The Hermit Goes Public

Dear Readers,

I'm doing a project called Raw Fiction. I will soon be recruiting six teenage writers to produce their own literary journal - online, in print, whatever they choose. It will be theirs, I'm the facilitator.

It's A LOT of work ALL THE TIME and I'm an artist, not a doer. However, for some reason I'm doing right now. I have this urge to do, to participate in the world, but it eats away at the artist. Artists don't do, they be.
So, hopefully, this blog will nourish my starving artist while I am continuously doingdoingdoing like a good citizen.

This summer I'm going to try to meet lots of artists and activists in New York City. So I've decided to keep track of all the amazing people I encounter along the way. I will write about them and the awesome things they do for really cool organizations.

This is daunting.
I've never done a blog.
I don't tend to read blogs either; I read books.
And I write with a pencil on unlined paper, not with a keyboard on a screen that doesn't understand radical words and tells me my sentences are incomplete. Word.

A lot is changing in my life - except my single status, that's the only thing I can('t) control, women keep me at arms (like Mr. Fantastic's arms) distance because I'm a creative writer with a writer's disposition. Or maybe it's my sign. I'm acclimating myself to the modern world, slowly and painfully. I even know what Rihanna looks like now. Welcome to 2012, Zahra. I can't very well publicize my project with a homemade bark pencil in an Italian notebook writing in the shade of a table umbrella at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Or can I . . . on Monday I met Art. He joined me at my table just as this idea was hitting home and I was scribbling away with my brand new pencil from the brand new Visitor's Center. He's a Brooklyn native, too. An artist, a writer, a traveler. Way to go bark pencil attracting like-minded people to my table.

I need to write. I crave writing. I hunger for it. If I don't do it, if I neglect my creative urges - then I get dumped. Wait, oh, I'm talking about Raw Fiction, not my recent failure to keep my imagination out of the magical reality of romance. But I'm not bitter. I'm raw. Sorry. I shall never pun again. In public.

Therefore, so as to not lose my mind while putting my everything into the Raw I will blog about my experiences and the awesome people I meet along the way, some of whom I am lucky enough to already know.

Enjoy the journey,
zmp