Cannot Wait to be in Iceland for my Residency

Greetings, everyone! Scroll to the end to learn more about my upcoming residency in Iceland. Read about Swiss artist Jean Tinguely. Get an update on The Evangelicals. See my latest contortion. And more!

I’ve been using these entries to schedule daily posts for Instagram. Originating them on my site makes it easier to search for things I may want to reuse.

But this week, I’m giving you something that’s only available here: My reasons for travel to Iceland during the pandemic.

After working steadily as an author and speaker for six years, I was overjoyed at the beginning of 2020. I had more paid speaking gigs lined up than ever – five figures worth. I was working on a timely, relevant novel, not an obscure piece of art few would read. On the personal front, I’d been in remission for over two years. I finally had enough distance from the worst treatments to unravel and accept the granular changes to my personality, brain, and soul. I wasn’t myself, but I accepted the me I’ve been left with, the me I am now, the me I can still become.

2020 was poised to be my best year since I hit the NYT bestseller list in October 2015.

We all know what happened. I won’t whine about how the pandemic impacted me. At least I have a home, food, money. Neither MTM or I have had covid. Nobody we love has been hospitalized or died.

As a country, the United States has many problems. Culturally, the US does not value creators. We expect creators to work for exposure and recognition and networking, things that seldom involve money. Social media bombards us with examples of people who made it because they’re great content creators. But for every success, thousands of creators do the same thing for free.

My country basically decides – every day, all day long – that what I do has no value. I’m forced to pay billionaires at Amazon and Facebook if I want anyone to find my work. My money goes into a virtual slot machine, and I never, ever see it again. Almost every week, someone asks me to work for free, and they are offended if I refuse.

Because who do I think I am? It’s not like I’m famous.

I haven’t written much about it, but I had a nervous breakdown in 2019, the culmination of three years of illness and toxic, unspeakable treatments, a combination that gutted my personality and broke my brain.

During the lead-up to that meltdown, I desperately tried to be heard, to get what I needed, to be told I was okay. It took collapsing to realize I am responsible for my happiness; I teach others how to treat me; I deserve to have love and loyalty. If I settle for less than my value, I will ALWAYS have less than I deserve.

Two months in 2019 revolutionized my life. I changed the voices I allow into my head, surrounded myself with supportive people, stopped looking for what I need in the wrong places.

Because I am valuable.

To create, I need to be around those who value creators. I crave exposure to cultures that don’t expect students to incur $250,000 of student debt for an art degree and then force them to work gig jobs for free. I want to be around people who show me how other countries invest in creators, because it helps me believe in my creations.

Iceland values creators.

Their government invests in creators. A country of sagas understands that it takes creators to weave more epics. They believe creators are essential to Iceland’s overall success. The country isn’t perfect. They also have a monopoly problem, low wages, and a high cost of living. But with covid cases in the single digits for months now, I’ll be safer there. I can see old friends and make new ones. Hang out with strangers in enclosed spaces. Seek out experiences to fill my creative tank.

So I’m traveling to Iceland during the pandemic. I’m grateful to be writer-in-residence at NES Artist Residency.

My journals are rambles.

I don’t care how they read. Some days, I vent words from heart to pen to page. Others, I recount what it feels like to live through a once-in-a-century pandemic. Pages of metaphors, word associations, synonyms in a stream-of-consciousness scribble. I’m not exaggerating when I say my brain was mush three years ago. Word by word, page by page, I am rebuilding pathways in my brain. These pages don’t judge me. They don’t tell me what to do. They don’t solve or dismiss or belittle or troll.

I am beyond grateful to have found this practice again. Journals are air.

To Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, life was a glorious labyrinth.

His machines were designed to delight and inspire and even break before an observer’s shocked eyes.

He recycled found objects and cast-off detritus to weave a searing commentary about our consumerist industrial age. We spent hours at his namesake museum in Basel, wandering corridors, pushing buttons, stomping pedals, and answering Tinguely’s charge to participate in creating. To him, anyone and anything could create, and creation was gorgeous.

When the world reopens, check out Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland.

Proof I’ve always loved hats! I think I’m six years old here, but I’ve nurtured my hat fetish my whole life.

Do you wear hats? Do you have a favorite noggin-topper?

Recent Reads Friday – The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

I was lucky to get a slot in Brit Bennett’s Pen America discussion of this novel shortly after reading. I enjoyed how she wove the characters into a unique story about the Black experience. As a life-long southerner, we didn’t learn much in school about Black history. I never knew there were southern towns for Black people who looked white. The twin sisters at the story’s heart are riveting. One embraces her Blackness while the other spends her life passing as white, with piles of consequences for their children.

I told Bennett I particularly enjoyed Loretta, a minor character in the story. She talked about how interesting it was to weave that character into the fabric. I loved getting a behind-the-scenes view of her writing process.

Given our country’s fraught relationship with race, this novel is a must read.

BUY YOUR COPY HERE.

➡️ I purchase every new book featured with my own funds. I do not offer endorsements in exchange for a feature. My opinions are honest assessments of books I read, enjoy, and believe worthy of your time. Creators cannot create if people fail to support their work with actual money. I am doing my part to support worthy writers in many genres and career stages.

I call this pose Bound Twisting Shoulder Stretch, but it’s really “Holy crap I can’t believe I’m doing this” pose.

Writing stiffens the spine, but it also contorts it. I spend a lot of time hunched over a keyboard. Shoulder stretches improve my posture. I sit taller, stand firmer. From the angle of this picture, I also spread wider. Ha ha.

Also a consequence of butt in chair.

Nobody who’s read my novel-in-progress The Evangelicals would recognize it now.

Two story lines shredded and trashed. Laser focus on racism and evangelical Christian political activism. Both liberal and conservative hypocrisy.

I beefed up the right-and-left ugliness to respond to specific beta reader commentary. Because of the Christian right’s dreadful example, no reader recognized a Christian who was specifically drawn from the life and example of Christ.

The book is tighter. It’s at least 10,000 words shorter. I’m more excited right now than during the three-plus years of toil, tears, flashbacks, abuse, and bewilderment I have sifted through while writing this story.

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and The Evangelicals will be the best thing I ever write.

I’m taking my own advice. Today, I fly to Reykjavik to begin quarantine. Next week, I have another stint at NES Artist Residency in northern Iceland.

A synopsis of my work in Iceland:

• Final changes to my upcoming novel The Evangelicals in preparation to pitch.

• An art piece crafted from notes of gratitude I penned and mailed during 2020. NES will sponsor it in an international virtual exhibition later this year.

• A new novel that (I hope) will be a romantic comedy. The inspiration is the story of how MTM and I met, because I need to write something light and happy and hopeful, even if only for me.

• A personal challenge to pitch at least two articles a week. I don’t pitch because I don’t believe in myself. My head is packed with “you’re not good enough to be in that publication” and “everybody is trying to write and speak so you’re not special” and “wow, you’re really going to have to do better.” I may get nothing but rejection, but I never get anywhere if I let those voices win.

And I’m going to hug people. Spend time in restaurants and packed spaces. Hang out with fellow residents. Make new friends. See old friends. Iceland is big on hot pots and heated pools. I’ll dunk myself in a few.

Visiting Iceland is like going back to a time before covid. I’m safer there than I am at home. I’m grateful for this opportunity.