Author: Jess Boctor

Jede Tag sitze ich.

Ich sitze mich vor einem Computer und telefonieren. Seit Zwei jahre habe ich jede Tag mich sitzen. Es ist eine gute arbeit. Ich verdiene geld damit ich meine meite bezahlen kann. Manchmal kann ich auch mit Freudin etwas machen.

Aber will ich nicht mehr sitze.

Ich möchte Bewebung haben. Ich möchte mit meine Händ arbeiten; etwas zu machen. Etwas wird schöne und allegemein sein. Etwas wird Ihre Seele sprechen können.

Jetzt im Leben bin ich beim Kreuzweg. Mein Mann und ich denken über umziehen und ein neu Abenteur zu anfangen. Wann wir hat uns entschieden, muss ich eine neues Arbeit suchen.

Und diesmal, will ich nicht sitzen.

Fortfahren, 

Jessica

The results are in!

There are only 250 entries left in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest!

And I’m not one of them.

I found out this morning that Bondage would not be going any further in the competition. My heart takes on an immediately defensive posture and I sigh, “Meh.”

Meh. 

I knew it would be a long shot. I didn’t really expect to win. It didn’t hurt anything to try and so I did.

Well, it didn’t hurt very much at least.

If I am honest with you (and with myself) then I have to admit it does hurt. I did hope to win. Even though it was a long shot, I thought my aim was pretty good.

Just not good enough,

Those are the words which hurt the most. “Not good enough.” It makes me question why I am so insistant on this path of being a writer. It makes me wonder why I think I can do this at all or if the dreams of making a living at doing what I love are really possible.

Then I am reminded, by very loving friends, this is my first book. It is my first venture out in the world of authorship. It is the first time I tried to give shape to the worlds dancing in my head. 

And I am reminded, I do this because there is a creator who designed me for it. He gives me words to tell His storys. It is for His glory.

Psalm 45:1

My heart overflows with a pleasing theme, I address my verses to the King, my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.

Continuing the adventure,

Jessica

This bench has been on my to do list for a long time. Luckily, my loving parents took the project over and so it is finally done and looking ah mazing!

I love having reproposed items in my home.

Michelle Ward is an amazing artist who puts out challenges every month for her Green Peper Press Street Team. These crusades are fun and open to everyone. Recently she has been doing a series on Evidence Journaling, which I was very excited about but just haven’t been able to complete yet.

In all fairness, I was finishing my novel, helping my brother get hitched, fighting a plauge, and doing props for a musical. Life has been busy. The good news is, I finally found a few hours and my studio again so now I am all caught up.

I was working so quick to complete all three crusades that I didn’t take any pictures of the process, but will be diligent to do so next month. As you can see from the pictures, I’m kinda in love with a set of Arial type vinyl stickers I have. For challenge 47, I didn’t actually save any Christmas wrapping paper. My birthday is the day after, so I decided to use all the cards which I saved instead. The “Been There, Done That” page is only about one event but it was an Ah-mazing event. The Forensic Self Portrait I’m not sure if I did correctly or not, but I had a lot of fun with. I had just done a photo shoot with a firend of mine and so I had all these great pictures to use, no wonder there are four pages!

Anyways, I hope you enjoy, it feels good to be all caught up!

Continuing the adventure, 

Jess

I read this great quote today from the blog of the INTERN.

“Creativity is a mysterious thing, and the collective story we tell ourselves about it is as prone to shifting over time as the collective story we tell ourselves about diseases or gravity or gender or fruit flies.”

The poignancy of these words made me question what stories I have been telling about creativity; how they have morphed over the years as I negotiated this strange thing called life. 

A few years ago I was dancing about the world spouting off my twenty three year old wisdom of how everyone is creative, and anyone can be an artist. You just needed time and space, I thought. If you have those things poof! You can be creative and artistic.

What snobby little liar I was.

After having worked full time for a year and half I realize now just how much work it is to be creative. It is an exhausting and draining process of trial and error, of planting and tending to skills which you hope will one day will produce something beautiful and universal. Time is precious, and carving out an hour or two so I can sit, staring at an empty screen and blinking cursor can be maddening. A quiet space for your thoughts and hands to work cohesively together is just as difficult to find. As your spouse rolls their eyes at you for sneaking away with the laptop at 2am again, you might wonder if it is worth it.

My answer is, yes, there is value in it. Those hours of staring, typing and deleting will eventually lead to a few paragraphs. The paragraphs will lead to a chapter after some copying and pasting. And someday, if you are diligent and trusting, those chapters will go through editing and you will have a book.

I speak from experience.

So, that is the story I tell about creativity; all you need is time, space, and the guts to stick with it.

Continuing the adventure,

Jessica

 

 

 

Lots of thank yous to Matt Weybright, the awesome photographer who took these shots. If you are in the Riverside area and are interested in booking a photoshoot with Matt, you can contact him here.