Everyone look busy, Mr Maisel's coming!

People say you should never meet your heroes lest they horribly disappoint you and make you forever disillusioned with all those people you've carefully been placing on pedestals over the years ... I've managed to avoid this risk of certain disappointment by interviewing one of my heroes instead ... as announced just over a month ago, the ever-inspiring Eric Maisel will be stopping off at my humble little blog on February 9th. So in just under a month I'll be hosting Eric as part of his virtual book tour for a new edition of 'Van Gogh Blues'. I have the chance to ask Eric questions about his book and just about anything else that's related (I guess) ... no of course I'm not scared, nope, not scared in the slightest. To be honest my mind is a big gaping void of nothing-ness exactly where all the 'questions for Eric' should be piling up ... it's practically like meditation in there! It's also fairly blank when I try to recall what I was thinking when I put my blog forward as a host. Still I'm looking forward to it and am feeling so honoured when I look at the company I'll be keeping on this tour ... just take a look at my immediate neighbours ...



Appearing directly before me is http://janallsopp.blogspot.com/ - Jan has some gorgeous prints and sketches on her blog ... she also owns a Gocco printer (so jealous!) and has just opened a beautiful etsy store - if you love teacups and graphic prints full of charm then you'll feel right at home.

Then following after me is http://annemarchand.blogspot.com/ - Anne is a painter whose paintings are vibrant expansive canvases full of energy, movement and a sense of quiet kind of drama ... I'm smitten with her colour-filled cityscapes - they're the perfect antidote to the wet and gloomy weather we're currently having here in York :-)

Eric's tour kicked off today with his first stop at http://www.gabrielleswain.blogspot.com ... I'm not looking until I've had a go at coming up with my questions, but don't let that stop you heading off and taking a peak - I'll catch you up :-) You can follow the rest of the tour by taking a look at the tour schedule here.

a gift to myself

I've been going great guns with my photography in the last year and I've even been doing a teeny tiny bit of art but while I was reading Poemcrazy and Foolsgold (by Susan Wooldridge) around Christmas it struck me just how much my writing has really fallen by the wayside. I have an awful lot of words swirling around inside me that would probably benefit by being released into the ether ... you never know, it could even help quieten down my monkey mind a notch.

Serendipitously enough I recently opened my regular helping of 'secret sauce' from Sophie Nicholls (a friend of a friend who is a professional hypnotherapist and passionate about creative writing). The newsletter announced the launch of Sophie's e-book 'Hypnotic Journaling' ... now I can't emphasise enough how cynical I am about e-books ... in my experience 99.9% of the e-books I stumble across on the web look like the author is pulling a fast one and trying to trick me into buying the book equivalent of the emporer's new clothes. But having met Sophie earlier at a party last summer (she was lovely, I was slightly tipsy) I decided to throw caution to the wind and treat myself to it in a spirit of 'new year, new me'. I downloaded the e-book the other day and I'm already loving the warmth of Sophie's writing style. I'm being strict with myself and not reading any more until I've done the first exercise but I'll let you (my imaginary blog audience) know how I get on :-) In the past I've had a tendency to greedily race through books without doing the exercises so I can always tell just how good a book is by whether it inspires me to stop and put pen to paper instead of racing to the finishing line telling myself I'll go back and finish the blanks in later, which of course I never do!