“To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore
That Moore quote blew my mind today.
That’s because for me, I always thought that I was afraid to paint or even try to paint because my sweet, well meaning mom told me when I was little that nobody in our family had an artistic bone in our bodies.
I was meant to make story with words, she said. She was right. But I really wanted to make story with image, too. We never had fancy markers. We never had fancy paint. So, I’d work the crayons all the way to the nubs. I’d completely demolish the eraser on the end of my number 2 pencil.
I only took one art class in high school because I was so focused on making sure that I looked “academically rigorous” enough to get into colleges, which worked.
But there was always this urge to paint.
I’ve always though that the reason that I couldn’t share my images was because I was too afraid of ridicule because “nobody in our family has an artistic bone in their body.”
Now, that I’ve seen that Moore quote I think there might be another layer in there that adds to that fear.
“To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore
One of the major criticisms that I get of my writing (news, blogs, books, poems, social media posts) is that I’m schmaltzy, that I have hope. I usually can brush that aside when it comes to writing because I believe in hope for communities and individuals. I believe that the drive to want to make things better is partially rooted in the hope that each of us can make a difference.
So, why can’t I allow my art to be hopeful too? To be seen? It’s decidedly bright. It’s decidedly full of aspiration. It’s hope.
Hope hasn’t been that cool since Obama, and even then not everyone was into it.
But here’s the thing: hope doesn’t mean an absence of understanding.
Hope doesn’t mean that you don’t acknowledge evil.
Hope doesn’t mean that you don’t see the need for change. It actually implies the need for change.
To believe in life. That’s a giant step of hope. To believe that we can make a difference, can understand, work together and alone to make brighter futures for us and everyone else despite everything?
That’s pretty damn powerful.
We have to believe in our hope, in life, in our own power to do good, don’t we? Because if we don’t? We shutter ourselves, our community. If we don’t, we choose hopelessness, the downward spiral.
I regret how cowardly I’ve been about so many aspects of my life. But I’m really hoping to fill myself with brightness and hope.
Keith Haring said, “Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.”
I want to go further. I hope you do, too.
So, here’s my painting for BE BRAVE FRIDAY
Totally not finished.
Totally flawed.
Totally still trying.
Totally me.
By me. 🙂
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I took the first part of a painting class and as everyone was putting up their paintings, I ghosted out. Seriously, I snatched my painting off the easel and ran out, while these other people who had time and talent to take two hours out of their afternoon made friends and connections as they looked at each other’s works in progress.
Brave?
Not one bit.
Apparently, I have a lot of work left to do.
At first I pretended to myself that the reason I rushed off was because the painting was such a mess—chaotic colors—dry brushes—clashes and strokes that made no sense—and then I admitted about one mile onto the Crooked Road that it was because I was such a clashing, chaotic mess. Not the painting. Me.
I was such a mess that I called Shaun and told him what I’d done.
“Are you going to go back next Tuesday?” he asked.
“Of course not. I ghosted out.” My hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I told them how my sweet mom said I didn’t have an artistic bone in my body and I wanted to prove her wrong. I was so vulnerable. Nobody else was so vulnerable. They were real artists. Rocky Mann was there!”
“He’s a potter.”
“He’s real.”
“You’re also real.”
“An art teacher was there! And another potter and—”
And then because the wireless coverage on our island sucks, I lost the connection.
When I got home and dealt with all my own editing and writing deadlines and family (dogs and cats and human) needs, and wrote stories for my local news blog, and went to a meeting, I let myself look at the painting again.
It was still an unholy mess. And I broke all the rules. It was supposed to be about color and light and looking at plants through that. My plant became some sort of geyser. A bird head in rough form snuck in. A woman, small with hands lifted to the sky stood at the bottom center.
I don’t know how she got there.
And I don’t know how I got here either. But I’m going to try to channel a little more fierce next week. Maybe go back. Maybe not turn myself into a ghost or other transparent things.
Anyway, I hope that you get where you want to be this week or next. I hope you turn yourself solid. No more ghosts.
Here is that work in progress. Or possibly “work that’s about to be painted over.” 🙂
Agh.
