The Artist's Way (and reading) by Michael Gettel-Gilmartin

A couple of Mayhemmers have recently blogged about their experiences of  either The Artist's Way (Caroline's Morning Pages One Year In) or going on a reading fast (Joanna's Fasting Story.) Since I am currently working my way through The Artist's Way, part of which requires giving up reading for a week, I thought I'd share my own progress report.

Caroline's piece actually was the boost that got me back to the practices Julia Cameron writes about it her book, the subtitle of which is "A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity." Towards the latter part of 2016, I was in a complete creative funk--a lot of which I trace back to the election and its aftermath. Add to this that, after parting ways from my agent, I had been having no luck querying my latest novel (lots of full requests and nice rejections, things like "not for me, but I can see this being a smash hit with the right agent,") I was finding it hard to hang on.

Intellectually I knew that the sun would rise again tomorrow, but my creative child was really feeling the slings and arrows. I'd had a similar creative crisis in 1997, after the birth of my first child, and the knowledge that I was soon turning THIRTY-FREAKING-FIVE (!) and that my creative dream of being a published author was still in embryo. (Fast forward 20 years, and here I still am.)

My wise wife gave my a Christmas gift, paying for me to attend a 12-week course on The Artist's Way. There were about twenty of us, and we met weekly in the back room of a music store. Our facilitator was funny and down-to-earth, and soon we were engaged in all sorts of kooky things, like making collages, writing affirmations, and bidding farewell to negative messages.

Week 4 of the course, however, was tough. That was the week where we had to give up reading and watching of any sort for one whole week. (The internet wasn't ubiquitous then so, looking back, it was not so tough.) But I freaked out. The Winter Olympics were being held in Nagano, Japan, and I really wanted to see a couple of my favorite skaters--Elvis Stojko and Michelle Kwan--compete. But, being the rule-follower I am, I buckled down. I also kept my wife busy: she had to remove the newspaper off the front porch in the mornings so I wouldn't be tempted to read the headlines, and then she had to videotape the events for later viewing. (Yes, after Week 4's dastardly task was over, I did binge watch hours of the Olympics!)

Here we are in 2017, and I am older and maybe just a smidge wiser. Week 4 was hard yet again, not because of The Olympics, but because I had to come face to face with my social media obsessions. Although a late adapter of Facebook and the like, I find it's a little like a morphine drip for me--a squeeze here, a squeeze there throughout the day and whoops! Where did the time go? (Twitter's even worse.)

What did I discover with my week off from reading screens and magazines and other people's books? First, my worry-levels dropped dramatically. (The media-free week coincided with the Inauguration, and during that blackout I was as happy as a clam.) Also, since I wasn't losing myself in others' stories, some of my own started to emerge. I'm not quite back at my fighting weight yet, but I'm getting there.

The creative life ebbs and flows. We all have wounds and scars, but we also have champions and companions on the road. (My friends on this blog are part of this support.) Julia Cameron is also a firm believer in serendipity and the opening of doors when we are ready. And that is happening to me now too. A young, highly creative friend from church has invited me to write the script for an animation series he's creating. We're having a lot of fun brainstorming ideas together. As Julia Cameron says, "Artists like other artists."

I've got three more weeks to go on The Artist's Way. I've been religious about my Morning Pages, and have done Artist's Dates most of the time. (I've put links to Julian Cameron's website, where you can find explanations of what these two practices are.) I'm sitting with and pondering these words in Week Ten:

"In a creative life, droughts are a necessity. The time in the desert brings us clarity and charity. When you are in a drought, know that it is to a purpose. And keep writing morning pages."

Have you ever read The Artist's Way? If so, what were your experiences? Do you think you could go a week without consuming text or media? Are you willing to try?

Morning Pages One Year In by Caroline Starr Rose

Last December a friend whose life circumstances had kept her from writing for quite some time mentioned she'd started Morning Pages. She was almost 100 days in, and for the first time in years had found she was looking forward to returning to the page.

For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, Morning Pages is a discipline developed by Julia Cameron, author of the classic how-to on creative recovery, The Artist's Way. I've had a copy of the book for almost ten years, but have never read past the first few chapters. Listening to my friend talk about moving toward her work with new joy and expectation, I thought about trying The Artist's Way again. Maybe I could use regular journaling as a discipline in my own writing life.

The book is meant to be read as a self-led course, one chapter a week. Participants commit to two things: the Artist Date, a weekly experience meant to fill the creative well (what Cameron describes as "assigned play"), and the Morning Pages, a three-page handwritten daily exercise meant to reconnect the artist with creativity.

It's been almost a year since that conversation and my decision to give Morning Pages a try. While I haven't always been consistent with my weekly reading (and even less so with the Artist Date), I have loved my own version of Morning Pages.* The practice has become a key part of my morning.

There are no rules about the writing. Because of this I've been free to use the exercise in any way I like. Sometimes I simply type out everything I'm thinking. The Morning Pages then become a place for me to process and set aside the thoughts I might not have known were bothering me. I also write about the things I want to accomplish or need to remember, an impromptu daily list of sorts. Other times I use the writing to prime the pump for my work later in the day. I've used it to brainstorm the last few lines in a picture book and as a place to figure out a revision plan of attack. This blog post, which has become the most popular ever in six plus years of blogging on my personal blog, started in one of those ten-minute sessions. Some mornings I write as I might in a traditional journal. And when I'm truly stuck, I keep my virtual pencil moving by typing one of Julia's affirmations: I am competent and confident in my creative work (yes, this is a little corny, but it's a good thing to "hear" myself say!).

Do any of you write Morning Pages? I'd love if you'd share your thoughts in the comments below.

* Ten minutes of typing on weekdays