This is an anxious time for me. As usual, I've agreed to take on more tasks than you can normally fit into the alloted time. But I'm determined to do my best on all of them.

Several years ago, I was fuming about what had happened to our government and decided to write a guide for taking back the White House. But what I had originally figured as a kind of hand-out just grew like Topsy; now I am fighting to keep it under 350 typed pages!...believe it or not.

It's funny. This is a book that keeps writing itself. There are so many areas that I feel passionate about that it gives me new momentum every time I sit behind the word processor.

The writing hasn't proven to be the hard part of this book, however, the editing has.
If you have a love affair with words--and meanings--it is often difficult to find a more economical way to say what you want. When I first started out as a writer, I thought the idea was to make every sentence sound like it was written by Shakespeare but after 35 years as a writer and copywriter for clients around the world, I quickly came to the conclusion that economy of thought was best! Get your point across as quickly and efficiently as possible; don't beat around the bush...unless you are targeting a real Bush...

It is easy to use your book as a vehicle for your growing frustration but that would simply miss the point. You are writing a guide and that guide has to be useful and instructive. So, I review and I review with that thought in mind...

At the same time, I served as a member of a new Artists Guild and agreed to commit to showing some of my work at the upcoming Show which is only about two weeks away.
I had promised myself to devote a good part of my time to doing some new work for the Show but real world events intervened.

What do I mean by real world events? This is the start of the political season and I, as an activist, agreed to support two local politicians, both new to office.
If you don't think that this can take time and effort, you need to think again.

On top of all that, I am an Internet nut with three active Blogs that I try to keep going and membership on several mailing lists not to mention my own mailing list that keeps me riveted to the computer and the Internet.

I'm not worried about the political stuff because I know I can do that with my eyes closed; it's the artwork for the show that got's me going.

When it comes to art, there has always been a duality in what I want to do.
I am a good literalist in terms of making watercolors that look like a particular subject. But that isn't what really turns me on. My real love is experimentalism that has going way into the night experimenting with colors, techniques, treatments, papers, presentation and the whole nine yards. In this experimentation, I find that I get the most satisfaction when I become part of the medium; that I don't try to intellectualize a solution but am guided by the materials, colors and white space.
in these efforts, I am not seeking to please anyone but myself. And this raises question marks because I will not be able to sell my work unless others resonate with what i am trying to do. Nor do I want to do what others expect me to do.
I really want to get into the materials, the colors, the textures to investigate them and see how distinct shapes emerge from my experiments. This is what drives me.
but is hard to explain and oftentimes leaves me exhausted with failed experiments or frustration with not arriving at a solution that I feel is honest and what I am trying to shape out of the materials at my disposal. Hard to understand I suspect.

Anyway, I suppose that most legitimate artists and not copiers or hacks really strive for this kind of separate reality and would know what I am talking about.

So, I shall keep on with my juggling act in the expectation that everything will come together in two weeks.

Excuse me, now, I have to jump back to my book!....I need to edit some more.

Les Aaron