I started this post 3 hours ago. 

Sat down.  Decided some nice spring photos would be great to use since I don’t have any brand new work I want to showcase – just Daughter’s birthday jewelry and I’m ekeing them out to keep her in suspense.

Noticed blinking light on phone, that I missed a phone call while out shooting photos and getting lost wandering around the yard loving all the purples, and seeing my pink azaleas are in bloom (full to just starting depending on sun or shade), how the crabapple is almost done and how did I miss that the Kwanzan cherry is in full bloom?

Phone call was an order from my being Artist of the week highlighted in WholeSaleCrafts.com weekly newsletter.  I knew I was highlighted because a friend from the Philadelphis Buyer’s Market emailed yesterday and said:  “Great interview!”  My reaction:  huh?  Back to order:  Calvert Marine Museum…3 minutes down the road from me.  Their gift shop manager is beside herself about the Possibilities tiles.

Back to writing the blog.  Needed to check on the

 two other blogs I wanted to highlight today.  Saw that My contact with Women to Women had emailed – she needed a blurb to send out with the May newsletter introducing me as the speaker.  Went to my file (yes!  I have a system here!), pulled up my head shot and blurb, updated it to match what I’ll be speaking about and sent it off. 

Then noticed that my VA, who is working with me to set up my soon to be announced eseminar on Selling Your Art – Keeping Your Soul (whoops! I guess that counts as a pre-announcement?*), had emailed.  Since this is happening May24, that all takes precedence.  It’s great to have a VA to think these thing through with!  So I thought that through as I responded to her questions.

 (and hey, I just lost half my post putting in the frog photo!) (And then I published the half post!). 

Back to photos into Photoshop to prepare for print.  Finish post.  Prepare to put photos in post.  Lose half of post (and it was such a good post!).  Now rewriting post.  I guess this one will be better because otherwise the first one would still be here!  And it’s only 11:40 a.m.

Relentless is not like overwhelm.  Overwhelm stops you in your tracks, makes you feel stuck (see remedies here and here).  Relentless is more like giving birth, like labor:  pain, rest, “can’t do this,” no choice but to continue on, anticipation, fear of failure, fear of succeeding, joy, anger and most of all the realization that we are on some wild ride that is leading places that we can’t yet see.

Making art is relentless.  Being self-employed is relentless in the same way.  Who would want to crawl back into that old shell – it may look cozy from the midst of relentless, but if you stop and think you’ll remember that it didn’t fit anymore – pinched and chaffed and hurt all the time, no resting place.  No.  Relentless is better.  You just never know what grace is waiting around the corner just for you!

Just so you know you’re not alone, here’s Naomi Dunford’s When You Feel Like a Raging Failure.  Browse her posts – this is no wimpy feel-sorry-for-me-woman.  We all have our days. 

And here’s Leah Piken Kolidas of Creative Every Day sharing a way to give yourself space to breath.

*Want to know about How to Price Your Art?  Run over here.  Take the Artists Survey if you haven’t yet.  Scroll down and sign-up for the report out – I’ll keep you posted.

Wylde Women Wisdom: 

The hero is not “above,” looking down on human endeavor; she is often confused, living in the flux.  Therefore, she does not try to eliminate all suffering and pain, but to affirm life in all its manifestations, and through this affirmation to transform it.  Carol Pearson and Katherine Pope