This week marks the end of our first full week writing morning pages, taking our inner artist for a date and completing one or more of the tasks laid out for us in Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. How did you do? I was out of town five days last week and now have guests staying with me, so while I would have liked to have been more engaged, I'm proud of myself for doing as much as I did!
Did you write three pages every morning?
I missed one. I'm happy to see I'm loosening up. I'm happy to be writing something (almost!) every day, even if it's crap!
Did you take yourself for an artist’s date?
With a house full of guests and feeling like I "should" be playing hostess, I gave myself permission to leave for two hours, take my laptop to a coffee shop, buy myself a fancy drink at an exorbitant price and read a series of stories written by four girls I did a writing workshop with a couple of weeks ago. Such fresh and personal perspectives!
Did you complete any of the Week One tasks?
I didn't identify any "monsters"—enemies of my creative self-worth—but I did complete a number of tasks: writing out a personal affirmation; identifying my most common “blurt;” making a list of the most powerful champions of my creative self-worth throughout my life and making a list of five alternative lives I’d like to live (and may yet—who knows?!)
Do you have anything from the week you’d like to share with the rest of us?
I’d like to share the champions of my creative self-worth: my dad, who read aloud to me and gave me books; my mom, who bought me paints and pastels and drawing paper; the grade school teacher who commented on a story: “Your writing really packs a wallop!” and the junior high teacher who wrote at the bottom of a paper: “I expect to see your writing in a magazine some day;” my friend Patti, who asked me to help her rewrite a novel and set me on the path to publication; my friend Liz, who always believed in my way with words and recommended my work to an editor friend who was looking for manuscripts; my romance editor, Lisa, and my children’s book editor, Caroline, who loved my stories and wanted more; my therapist, Pat, who marvels at my creativity in life, work and words; and the many friends and fellow writers in five different critique groups who have encouraged me to write what I love and love what I write. I believe in myself because these champions believed in me.
And one more thing: If I had five other lives to lead, I’d be a children’s book illustrator, a blues singer, a motivational speaker, a vendor for the Renaissance Fair circuit and a fashion designer. The closest I got to playing out any of those this week was leading a group at a regional children’s writers’ seminar and watching the first two episodes of the new season of Project Runway!
If you haven’t had a chance, read over the comments left by your companions on this creative journey during the last week. I apologize if you've missed out on these; I believed if you subscribed to Platform 9 3/4 by email you would receive notice when comments were left on the blog. Alas, notice is sent only when I publish a new post! Julie recommends book-marking the site, which makes it easy to check in every day, but I am also going to try to post more often—reminders that others have posted comments worthy of your attention—so you have a link to click and can more easily respond to those comments. Let’s become champions of one another!
Next week's assignment: Week 2, Recovering a Sense of Identity
