Marion Agnew

I've been thinking about writing as water. Or swimming. Or something. In this mental picture, the surface is where writing interfaces with the world--maybe publication, maybe beta readers, maybe a trusted editor. Someone other than the writer. Deep water is where ideas lurk and grow. It's where the writer opens herself to recording what is actually happening, as opposed to what she might wish were happening. Where she makes connections among disparate currents, where she finds what she's afraid of and works it into the drafts. Over time, drafts edge closer to the surface. For the past couple of years, I've been working nearer the surface, with words I first wrote 20 years ago. How do they still make sense to me, if they do--or do they make sense in a different way? How do they resonate emotionally today? What feelings have I managed to relinquish through the years, and what have I come to understand that lets me feel these events differently? To make these conne

Yesterday was the first Wednesday in a couple of years, I think, in which I didn't post something. I was traveling and enjoying being (mostly) offline. As you know, I've been on a vacation in which I've actually been...vacating. It's been great! I've thoroughly enjoyed visiting my sister, seeing her world (the sun! so many degrees on the thermometer!) and her part of the country, and experiencing a change in routine. But I love living here. So one of the highlights of the whole trip: crossing the border yesterday and hearing the agent say, "Welcome home." And it really is, pale sunlight, muddy driveway, filthy floors, dripping eaves, and everything else that goes with spring in the North (which yeah is south of most of the continent). Of course, all that is easier to greet with open arms since I missed the most recent dump of snow and mega windstorm, which my husband delights in describing in great detail as he pounds on the walls. "Every door

Here's what I've been looking at and doing recently. I don't believe in "inspiration" much, but I am a fan of "renewal," and that's what I've been fortunate enough to experience this vacation. Next week, I'll be back in the land of "yes the sun is shining but it's not WARM," and I'll love being there, too--because it's home.

One way I relax (okay, about the only way, and often it should be written "relax") is to draw lines on paper. Like so (which you would have seen on Instagram if you follow me there): I don't mean it to be art. It's something to do when I try to unwind. I like lines and I like colo(u)rs and I like to do things with my hands. I've written about this before, apparently . It's kind of shocking to click that link and see that I also didn't like to do much beyond writing and reading back in 2011. However. I bring this up because I wondered last week how I know I'm a writer and not a visual artist. Perhaps, I devil's-advocated myself, writing is comfortable--not a calling, nothing more than an old, broken-in shoe of an activity. When I was a kid, art seemed to require tools we didn't have, like easels and paints and wheels and kilns. Also, art required getting messy, which was sort of problematic in the house I grew up in (it made more wor