After my post about self doubt I sat down with my notebook and pen and wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote hard honest words and it felt good. Today, I did the same I sat and I wrote more difficult honest words. Reading the false prophet garbage that guy was spewing made me realize I want to take this book to a different place, I want it to have more meaning than “Buy my book and you too can make art full time!” or “Buy my book and make my style of art journal.” That’s not what this is about. It’s about my pitfalls, the dumb shit I’ve done, the dark stuff as well as the bright sunshine of what is good.

The last 2 installments I’ve written, close to another 5000 words, have been about forgiveness and how I’ve given myself permission to forgive and love. It’s funny, some of us walk through life and that’s normal behavior for others of us (me included) we have to learn that forgiveness and love are real and powerful things, they aren’t tools. Well, they are but not in the way I once thought.

As I write this stuff I feel like I’m making it more real, in my head it’s been floating mumbo jumbo, a sort of loose collection of thoughts and beliefs. Things I’ve written about in my journals and felt too self conscious to share. Now I’m writing it down, still self conscious, but I think I’m sharing this more for me than for the potential readers. Writing this has been as healing as it was when I first had the half baked thoughts way back when. I’m sure not all of my thoughts are new, but they are about as real as it gets. My words are honest and raw. Some of it is hard to put to paper, and will be hard to transcribe to the computer. I’m dedicated to it.