Finding Readers

It´s the opening of my first photography exhibition this Wednesday. I´m showing with two other photographers -- Natasha Drewnicki and Katia Novella -- and we´re working with the theme Nature, Nurture, Woman.

I´m writing. I´m writing for my writing group and researching for my next novel, but the photo exhibit has consumed a lot of my time and creative energy over the last few months. I don´t think this is a bad thing. In fact, I think I´ve grown as an artist, under the pressure of having my work go public, and I´ve learned about how to set small goals for myelf rather than setting one huge final goal that only serves to intimidate me and stress me out.

Last week, an excerpt from More House and an author bio went up on the New Star website. It was such a pleasure to see evidence of the work that other people, people who hardly know me, had been putting into making More House into a published book. I felt distant from the words I was reading, like the book had been written by somebody else, and I enjoyed this feeling of separation.

Yesterday, I spoke to Autumn Zimmerman, the gallery director, about More House and I found myself doing the usual, "Hm, well, it´s kind of experimental and weird, and the narrator is me, but I´m also a character, and we´re making a movie in it and there´s a director." Basically, making no sense whatsoever and feeling thoroughly inarticulate. Autumn surprised me with her response, however, saying that she was a big reader but got bored sometimes of the same old stuff and wanted something different. She said she would like to read it. And I actually believed her. Maybe I hadn´t been as inarticulate as I thought I´d been.