Cathy Coley

Firstly, Happy New Year! What a doozy, eh?

I was wandering in personal and political storms for the last quarter.

I'm so lost in my writing, and it's slowly dawning on me that I haven't been reading the way I used to. A lot of that time is in political articles instead.

A couple of times in the past year, now for instance, I dipped back into rereads, especially of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. I'm trying to bathe in words and art, storytelling as I can, and find it incredibly hard to finish even reading fiction.

Writing in any form has become near impossible, or it feels superfluous to what's going on in the world.

So, I need to return to my old reading habits. When I ate books and graphic novels and comics, they informed my ideas, and I wrote. I haven't done this in a long time, and it is affecting my writing. I thought it was just the politics and a busy personal life, but there is always that.

I am considering leaving Twitter again, in the vein of Sherman Alexie and other writers. I'm not sure what I'm getting there except a heart clenching sense of urgency. I miss artists discussing their art. I'm reading too much OMG politics, and not enough indepth critical journalism seems available on Twitter to counter the flood of OMGism. I'm seeing way too much of a forever clenched sphincter face.

Arts, all of it, is so important, especially in critical times like this one. Let's get back to business - read, see, listen to each other, and create. And don't forget to dance.

With much love,

Cath