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He was walking next to me, one step ahead, turning to face me, pausing so I could keep up. “You’re going to a bar? Off campus? With people who aren’t students?”
“I am.”
When I was in college, I got to get out of my college bubble because I dispatched as part of my work-study. I was poor, so I had work-study, grants, aid, and a small loan. Being a security dispatcher meant that I talked to and hung out with people who weren’t students, professors or staff. My college was pretty great. But honestly? Between that dispatching job and interning for Janet T. Millsfor two summers when she was the Androscoggin County District Attorney? It’s where I learned the most about the world and people.
The other student stopped, turned to face me and said, face full of raised eyebrows and slack lips. “Why?”
“Your face is a question mark,” I told him.
“You are devastatingly weird,” he huffed and walked on. A second later, he said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Why not?” I liked the people at work and at my internship.
“Because it’s unsafe,” he said. “You don’t—They are older than you.”
“Not all of them.”
“They aren’t students.”
I stopped now, right on the edge of the campus where the student housing ended and the Lewiston apartment buildings began. “So, students are safe, but regular people aren’t?”
He didn’t have a real answer. I went out to that bar because I was always doing things back then that made me uncomfortable, that made me learn, and I watched a coworker sing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” with a skinny, pale guy on the fiberglass karaoke floor in a bar that smelled like 90s cops’ thick deodorant, chewing tobacco, and beer. Half the bar was cops and people from the DA’s office, though not the DA, and the other half were people that the cops had arrested before, that I’d seen in the courthouse. They all mingled together. Or at least they did that night.
The guy my coworker was singing with had a criminal record and a frame that barely held up his skin; brown hair leaked past the ridge of his t-shirt. She sang a song she hated, but she knew her voice sounded good when she crooned out Streisand, even when she had too many.
“Thank you,” she said to the totally inebriated guy and to the drunk audience. She thanked the guy out of professional courtesy not because he sang well. He didn’t.
“Welcome,” he replied so loudly that it came over the microphone and we all laughed. He took a bow.
He didn’t leave her side when she walked back to our table. He ordered two margaritas and paid.
“I might sleep with him later,” she told me, leaning in, all alcohol breath.
He said to her, still so loudly, “You’re beautiful singer.”
“Thank you.” She flipped through the book of karaoke songs and the guy was off to the john. She looked at me. “You never go up there and sing.”
“Can’t do it,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Too scared.”
“Of singing?”
“Of sucking.”
On the way back, he-who-was-not-afraid-of-sucking clapped along and took the microphone away from a man serenading some fishnet wearing girl with a country song I didn’t recognize. He strained to wiggle his hips to the rhythm while he sang. He couldn’t. He tried some pseudo sexy pelvic thrusts.
“Carrie is afraid of singing,” Jessie announced.
my art that I’m always so afraid to share.
He eyeballed me and his hand clung to the curve of Jessie’s back. “Carrie looks like she’s afraid of a lot of things.” He leaned forward so all I could smell was him; beer sour, tobacco stained-breath. “You are afraid of your own damn voice, aren’t you?”
I was. Jessie wasn’t. He obviously wasn’t. But I was and I still kind of am, but I’m working on it.
Every week, I’m trying to learn that it’s not the end of the world to get a small detail wrong and that you can correct that detail and that it’s way more important to focus on the act of speaking, writing, singing, reporting, doing. It’s way more important to enjoy and be a part of the process.
But it’s so hard sometimes.
How about you? Are you finding ways to be brave, to put your voice out there, to sing and not worried that you might not sound awesome? I hope so. I hope you do.
Also, I made a QR code for my art place. How cool is that?
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Today is Be Brave Friday, and I don’t have a ton of insight. I know! I know! Way to sell a blog post, Carrie, right?
Me and Em not being scared.
So, I thought I should look to some wordsmiths instead.
Courage is found in unlikely places.
J.R.R. Tolkien
There’s something that compels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.
Maya Angelou
Courageous people do not fear forgiving for the sake of peace.
Nelson Mandela
I am no Tolkein, Angelou, or Mandela, but there’s a great compulsion in me to edge toward peace at all times, to expose my innermost self, and to learn and learn and seek, which is why I hope to find courage in unlikely places as I contemplate some big writing leaps this weekend.
