Writing, Art & Dystopia

(You're only doomed if you let them invade your imagination.)

All my devices are trying to shove robot co-authors down my throat even as I type this. How are we supposed to create or communicate under these conditions? I guess their plan is that they won't have to ban books anymore because no one will know how to write or read them.

It's not going to work.

With grieving and this dystopian world, it's so easy to get depressed. But as we learn from all good apocalyptic literature, you're only doomed if you let them invade your imagination. Muriel Rukeyser said, "The only security that matters is the security of the imagination," and now we've lived long enough to know that's not the ONLY security that matters—it’s just that there can’t be any other security without it.

Art helps. And right now, I have to make things.

A few months ago, I started taking a graphic memoir class because getting creative in a genre I'm not familiar with is the most fun of all. You can't stay nimble for the apocalypse or the revolution if you don't practice doing things you're not currently good at. The class turned out to be half widows, which is so great—we laugh and cry so hard about how much more room we have for our art supplies. I sort of think we're creating an enviable widow mystique. (It's not actually as glamorous as we make it look!)

I made my first quilt this summer, too, improvisational and heartfelt, for a dear friend who had her first baby. It felt good to celebrate beginnings, friendship, improvisation, imperfection, and new life all at once. My friend China flew out from Baltimore to show me how to finish it. That week was like the graphic memoir class—just getting together with other people and laughing and learning new creative things.

I know this isn't the most important political work being done right now, this drawing and writing and quilting, but for me nothing else can get done without it. The way some people have to jog a mile or drink coffee before they can function—I need to make something with my hands before I can face the world.

In the graphic memoir class, I made a Wonder Widow comic and of course I wanted to publish it as a coloring book.

Publishing is a fun part of the process for me, and people funded it on Kickstarter in a week. That made me happy—money to pay the printer, and maybe proof that other people want to create too.

I put together a book of prompts as well, if you want to join me in this daily creativity practice to stave off depression and secure your imagination. It's called Ignite: 12 Weeks to Transform Your Writing Life. I've done the sequence twice now. Join me for the third? It’s just a ten-minutes-a-morning kind of thing and no guilt if you miss a day.

We may have to go back to paper and ink. But sometimes everything still feels magical. That’s how I know we’re going to win, even if I don’t know exactly how yet.

I wonder how it's going with you. Send doodles, poems, and creative fragments.

(The Kickstarter is the fastest way to get your copy of both Wonder Widow and the prompt book, Ignite—no pressure, but if you want to make things, I'm happy to collaborate with these imperfect offerings.)