Moving beyond fear of failure

"For a writer it's a big deal to bow -- or kneel or get knocked down -- to the fact that you are going to write your own books and not somebody else's. Not even those books of the somebody else you thought it was your express business to spruce yourself up to be."

- Patricia Hampl ("The Need to Say It," The Writer on Her Work, Vol. II)

"Once you decide not to be ashamed of who you are, almost anything is possible."

- Erica Jong (interview, 1982)

The whimsical imagery here is by the American artist Jen Corace, who grew up in southern New Jersey, studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and now lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.

In an interview in Coloring Outside the Lines, Corace says: "Confidence is a funny thing. It ebbs and flows. I have a brain like anyone else and it gives me shit all the time. What it ultimately boils down to is that my art is where I get to work my insides out. It's me, my voice, and who is going to do me that better than me? Nobody."

Please visit the artist's website to see more of her work.