Fat Nude Writers rock (with congrats to Patty, our Fat Nude winner!)

A thoroughly enjoyable flurry came in response to our Fat Nude Writing challenge. Sarah talked about an Indigo Girls song that asks “How long till my soul gets it right?” provoking questions about the possible consequences of expressing herself as an artist:

…Truly, I have never felt right. Something feels out of place, and I have never been able to put my finger on it. Maybe it is the mistakes of the long lost past haunting me. Is it strange that the lines of a song could affect me so? Maybe the voices of the Indigo Girls is speaking to my soul, reminding me that there is more to what I see in me…

Colleen’s fat, nude moment came when she graduated college and accepted a teaching job 2,500 miles away from her close-knit family in New Jersey:

Without knowing a soul or much of anything about the southwest corner of Arizona (except that it didn't snow, which was a big plus at the moment) I packed my belongings in a car that wasn't long for the world and did the whole "Go West, Young Woman" thing. Because I wanted to claim an adventure for myself while I had that opportunity.

Dorothy’s “Delusions of Grandeur” may pay off yet:

Age 34. Remarried. Pregnant. Really feeling like it’s time to write that novel. Terrified to start because…Fame and Fortune. A virtual certainty my name will become the household word I’ve always known it would be. With certainty. Because I survived a crazy childhood. Because I had my 19th birthday in Alexandria, Egypt where I sailed as a merchant marine. Because I was destined to be remembered throughout the ages.

…Fourteen years and four novels later, Katie changed jobs and hasn’t called. Son of a bitch.

Stepping up and speaking out, Vicky surprised everyone including herself at a writing conference:

I signed up to pitch my fledgling manuscript. Unfortunately I didn't know how to pitch...

The editor asked me, "Is this the one where the guy is really hung over?" I said, "Yes, but I promise he's gettting reformed." Everybody cracked up...

Then she asked me if I'd entered it in another contest. I knew there was only one left. So I meekly asked, "The Orange Rose?" She nodded. "I gave you first place. I guess you won it."

Lark talked about summoning the courage to reconnect with an old flame:

...In the long run, things didn’t work out for us, but over the next five years we gave it a hell of a good shot. Best of all, we’re still friends and I’ve never had to wonder what might have been.

Jo Anne inspired me by embracing her bignitude:

...I’m not a head-down, eyes-averted, knees-together person. I’m a throw-my-arms-wide-open, open-my-mind, open-my-life-to-people soul. I’ve got a big smile. I’ve got big energy. I have a big personality and a big heart filled with the capacity for big love.

So I come to you today. A big woman of sixty-two, with a big, booming voice. I’m out of shape, and I have bad knees. I’ve got gray hair and arthritis. But by God, I’m fearless.

And our winner, Patty Henderson, spoke of keeping a “Fat Nude Eye to the Sky”:

Not one to learn the easy way, having a male nurse mere inches from my face as my left eye continued to blossom to a royal blue with a tint of purple and shades of pink etched in a bloody crust I found the words "you need to file charges," a rude and abrupt reality.

The chill of the examination room was warm in comparison to the sadness that ran through my veins. However, as I turned for the photographs the deputy needed, the stark reality was I was on the way back. My spirit had risen and it would no longer be beaten down. The limit of defeat of my soul had been touched upon and no longer would the man who'd driven me to this exhaustive, stark awakening ever take me here again.

To say the departure was immediate would be misleading. I stood steadfast, determined to give it my all. The last call, if you will. But that proverbial straw came and the door didn't hit me. There was little drama left. The woman I'd always been capable of being was fully present, not to be engaged, bent or torn.

With God, my guides and the angels who watch over me, I moved gently, but steadily, making constant headway, never looking back. It was and will always be about looking forward. It is not where I was nor what happened, but how blessed I am and how far I have come.

The journey is tender, earthy and reverent. I realized my soul is precious and I have gifts to nurture, share and treasure. My children and I have found what we lost and the peace I'd thought forever missing, is found.

It took a man to point to another man and say this is wrong for me to believe.

Now I am a woman, whole, powerful, enlightened, strengthened by pain, done with thinking I was less instead of more, now looking at goals and life plans when there were, at one time, no dreams or prayers I could hear in my heart.

I will not look back. My eyes will be to the sky and my soul will do a tantric dance.

It took the spastic journey to the bottom to propel me to bliss.

Huge thanks to all our contributors, and congrats to Patty. (Flip me an email, girlfriend, and let me know which book you want.) Click here to read all the entries in their entirety.

(Above: Pieter Paul Rubens' "Union of Earth and Water")