The Artist's Way



This morning was a perfect morning to do my
"morning pages".  It was actually a little cooler outside, in the 60s.





A fan of Julia Cameron's, the Artist's Way, I first
read about it in the Plano Profile magazine
when we lived in Texas. 


My copy has more highlights than
any other book I own.

Working on this blog has made me realize
I need to get back to this book and reread it.

 Recently I was reading in a Reader's Digest, (yes, its still around, Clint's mom gave me this copy) about freeing  your mind and eliminating your "inner detractor."  A doctor who studies creativity in children at Northwestern University tells of a tried-and-true-way. Julia Cameron, a television writer, director and novelist has been teaching creativity for 25 years.  Julia's way is to write three pages---in long hand---first thing every morning about what ever comes to mind, no second-guessing, no editing.  It's a mental Dustbuster," Julia tells U.S. News & World Report, "sucking up the negativity that might inhibit creativity later."

I admit I have fallen off the wagon of writing my morning pages.  There were some amazing things that happened when I was regularly doing my morning pages. First of all, no one else is to read your morning pages. If I thought someone else might read mine, I would start self-censoring myself.  This is stream of consciousness writing with no regard about correct grammar or spelling.  Sometimes I would keep the pages for a short time and reread them later. If I wrote about something that was bothering me, a few weeks later I would have forgotten all about it.  One day I wrote about an old neighbor of ours in Tennessee. I had no idea why I wrote about this person.  Later that day, after having written about this neighbor, my mother told me that I would not believe who had called her and how this neighbor had called her to ask her to pray for an ill family member.  I do need to get back to my morning pages.

Another pivotal tool that Julia writes about is the "artist date".  What is an artist date?  An artist date is is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. You go alone on your artist date.  Don't have time?  Julia says "You cannot afford not to find the time for artist dates.  Some of my artist dates have included reading magazines at the library, sitting outside in front of Whole Foods ... people watching, walking through Barnes and Noble, visiting a thrift store, going to a high quality arts/craft mall and attending an old country church service by myself.

One of the most revealing and fun exercises that I did from Julia's book was list five occupations/dreams/aspirations that have been on my mind for years.  I listed my five and had Clint list his five, I'd saved these lists from several years ago.  We were amazed when we compared our lists:

When I was young I dreamed of being a nun.  (I'm not Catholic)
I thought it would be an easy life, living in a beautiful stone
"castle" and contemplating God all the time.

Being a soap opry actress, I thought,
would be steady work.

I can't sing, we seem to
want what we can't have.

Clint and I were astonished at how similar
our list were to each other.  About the only
differences were the actress and baseball dreams.

My dear blogger friends, I would love to know what would be on your list?