It’s a time for new projects–projects I’m a little afraid about, honestly.
And speaking of projects, this is a giant (for me) painting that I’m working on. I’m not done with it yet, so try not to judge too harshly.
Unlikely Places
Courage is sort of an elusive beast for us sometimes. I get anxious just posting, but what helps me to move past anxiety and fear is to stop thinking about myself.
I’ve been so lucky because I get kind people giving me feedback that my random thoughts and bits of brave have helped them get brave, too. That’s mind blowing to me actually. But it helps me to keep posting and keep revealing.
Here’s the thing: If you only think about YOU, fear starts taking over.
When fear starts taking over, it’s harder to act.
I could never post a poem or painting or podcast because I’m scared about being ridiculed or exposing my vulnerability, but when I stop focusing on me and what could negatively impact me, I allow myself to make connections with others and hopefully help them, too.
One of the easiest ways to take action, to move forward, to be courageous is to think about other people, the world outside your brain. If you have a sense of purpose (even if it’s to make someone else less awkward at a board meeting), then you can eat away your fear.
Caring about others, caring about helping others helps us shift the focus away from ourselves, but it also helps us push down our fear to a back corner in where it belongs.
POSTS AND PODCASTS THIS WEEK
And just to catch up, here are the posts from this week!
Over on Medium and my social media, I post motivating daily thoughts from my animals. On Medium (and only on Medium), I post poems that I’ve written (usually) every weekday. You should check it out! And clap or something so I can make $1 over there this month. 🙂
How About You?
There you go! And how are you doing? Are you hanging in? Being brave? Thinking thoughts? Sharing new things?
NEW BOOK OUT
It’s called THE PEOPLE WHO LEAVE and it’s the latest installment of the Dude series. Shaun (the husband) and I are currently arguing about whether it’s the last installment. I say yes. He says no. Feel free to weigh in if you’ve been reading it.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Because our daughter is home for the week, we’re taking the week off in posting BE BRAVE FRIDAY video and podcast and also our LOVING THE STRANGE podcast because we want to make family time a priority for this one week.
I know! We never miss a week.
And sometimes I have a tiny bit of anxiety over that, but it’s worth it. Family is worth it.
So instead, I thought I might quickly talk about what it means to be brave. Ready?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A BRAVE PERSON?
It’s pretty simple really. Being brave means being tough enough to face your fears.
Being brave means knowing something scares you but wanting to defeat that wall of fear, climb over it, chip away at it, knock it down brick by terrifying brick.
Your fear may be about failure, about self-doubt, about spiders. Your fear might be about ridicule or judgement. Fears come in all forms.
Mine mostly come about sharing my art, speaking in public, good, old public ridicule, being poor again, and making the world a worse place.
Being brave means that you go after what you want, you evolve into the person you want to become and you don’t let those fears stop you.
SOMETIMES FACING YOUR FEARS HAS TO HAPPEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
As a lot of you know, I’m terrified of showing people my art, but I’ve always secretly wanted to be an artist even though my family laughed at this idea or rolled their eyes or scoffed. I never took an art class until right before COVID and that was an hour-long session about felting. Oh. Wait. That’s a lie. I took a class about drawing at the Y but quit after a session because I was too scared.
Still, I had these wants, you know? I wanted to paint. I wanted to get the images in my head onto canvas or wood or napkins or whatever, and I wanted to share them. Or at least–I didn’t want to be afraid to share them anymore.
So, BE BRAVE FRIDAYS was born and I would show people my paintings-in-progress every Friday and my PATREON was born where I would show people chapters in progress every Friday and our podcasts were born where my voice would be out there to be ridiculed every week (now three times a week, wow).
Someone told me on Facebook last year, “Carrie, people on here are so supportive of your paintings. How can this be a brave act for you?”
That’s the thing. It’s still hard. Every damn week, it’s hard. But it’s getting slightly less harder most of the time. It’s a chipping away at it moment.
WHAT IS IT THAT BRAVE PEOPLE DO DIFFERENTLY?
They do the thing they are afraid of even though they are scared, even though they might fail.
