving as his art. Roughly translated, they mean "in me is death, Love, in you is my life .... whether my life be long or short..." Michelangelo, of course, wrote in the Italian of his time; my version is modern.

Be good to your friends -- Kevin Bacon.

Friday's child

I had coffee with a writer who, for as long as I've known her, has taken the process of writing much too seriously. She waxed poetical about semi-mystical notions of creative energy and philosophical meanderings. "The blank page terrifies me," she said, tapping her forefinger nervously on the side of her cup. "I think I have writer's block."

"Maybe thinking too much about the process is causing it," I said mildly. "It's not that complicated. You just sit down and write."

"But how do I start if my mind is a blank?"

"If your mind is a blank, then you don't have anything to say. You have to know what you want say before you can actually write anything."

She gave me a look. I finished my espresso. The dogs barked, and the caravan moved on.

Omit needless words

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.” -- William Strunk Jr.