An American Wife by Playwrights Blomain & Downend

A recent mentor and friend in my long slog through a writing life is the inspirational Karen Blomain, whom I've mentioned here before. (Photo Credit © 2004, Michael Downend, ASMP)

I attended a workshop with Karen and her photographer/playwright husband, Michael Downend in West Cork, Ireland last summer at the artist's and writer's retreat, Anam Cara. I have also sat in on several short writing presentations of Karen's and Michael's at our writing group in Puerto Vallarta.

The two most important lessons I've learned from Karen, however, is to honor myself with some indulgence each day, if it is only a few minutes sitting on the beach. And, to aggressively protect my writing schedule. Now obviously, I couldn't have possibly gotten to this advanced point in life without previously having been exposed to these two concepts. I've even put them into practise for fairly long periods of time. But, they are lessons I seem to forget as my life rolls and changes and that I need to be reminded of repeatedly. Karen's inspiration comes from the fact that she is a living daily reminder of these important guidelines. She doesn't talk about how she should allow time for herself, about how she should not allow the distractions of life to interfere with her work as a writer. She just does it. And there is the inspiration!

I am so pleased that a joint project of Michael and Karen's, a play they wrote together the first year I met them in Puerto Vallarta, is opening this month in Pennsylvania at the Scranton Northeast Theatre Pennsylvania. Titled, An American Wife, the play runs March 21 through April 7. If you are in the area or can get there, it will be a wonderful evenings entertainment.

Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse