Real-world Applications Of "The Artist's Way"
Mon 2009-06-01 20:53:50 (in context)
I may have mentioned the loveliness that is Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way... oh, maybe a hundred times by now. As it happens, I finished my most recent journey through the 12-week course described there just last month. And on May 4, I began adhering to my "Creativity Contract"--a written declaration that Cameron encourages artists to customize, sign, and stick to for the next 90 days. So here's how that's going.
The "Creativity Contract" starts out with a commitment to continue using the tools introduced in Week One: the daily Morning Pages and the weekly Artist's Date.
Morning Pages are three long-hand pages scribbled without excess thought or planning; just dump the contents of your brain onto the page. Preferably, they take place first thing in the morning. Failing that, they should take place at some point during the daily awake period. The author Kit Whitfield has a great essay on why this is useful, here. (She mentioned Morning Pages in passing at a blog we both frequent, and I pestered her to talk about it more. She is most obliging.)
I've mostly managed to do them every day in May. The "mostly" refers pretty much to the week before I left for Chicago; travel planning tends to hit me hard. Missing morning pages should not be an occasion for self-recrimination, giving up on the whole Creativity Contract idea ("I missed once! Now it's broken! Forever!" ...no), or attempting to make it up by doing twice as many pages tomorrow. At most, I look back and try to determine how/why I didn't manage to get my three pages done, and use that as a signpost for making time for it tomorrow.
On a related note, I try not to say to myself, "Let this be a lesson! Never do X!" but rather, "Let's take this as a signpost against doing X in future." Being kind to oneself is a big lesson in The Artist's Way, and I find I get a lot more work done if I'm not constantly fighting self-inflicted guilt.
The Artist's Date is an amount of time--half an hour, two hours, maybe even a whole day--dedicated toward pampering one's inner child/inner artist/sense of play. It serves the function of making oneself feel loved and happy. At the same time, it helps replenish the well from which one draws inspiration. Sometimes I walk into a stationary store and make a purchase or just enjoy looking at all the pretty paper. Sometimes I go to the library, pick an interest, and visit that section of the non-fiction stacks. Sometimes I just give myself half a day to play Puzzle Pirates without guilt.
I... think I've done this? Every week? Maybe? I have always, throughout my adult life, tended toward giving myself whatever I'm craving. My problem has been feeling guilty for it because I'm procrastinating with it, spending too much money, not spending enough time with various other people because I'm busy doing my own thing, etc. Guilt again! See a pattern? And since rejourneying through The Artist's Way, I've found it hard to say, "Yes, I did my Artist's Date," because I didn't have the specific intent of "doing an Artist's Date" when I did the thing that qualifies as one. Bwah. Well, right now, I'm having that aforementioned Chicago and New Orleans trip, which I think qualifies as a two-week-long Artist's Date. The only real challenge is not feeling guilty for having indulged in it, and not feeling like I'm Wasting My Precious Vacation Time by not doing Worthwhile Enough Things with it. (For crying out loud - guilt again!) My mantra for this week is, "The way I spent my day made me happy. That is enough."
After that, the Creativity Contract prompts the artist to create specific goals for creative output. These are mine:
- Every weekday, a new story idea - no matter how slight, no matter how stupid.
- Every week, a new rough draft of something, no matter how short, no matter how rough.
- Every month, a new submission to a paying market.