The Artist's Way--Checking In

I'm a little behind

I have fallen so far behind...I have kept up with the daily pages, although I have missed some days.  I gave myself a sort of artist date last week by gathering art journal supplies, piling onto the bed with kitties, movies, snacks and my toys and playing for several hours.

I am not sure how much time I am going to have to put in to this work, but I still don't want to give up.  I can see the benefits from doing the journaling, so I can only think that doing all of the work will be even better.  Right now, though, I am dealing with having to make an unplanned, semi-emergency trip back home.  My mother has been back in the hospital for two weeks and they are getting ready to move her to a nursing home.  I don't know if that will be permanent.  Lots of decisions to be made, lots of research into facilities, lots of stress and anxiety and trying to figure out what I will do with all of her things if the nursing home has to be permanent... Right now I am getting overwhelmed very easily and can't find it in my head space to add in anything, even work like TAW that I want to be doing.

I have been doing some work on my novel planning, and I think part of the reason that has come back to me is because of the daily pages.  They help me see what's happening inside my head and address it, and I think that has opened my story to me again.  I'm really happy about that because I love the world I created for this story, and there's a comfort to being back there.

That's it for now.  Maybe next check-in I'll have a bit of progress to report.

TAW Check-In

I am still in Chapter 1.  I have been very resistant, but I think I'm finally getting through that.  But it means that I'm a bit behind where I wanted to be right now, even with our nice, relaxed, two-weeks-per-chapter schedule.  Ah, well.  I will eventually catch up.

One of the things I am looking closely at right now from Chapter 1 is this sentence: "Most of the time when we are blocked in an area of our life, it is because we feel safer that way."  There's a huge, loud, "YES!" echoing inside me when I read this. So I am working on journaling about why and how moving out of these unhappy, stuck places feels unsafe.  I think this is a really important point for me--I think this preference for safety is keeping me stuck in all the places in my life where I feel stuck and unhappy and trapped.  So I may be taking more time still with Chapter 1, but I think that might just be okay.

Daily Pages are happening intermittently.  They're happening more days than not, so it's progress.  I am planning my next artist date for this coming Sunday--not sure what I'm going to pick yet, so you'll just have to quiver in anticipation until next week when I report in!

Affirmations.  I hate them. They feel stilted and stupid in my head and on my tongue, and I just can't find any that don't annoy me because they feel silly.  Working on it, but really not doing much with that.  This resistance may be because I really need these, though, so I am going to continue working on them, trying to find something that doesn't make me feel dumb when I write or say it.

More later in the week probably.  I'm finding myself finally really reading the book and starting to do things instead of just poking at it half-heartedly, so I think there may be more to say soon.

Edit: The fears that are still with me after working through some of them:

• I will do bad work and be laughed at
• I will have only one good piece of work in me (so I have to make sure whatever I finally work on to completion is REALLY, REALLY good because it might be the only good piece I ever do, or maybe even the only piece I ever finish)
• It's too late.  If I haven't become a fully functioning, writing writer yet, I never will

Don't know how to deal with these yet, but there they are, aired out for all the world to see.

Blood Orange Tea

Today I went on my first artist date for my TAW work.  I went to a local yarn store, Twisted, where I overloaded my senses looking at and touching dozens of skeins of gorgeous yarn, looked at dozens of patterns, and drank a cold glass of blood orange iced tea.  Honestly, I'm not sure which part of that was the best, but the blood orange tea was definitely an unexpected pleasure.

New project bag and fortune cookie accessory holder with some yarns from my stash

I haven't been doing my morning/daily pages the past few days.  I plan to do a little tonight before bed to get me back to it--my goal will be to just do some writing.  I'll get back to an actual page count tomorrow.  But weekends make it so easy to get off track!

As for the artist date, I had a good time, but when I was getting ready to go I felt really odd about it.  I'm not even sure why.  If I had just been going over there to do some shopping, I can't imagine I would have felt odd.  So why did calling it an artist date make me feel odd about it?  Maybe I am still not comfortable with the "artist" title?  This is something I'll have to look at a little more closely.

This coming week I have a lot of writing planned, but I also plan to do a couple of the exercises from Chapter 1, so I'm sure I'll have things to say about that later.

Now, about those weekend pictures I promised from last week.  Here's one of my favorites--Oregon Coast, Battle Rock City Park:

You can see the rest of the photos here: Oregon Coast Trip July, 2011

Home and Happy

I was away for the holiday weekend, so I'm a day late in my TAW check-in.  But I thought I'd do a quick one now and more later tomorrow when I'm more alert.

I'll be getting started reading Chapter 1 tomorrow. I've been doing daily pages, although I didn't do them over the weekend.  I was camping with a lot of people at a medieval and Renaissance re-creation event, so it just didn't work out.  But I plan to get back to it tomorrow because I really noticed last week when I was doing it every day that after writing my mind felt much more settled and focused.  It's a habit I definitely want to have back in my life.

And now, after four days of traveling, sun, beaches, fun and friends, I am worn out and heading to bed.

