Juice

One way to get "juice" into your work.

When I walk into a writing class I put the word "juice"
on the board in huge letters. You can teach all the
grammar and structure you want, but if writers don't
have juice - power, vitality, vision, punch, oomph,
excitement, no one will read what they have to say.

In painting the juice in your work is what gets you up
in the morning, makes you think about a painting all the time,
lets you see flashes of colours and solutions in your dreams.
Juice matters. You can look at 30 landscapes, beautifully
executed technically, and the one with juice will grab
you and won't let you go.

It's been snowing here, and people think that's a good reason
to abandon their spirit, to look downcast, to feel
deservedly irritated. But snow happens, and many
communities have way more, tons more snow than the
couple of inches that fell here. Snow, parking tickets,
filling in forms, waiting in line. Once again juice is the
answer.

One way to get your juice back is the one recommended
by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way, and before her by
Natalie Goldberg, in Wild Mind, and that's to write in a journal
daily. The blog is like a journal, but less intimate because it's
broadcast to the world.

In your journal you can describe your fears and even ask
questions to a theoretical imaginary artistic power and write down
the answers. You can mention your petty worries, and
make lists. The possibilities are endless. You can go all
high end and have superb sketches and great prose, then
publish! (Hey you can do that in a blog too.)

Enough. I'll let myself speak for myself.

Have a writing-your-thoughts-in-a-journal-for-juice day.