a story to tell
Introspection during the pandemic led me to watercolors. One by one, it turned out by happenstance that each illustration I painted wove together to tell a story. Each one spoke to similar themes of my relationships with my sister, my Creator and my other Mother, Nature. I have come through life's most difficult times and boldly dreamed my wishes into fruition by nurturing these three relationships.
The words to the story came after the imagery. After I pieced the words and illustrations together, the first draft of the book went to a few readers. Thank you, Paul, Tamara, Wendy and Isabella for being my readers and providing feedback. With new insights, I painted the watercolor illustrations a second time and changed some of the story's wording.
The second round of watercolor illustrations was laid out on my dining room table for a final check before I packed them up to bring to the printer for scanning.
The process of creating the second draft took quite a long time, about 11 months. It was challenging; this has been a labor of love. Sometimes I didn't even have time to work on it part time because my paying job got in the way.
The words to the story are in my own script. Cursive is now entering an era of art form because not everyone can understand it anymore.
And yes, I will figure out how those who don’t know how to read cursive can read it.
There wasn’t enough room on the dining table and chair, so I had to spread out to the piano bench. There are still more pages, but I wasn’t about to take yet another photo!
I persevered, and I am thrilled to announce that a few weeks ago, the second draft of edits and illustrations is complete! My step was to take the illustrations to the printer to have them scanned and I dropped them off for that process two Fridays ago. I’ll check on the progress of the scans next week. Once scanning is complete, they will be assembled into an InDesign document, exported as a PDF, and sent to the U.S. Copyright Office.
And then - et puis on verra ce qui se pessera (and then we will see what happens). I will either self-publish or shop the book to literary agents. I am bringing this story to Black women because I believe they need to know how the relationships between our sisters, the Divine and our other Mother - Nature all play an integral role in our strength, resilience and dream-making during life's rocky and turbulent times.
Right now, the story is titled "Sisters During Rocky Times". I can't wait to share it with you all when it becomes a physical book. I am not sure how it will materialize; only God knows. So, keep following me on this journey to see how it will unfold.
If you haven’t already, follow me on Instagram, where, from time to time, I will share pages from the book and decode the cursive.