Contract In Person

I decided I wanted a printed out, arted up contract to hang somewhere that I'll see it every day.  I'm debating whether that will be someplace at home so I'll see it on weekends, too, or if it will be here at work where I will see it most days for long periods of time.  In the end, I may do two so I can have them in both places.

Here's the one I did today.  If I do another, I'll probably share a photo of that later.

 

What you can't tell, even in person, but what is possibly my favorite part of this piece is that the background is a really cool, old wooden door.  It's like this contract is showing me the way to a door that is waiting for me to open it and step through. 

Edit:  I ended up not putting it on the cool background I had waiting at home because I was suddenly inspired to do it RIGHT NOW while I was sitting at my desk at work, so I just pulled out the supplies I keep on hand at work and did it with what I had on hand.

Contract Signing and Starting Thoughts

This is all about loving myself and doing something I need!

Contract

I, Kim, understand that I am undertaking an intensive, guided encounter with my own creativity.  I commit myself to the twelve-week duration of the course.  I, Kim, commit to weekly reading, daily morning pages, a weekly artist date, and the fulfillment of each week's tasks.


I, Kim, further understand that this course will raise issues and emotions for me to deal with.  I, Kim, commit myself to excellent self-care--adequate sleep, diet, exercise, and pampering--for the duration of the course.


Signed: Kim
Date: June 25, 2011


I'm going to print this out and glue it to a cool, painted background I made months ago, then I'm going to hang it on my board in my studio.

Signing the contract--easy.  Now to get down to the work.

Morning pages for me are going to be pages that happen later in the day.  As I mentioned in my first post about this project, trying to do them in the morning derails me.  I love the romantic image in my head of myself as writer, getting up, taking my coffee to my desk, and writing in the early morning light.  I hope someday to work from home so I can make that happen.  But now, with a day job, it just doesn't work for me.  I'm going to be a little more Natalie Goldberg than Julia Cameron on this one and just write and write until pages are filled, but I'm going to do it whenever and wherever it fits each day. (As an aside, did you know that Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron did a project together?  It's called The Writing Life, and it's an audio presentation.)

Artist Dates!

I also realized as I was reading the introduction in The Artist's Way that I need to plan ahead for my artist dates or they're never going to happen.  I mean way ahead, not just, "This week I will go to such-and-such."  I am going to work on a list of artist dates today so I always have a lot of things to choose from each week when it's time to make my plan.  I've already started the list and found that cool, independent toy stores are really appealing to me for this right now, so I think my first artist date may be to one of those.

Those are my thoughts after reading the introduction.  I'm going to go have a bit of breakfast and do my morning pages--and it's even still morning here!  More later, I'm sure...

A Classic, Revisited

I have a confession.  I haven't actually read The Artist's Way.  Not all of it, not in full.  I read the first part, and I skimmed through the last half many years ago, when the book first came out.  I started doing some of the exercises, but I stalled out, and I have rather aggressively resisted going back to it every since.

Why?  Morning pages.  I hate morning pages.  They make me angry and resentful, and they make me feel guilty.  Guilty because I don't actually do them, not after the first few days, and then I feel like a failure and I sink into feeling miserable for a while and then I give the whole thing up as a bad idea.  I am not a morning person.  I don't even want to be a morning person.  And, no matter my intentions when I go to sleep, my semi-conscious morning brain will have me repeatedly hitting the snooze button and eking out those last precious moments of sleep rather than getting up earlier to write.  And then I feel guilty and horrible because I didn't write my morning pages, and then pretty soon I just let it all slip from my mind, and I just stop.  I know this is how it goes for me because I have tried to do TAW several times, and this has happened each time.

So I gave it up, although I fairly regularly have little, niggling thoughts that I should try it again.  I've read several of Julia Cameron's other books, and I like and find inspiration in much of what she says, but those morning pages!  They stop me cold.

But now I'm looking to tread the TAW path again, this time with company.  Paula of Happysnappy (Don't you just love that name?! It makes me happy every time I see it!) has started a blog circle to work through the book together.  And I've decided I'm joining in.

I wasn't going to.  I have lots of other things going on. I've already read lots of other books on creativity.  And then there's my morning page problem.  But.  This is perhaps the seminal work in my industry, so I feel like doing this work is something I should experience.  And I don't like failing.  So I'm doing it.

I'm doing it my way, though.  I'm doing it the way that will actually work for me, that will let me fully sink into the exercises and the process.  So I'm breaking some of Ms. Cameron's rules, and I don't really care.  I'm going to do my morning pages later in the day, although on weekends and days off I may do them first thing.  Most of the time, I'll probably use them as a transition and warm-up point when I'm ready to settle down to my writing or other creative work of the day. I'm also going to do them, and quite a lot of the other work, on the computer, at least most of the time (I might use 750 Words some of the time--it's really kind of fun).  This is what is most convenient and comfortable for me.  This is what will let me actually fit this into my normal life.  This is what will let me succeed, so I'm doing it my way.