Welcome to my blog Upstate Girl, (a.k.a Follow Your Bliss Part II), I am an independently published author. This blog is all about writing and the stuff that inspires me to write, the joys and obstacles that come along with the writer's life, and my fascination with the psychology of people and what makes them tick...the human condition, as is...and my love for words, playing with them and making sense of them...and I throw in a few photos from my acre of the world just to make things pretty...sometimes there are things I have no words for, only pictures will do.

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Life of the Mind...what we dream of, that we are...

I spent a few minutes with our friend's old horse barn this week, and have been fiddling around with photos, these are a few of my favorites, I'm still "playing", I really love the brown tint I managed to create in this first one...

This one has a real "Boo Radley" look to it...

Haunted...
Seeing the trees grown up in front of the stall door reminds me how long it's been since Eli and Bill passed through to spend a day in the paddock. The horses are long gone, the kitten that was born in that barn is now a fat little old tabby.

I love how I was able to keep the pale blue color in the glass.

Life really beats the crap out of these old places, but this one lingers on, a sturdy testament to how well it was built... but it won't stand forever without attention...

Old paint, old boards...

Hard as nails.

I finally turned over my new changes that I want made to The Fractured Hues of White Light, I sat on them for several days, reading through them, making certain that they were sensible so when my Fred and I go into it, there's no question where they are in the manuscript proof and what I want done. I will need to read through the whole book one more time before I publish it, so I suspect we'll be well into April before I can even think of publishing...but that's fine, I want it to be right.

There are times I'm so glad to be self-published, I can take my time, there's no stress allowed. I've read enough about authors who have nightmare experiences when they lose their editor at the publisher before publication, and being assigned a new one who is not an advocate for the book, who doesn't return phone calls...I'm sure this doesn't happen all the time, but with my luck it would...it's a cluster-fuck I don't need...

I take my writing very seriously, I'm creating a book that will endure, it's not a product that will satisfy the latest craving saturating the market...I don't anticipate making a quick buck. Dear god, what's wrong with me, right? I'm an artist, I'm a writer, that's what's wrong with me. It lights up my soul to read a book that is well crafted, reading words that a writer has spend time putting together, a story that is timeless (not necessarily timely).

Today's blog title comes from an article that I recently read about Joyce Carol Oates in Smithsonian Magazine...

"—I was mesmerized by books and by what might be called “the life of the mind”: the life that was not manual labor, or housework, but seemed in its specialness to transcend these activities."
She always has such interesting things to say, follow the link if you're interested in reading more.

The life of the mind...yes. That's what I wanted to do when I grew up...my time spent in libraries, museums, art studios, theaters, wandering around in woods and meadows, the associated smells that would excite me, chasing the elusive dream ("What we dream of, that we are" - JCO) The pictures in my mind that I wanted to paint, the stories that I longed to tell...

The life of the mind. Yes. That sums up my two disciplines, art and writing...I'm always looking and digesting what I've seen, I'm always listening and absorbing what I've heard...it's an existence dependent on the senses...I feel so alive while I'm working on the latest thing... heart breaking at the same time as profound happiness...it's so beautiful.

4 comments:

Lisa Ursu said...

An incredible post!
Thank you so much for sharing.

"I take my writing very seriously, I'm creating a book that will endure"
I have no doubt about that!

Rachel said...

Ja, dieses Braunfärbung ist dir sehr gut gelungen, alle Fotos sehen toll aus...

LG, Rachel

Pat said...

Your photographs are so available. One doesn't have to question where you are going with the idea. My very favorite is the window looking out. How promising for the future "when you grow up".
Love the whole post.

Kelly M. said...

Laura -- Wonderful post; nothing more need be said. I've been working with writing groups for years, and it is the best part of my working life. Now I'm hoping to make it a big part of my private life -- self-publishing -- so it was good to read about your positive outlook on that!