During the pandemic, I’ve had a lot of time to work on both fiction and painting. The arts blend together. And I often see or feel scenes and characters when I work.

Back in January, before Covid-19 took over all of our lives, I visited my great-grandfather’s house–actually my cousin Ann Marie’s house right now. It’s a place where I grew up, surrounded by cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents…and even great-grandparents for a while.

There’s a river below the property, an abandoned place, visually stunning. That waterway, along with the old house, inspired a novel–one still in progress. In addition, a novella came to life–a thing that I thought I’d finished, but each time I do a “final edit”, I add to it.  Then there’s the prose poems, written in an oddball sort of way. There’s five of them now.

Anyway, some “visual notes” (relating to my writing in progress) are here. The paintings and drawings express the past; partly the wonder of growing up–some dark years later on, too. And these are things, real and imagined–always there. Thing is that you get past childhood and beyond– teens–early twenties. You love and cry (sometimes)…and then you move on. The loves, the laughter, the heartbreak…it all follows you…and your imagination makes it wilder, darker, scarier…and you write…and maybe you paint, get lost in music, dance…you live.