You can’t achieve if you don’t take a risk.
They are honest about who they are and their fears.
I’ve gotten a lot of feedback over the years, usually by well-meaning, well educated, white women who are a decade or two older than I am who tell me not to be so open about my insecurities.
Spoiler alert: Judging me for being insecure or telling me how to ‘be’ is a sure-fire way to NOT make me more secure.
But it’s also a sure-fire way to make me a bit angry. I am okay that I’m not perfect. I know I’m a work in progress and I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that. Why would I want to not admit that?
Once you start pretending to be someone you aren’t, you get so wrapped up in that lie that it becomes exceptionally hard to be who you are.
It becomes exceptionally hard to be brave.
Authenticity and being open about your flaws and weaknesses? It’s a brave thing.
THEY DON’T ONLY THINK ABOUT FEAR
Brave people think about the potential amazing outcomes that can happen if they succeed not just the potential horrible outcomes if they fail.
Spending all your time thinking about what could go wrong, means that you aren’t spending anywhere enough time thinking (and taking the steps) to do what you want to go right.
So, I hope you’ll be brave with me and share your stories. Here are my paintings this week. You’ve got this, okay? You really do. Be brave with me.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
I spend a lot of time with a little hiccup of fear in my throat.
I’m afraid of hurting other people. I’m afraid of doing something wrong despite good intentions. I’m afraid of drama–like really afraid of drama and conflict–because I grew up with so much of it.
BE BRAVE FRIDAYS has always been about me doing something that I’m uncomfortable with, of being more authentically who I am, weirdness and anxiety and self-deprecation and all.
I know! I know! Nobody thinks self-deprecation is a good look, but whatever. Despite everyone’s emails telling me to not be open about my ‘issues,’ I’m going to still be open about my issues.
Why?
Because I don’t believe in hiding behind facades and lies and fear.
And because I have more emails from people who tell me that my being open about being scared or nervous or anxious helps them to be brave too. And that’s why next week we’re going to start sharing other people’s stories via video. We’ll read them. You write them. We want to build up a community where we share stories of triumph, of big and little steps forward.
Why?
Because there’s enough places that share stories of hate. And if we can push forward towards good, inspire one person? All the work will totally be worth it.
Love is a powerful force and that even when you rage and sob, even when anxiety makes you pace across the bedroom at 2 a.m., you can still survive and that love? Love’s the reason that you can. Love and hope and belief.
That’s why I do BE BRAVE FRIDAYS here and on social media. And why I want it to be about more than me, but about you too.
Here’s the painting I’m working on this week.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
I hope we can all be brave, hold each other up, grab each other’s hands and make something good today.
If you’ve read my Be Brave Friday posts before, you know I have a hard time sharing my art because … parents. I love them and they were great humans, but they laughed off my artistic tendencies, which is fine! You can only look at your kid’s Snoopy and Garfield crayon drawing so many times.
I can still hear my mom’s voice say, “Nobody in this family has an artistic bone in their body.”
That resonated.
And somehow sharing art always makes me feel so vulnerable. Here’s what I’m working on right now.
It’s not done yet.
Speaking of vulnerable, I’m starting to publish a whole slew of books myself because it’s:
A challenge
Fun because it’s a challenge
Terrifying.
I am apparently addicted to stress and to writing. Who knew? Everyone. Everyone knew.
Keeps me more connected with my readers than traditional publishing.
I am still going to be traditional publishing! Do not worry!
But putting out books all by myself? It’s weirdly empowering and absolutely terrifying and I’m all about evolving, right? I mean, I don’t have a ton of time left on the Earth so I need to make the most of it.
The people who kill
The second book in the Bar Harbor Rose Mystery series is called THE PEOPLE WHO KILL.
Sometimes it seems like everyone wants someone to die . . . .
After dealing with a serial killer and a long Maine winter, Rosie Jones is ready for a little bit of calm in her adopted coastal Maine town. Then Ernie Emerson, a ladies man and newly married cop, is bludgeoned to death outside a summer estate in what many think was a robbery gone wrong.
But Rosie soon realizes that a lot of people, including the fired town manager, had some pretty powerful reasons to want Ernie dead.
