A composition notebook and a copy of the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

I mentioned in September that I was going through the Artist’s Way. I got about three weeks in when I realized I was only doing morning pages and reading, but not doing artist dates or any of the exercises. My motivational tendency is obliger, so I thought maybe if I were doing it in community, I’d do better.

But then I thought about organizing a whole community and I got weary immediately. I looked over Julia Cameron’s Guide for Starting Creative Clusters and registered a big old NOPE.

So I’m planning to do it MY way.

My life mantra is WHAT I CAN, WHEN I CAN.

I’m inviting you to participate. Here’s how it’s going to work.

  1. I’m going to do morning pages as often as I can, but I’ll be keeping them to myself. I might occasionally blog about what I’m learning from doing them.
  2. I’m going to do Artist Dates as often as I can. I’ll blog about them, with what I did, and my response to it.
  3. I will end both morning pages and Artist Dates posts with a question about how they’re going for you, what you did, and what you’re getting out of them. You will be able to reply in one of a few ways:
  4. I’ll essentially do the same process for exercises, writing about my response to them and maybe even my answers, then asking if you did the exercise and how it worked out for you. You can reply in the same ways mentioned above.

I’m not in a place where I feel good about confining myself to a 12-week schedule, and I know if I try to turn it into 12 months or something I’ll lose steam around the 8 month mark, so instead, I’m just going to do it WHEN I CAN. Here’s what that will look like:

  1. I will make a short post when I start a chapter/week.
  2. I will make a short post when I finish a chapter/week.
  3. And all the exercises and stuff above, I’ll make a note of what chapter/week it’s from.

Here are the rules to participate:

  1. Do what you can, when you can.
  2. Avoid trying to fix people’s problems or offer advice; “listen” to understand. I encourage you to respond, but try not to have it be advice-focused.

That’s it. I really hope you’ll join me.