A painter with a pen...
That's us. I pulled this from my ebook, I'm Writing Come Join me, for I believe some of you are writers, and I'm here to keep you doing that..
When I was about to graduate from high school, I enrolled in The Art Instruction School. Remember those ads, "Do You Like to Draw?" It was the old-fashioned way of studying at home—you know, called a correspondence course.
A salesman came to our house to enroll me after I sent in their asked-for sample drawing. I believe anyone who signed up and paid the fee would qualify, but hey, it's nice to be accepted. When I saw that Charles Schultz had been their student, I considered taking that course a no-brainer.
Schultz transformed his earlier
primitive artwork into the gems we know today. At one time, he described his
life as "One of rejection after another." Later on, he said, "My
life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I
can't figure it out. What am I doing right?"
Well, dear Schultz, you knew what you wanted, you were steadfast in pursuing it, and so I read, you went to your studio every day. That's a winning combination.
"Bird by bird, Buddy, take it bird by bird." From Anne Lamott's book bird by bird. (Advice of a father writer to his son on having a book report on birds due the next day.
Last week my niece told me she got a call from her son's first-grade teacher. Someone had complained that her son had excitedly told the class about a "Penis movie." Some sleuthing revealed that he was talking about "The Peanuts Movie." This film was a 2015 digitally produced movie of the peanuts gang from the imagination of Charles Schultz. My nephew's family had watched it the night
before.
Parents get a grip. You could have asked him to describe the movie.
And Charles Schultz, a painter with a pen, lives on, now digitally produced in living color.
"The painter with a pen" I found that phrase buried within the Art Instruction course when I was practicing pen and ink drawings. That's what I wanted when I was drawing, and now that's what I wish with my writing.
If Charles Schultz had stopped after those rejections he spoke of, the world would have been denied multiple hours of entertainment and giggles.
We all remember Snoopy's "Curse you, Red Baron," and Charlie Brown, who just couldn't get anything right, and Lucy—who knows, well, everything
If Walt Disney had stopped his desire to be an animation cartoonist, we wouldn't have a Mickey Mouse and look where that went.
Who knows what you have to offer?
Remember butt on chair, pen to page.