The death of Ernie brings a whole lot of repercussions for Rosie. She might be losing her reporting job. There’s all kinds of tension with her still-not-divorced, sort-of-boyfriend, Seamus Kelley, and her snooping is potentially making her the killer’s next target.
Hoping to solve the crime before she gets hurt any more, Rosie starts to put the pieces together. But that’s not that easy when nobody, including Seamus, wants her to do law enforcement’s job and solve the murder of one of their own.
Upcoming Books! See I’m committed! And it’s so scary!
July – THOSE WHO SURVIVED – YA murder mystery.
August – A YA paranormal
September – The sequel to July’s murder mystery! So YA/NA mystery.
October – THE TREASURES WE HIDE.
November – Adult paranormal
December – YA paranornal
Oh! And check out podcasts when you get a chance. There are writing tips and life tips on DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE and just a freer flow of weirdness on our very live LOVING THE STRANGE. Tonight at 7 p.m. EST, we’ll be going a bit deeper into alien abductions.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Being brave is about telling your truths and story despite trolls and ridicule.
It’s Be Brave Friday today and truth is that so many people are being brave every damn day.
Being brave is about continuing after massive loss.
Being brave is about living in a world that might be pressing you down.
Being brave is going after your dreams.
Being brave is about being who you are — open, vulnerable, flawed, and shiny.
Being brave is about telling your truths and story despite trolls and ridicule.
Being brave is sometimes dealing with just an annoying email that makes your heart sink.
I hope we can all hold each other up, grab each other’s hands and make something good.
If you’ve read my Be Brave Friday posts before, you know I have a hard time sharing my art because … parents. It always makes me feel so vulnerable.
Anyway, this is a painting that I’m making prints of and sending some out to my patrons who help me out and read my unpublished stories on Patreon. I hope you like it okay. I know it’s not a lot of color.
And I hope you might hang out with Shaun and I for a bit tonight (7 p.m. EST) on LOVING THE STRANGE (on Facebook/YouTube/Twitter).
I should really make it’s own reminder post, but I’m not feeling super brave about that. Put your brave on my friends. We’ve got this, right?
Daily Cuteness
Every weekday on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, I share insight/thoughts/inspiration from our two dogs and three cats. If you want to follow me on any of those places? It’d be great.
Here’s today’s, courtesy of Sparty Dog.
Whatever you used to be, used to think?
That doesn’t need to matter anymore.
Carve out who you want to be right now.
Create the story you want to live.
The future is still out there, ready for you to soar into it.
And choose love & treats. Always.
xo
Sparty Dog
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
As you know if you’ve been following my blog for awhile, I get super anxious about sharing art because my family wasn’t very supportive about art.
It was all I longed to do (other than go outside and look for Big Foot), but it wasn’t what I was supposed to do.
I will always remember me giving paintings to my two adorable parents as an adult and them exchanging looks that absolutely meant, “What the hell is this?” Lol.
But Faulkner said, “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
I hope you find new horizons and thank you so much for being so supportive as I find mine be it art or podcasting or showing my face in a photo. I appreciate you all so very much.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ― Nelson Mandela
In times of change and strife, it is sometimes hard to have courage, to not just face that fear, but conquer it.
Mandela’s quote really resonates with me today as does this one.
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.” ― Elizabeth Cady Stanton
This is my little bit of bravery this week, sharing a painting I’m working on.
On one of my Patreon sites I read and print chapters of unpublished YA novels. THE LAST GODS and SAINT and now ALMOST DEAD. This is a monthly membership site (Hear the book chapters – $1/month, read them $3-month, plus goodies!). Sometimes I send people art! Art is fun.
On this, my second site, WRITE BETTER NOW, you can do a one-time purchase of a writing class or get two of my books in eBook form or just support our podcast or the dogs. It’s all part of the WRITING CLASS OF AWESOME.
It’s a super fun place to hang out, learn, read, and see my weirdness in its true form.
I have a quick, pre-recorded Teachable class designed to make you a killer scene writer in just one day. It’s fun. It’s fast. And you get to become a better writer for just $25, which is an amazing deal.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
