It’s not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that’s your pool of resources. If you were to write something now, I bet there’s a pretty good chance you’d call on your teenage years, your experiences then, stuff you learned then.
Sadness isn’t sadness. It’s happiness in a black jacket. Tears are not tears. They’re balls of laughter dipped in salt. Death is not death. It’s life that’s jumped off a tall cliff.
Painting is similar to music. You get a couple or words or notes or chords that excite you, and you just follow them and add a bit more and see where it takes you. That’s the thrill for me. It still is a thrill, which is amazing after all this time.
