Good writing advice from a painter

"Get it down quickly," said Edouard Manet. "Don't worry about the background. Just go for the tonal values... Most of all, keep your colors fresh."

Ggood advice not only for 19th-century impressionist painters, but for 21st-century writers, trying to capture a first draft. Or what I call the heart of the story.

Spill it out, write it down, ugly and ungainly as it may be. My first drafts are all hideous-looking monsters, but if I feel a heart beat, I have hope.

March is Women's History Month...

Here in America, the land of the free, women’s liberation is not only dead, it’s apparently a stinking corpse to many complacents. Dig it up and men still roll their eyes, hold their noses and turn red in the face. Women simper with embarrassment and change the subject. Teen-aged girls give you a "duh". Don’t we already enjoy equal rights with men?

Oh, that’s right, I forgot. And as for great women in history, everybody already knows that behind or beside every great man there’s a woman; we just can’t seem to remember her name.
If you're looking for a good book to read, here are a few that I've read recently or are on deck for me:

How Women May Earn a Living by Helen Churchhill Hinge Candee
The Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach
Desert Queen by Janet Wallach (A biography of Gertrude Bell. Never heard of her? I guess that's why we need Women's History Month...)
Evolution Toward Equality by Teresa S. Neal
Rosaland Franklin and the Structure of Life by Jane Pocovar
Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West edited by Linda M. Hasselstrom
Cool Women: Fly Girls by Amy Inouye

What's on your reading list this March?