Reading this Sunday and Playing Fall Tourist in Search of Inspiration
- At October 01, 2015
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 0
I’m reading on Sunday at the Bellevue University of Washington Bookstore, which is a charming store all on its own, with a cafe, at 3 PM. I hope some of you can make it! I’ll be reading a teensy bit of older work and from my new book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter.
Back from the new Impressionist exhibit (and new Morse exhibit) at Seattle Art Museum, where we went in search of inspiration. Glenn’s favorite was Gallery at the Louvre by inventor Samuel Morse, while I like Renoir’s Girl with a Cat and the Van Gogh Flower Fields in Holland Best (Van Gogh’s Flower Beds doesn’t look totally like his style yet, does it? We’re so used to him painting French landscapes. But that painting reminded me of La Conner’s flower festival, with its hyacinths, daffodils, and tulip beds.)
Yes, we’ve been taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather to go out and play tourist – last night at the SAM, the day before that at the Point Defiance Zoo.
I’ve been in search of inspiration to last through the drearier upcoming winter months. Right now, though, the outdoors is full of mountains, sunflowers, dahlias – the stores and roadside stands stocking the first of the new squash and apples – and I’m unearthing sweaters (though I fear that at the rate we’re going, we’re going to be stuck renting in our old home for the winter, too!) Yesterday I got to page 100 on my book for Two Sylvias on PR and marketing for Poets, which was my goal for the first draft. I’ve been struggling a bit with feeling okay about writing this book – you know, imposter syndrome (who am I to write a book like this? What are people going to think of me for writing about this subject? Will they think I’m a sellout? Is it even possible to sell a lot of books of poetry?) – just stupid stuff like that.
Fall usually means settling down for the rain and reading and writing more, getting work done, though I have to say my last few late summer weeks felt more productive than usual. But they’ve also been anxious – about this non-fiction book, about our housing search, about the health of various family members and my own stupid partially collapsed lung, about maybe getting a regular job again – so maybe another reason to go out and find and celebrate the beauty in the world around you is to quiet the spinning, to turn anxiety into energy for other things. Time to bake something and then get this first draft of the book into my publishers!