I think, finally, I can write again without feeling like I'm living in someone else's shadow.

It's a good feeling, really. Knowing that I can now write without feeling like I'm going to be compared with anyone else. I'm stepping out of my shell now.

I'd like to be an artist, but I realize now that writing is probably where my true passion lies. This summer, I'm going to start a novel, as well as start a few paintings. I just need to get a quick outline up (for both the paintings and the novels) and then see where I can go from there.

Summer seems lovely, now, and not so much a six-week hell. Just knowing that I'll have a long stretch of time in which to throw myself wholehearted into my art (literary and visual, --I've always used the word "art" to mean both. Writers are artists, as words are art.). I'll have enough time to listen to all The Beatles' albums, I'll have enough time to finish War and Peace and The Brother's Karamazov, I'll have enough time to learn how to cook and open cans.

It's just an entirely different set of mind. I really am starting to enjoy it.

In the meantime, I think, I'm going to shut up. I'm really quite in the mood for a good shutting up. I've been saying what's on my mind all too often recently, and shutting up for awhile is probably what's best for me.

-L
-I-x-K