Take 10 minutes to describe where you are and how you are. Sketch the room you are writing in, the mood you are writing in, anything delightful or interesting that catches your attention. Julia Cameron, The Right to Write, pg. 75I’m sitting in our living room, listening to the Dave Matthews Band covering the Almond Brothers, while the college computer hums steadily. Brad clicks away on the mouse, and the sun casts the pointed shadow of my pen across the paper. It moves quickly across the paper, scratching out my seismic motions in neat cursive rows. A cat, and then two cats, cross the tiled terracotta rooftops on the other side of our enclosed garden. Jess Shamblee calls one “Pancake” and the other “The Mean One” because it bullies all the others. The sun already seems close to setting, and it’s only 2pm. It goes down early these days—before 6pm. It’s warm here, and a nice slow Sunday afternoon. Brad is haggling with videos and photographs that he’s trying to load, with a frustrated remark now and then directed at the ancient computer. The easel in front of me overflows with sixteen drawings, four photographs, and a newspaper article from the China Daily about a Chinese photographer. I’m in one of our two living room chairs, resembling a piece of lawn furniture. I’m wearing baggy blue jeans, a favorite cream-colored t-shirt with a screen-printed bird, and comfortable socks. My shaggy bangs are held back with bobby pins and a hairband, my neck is encircled my a necklace of pink, brown, and white polished stones…
