AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

Here I sit on a gloomy day south of Beantown listening to Bessie Smith wailing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" on Hober Thinking Radio (www.hober.com) and thinking, "What's the next step? How am I to get the magazine off the ground and flying? Where's the money going to come from to pay the bills? Am I insane? What the hell am I doing?"

I know the easy way out: Give up all I own and hop a plane for Asia. I have friends there. I can find work there. I can exist.

But this isn't about merely existing. It's about expressing hopes, dreams, fears, and cheers through writing, drawing, publishing, sharing. It's about being faithful to the creative spirit and serving the muse. It's about not abandoning the fictional characters who clamor inside my noggin. (If only they could pay the rent.) It's about taking the talent and making it earn ten fold -- or else be cast out into the land of weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Has anyone else pondered that parable as much as I have in terms of the symbolic meaning of "talent"?)

It's ture. If you bury your gifts, you will agonize the rest of your days. On the other hand, artisitc gifts are often high-maintnenance and drive you to the poor house, debtor's prison, the edge of a high cliff with jagged rocks awaiting you at the bottom. Ah, sweet despair.

Then again, what pushes you towards the edge of doom is what ultimately inspires you to create. How ironic.

In the long run, I guess it's better to have done what I love and lost than to have never tried at all, right? I thought you'd see it that way.

The artistic endeavors must go on in spite of critics, hecklers, abject poverty, insurmountable debt, and utter depression.

In demonstration of my dogged determination, I am posting the April edition of "Adventures for the Average Woman" on AMP (the issue featuring AMP) for all here to download and peruse. I'd appreciate your feedback, and a subscription or two or three would certainly help. Also, I do welcome submissions and look forward to the day I can pay writers and artists for them. Right now, I am simply grateful that as many talented people have contributed as they have.

If you like the publication and want to read back issues ('cuz the stories are serial in nature), please contact me at ideagems@aol.com and I'll be happy to email them to you.