Wednesday, 25 April 2012

The Artist's Way

I have dug out my copy of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way (TAW) again. I have lost count of the times I've attempted to complete this 12 week "course". Cameron says it is a spiritual journey to your creativity, or a creative journey to your spirituality and that the two cannot be separated anyway. However you view the All That Is, Higher Power, God/dess, Universe etc its entire purpose is The Creator and as we are a part of it, not a separate entity bobbing about in it, our base natures are creative also. We are creative beings, so stop saying you can't create and accept it (but she says it nicer, and more long-winded). I have looked for a mention of Dorothea Brande, crediting her for the origin of her Morning Pages but there's nothing in the actual body of the book. Cameron says she began them all by herself while on sabbatical in Mexico. Hmph. I checked the bibliography and she does list Becoming a Writer, saying it is the "best book on writing I have ever found." So that's good.

Last time I attempted TAW I signed the contract at the beginning of the book (in ink!) and was resolved to stick with it. That was 2007. I didn't stick with it. I don't think I've ever made it past Week One. I have no idea why, except life getting in the way and my commitment to my own creative happiness was weak. I even gave my copy away and it has found its way back to me.

I came across another book, Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd, last year and a lot of the Amazon reviewers said they had struggled to finish The Artist's Way but this book they had managed to stick with, finding it more expansive and liberating and realistic.

I have CaLWL and started to work with it last year. I like her practical yet off-beat approach to building a creative life. So which do I follow? My creative nemesis that keeps clawing at my face, muttering about Morning Pages and Artist's Dates or a grounded, less bossy, romp to creative joy?

I just know I can't do it on my own! I need someone behind me with a giant whip! I'll never write if I don't focus.

Other things I need to sort out:

  • My laptop is broken. I need to tell ASUS they suck and I need a new one, pronto. 
  • I need to clear and organise my writing area
  • I need to get on with reading the dictionary. I have also been doing this for Lord knows how many years and am not even a quarter way through the As yet. It is a task I have created for my own enjoyment (no seriously, this kind of stuff makes me hard) and part of it is to create my own mini dictionary of favourite words, which I have begun. I need to be more selective though because the A section is already quite big. 
  • What, my friends, WHAT I am going to write. Which genre? And what form shall my writing take? I still don't know. I flit between novels, short stories and poems like a drunken bumble bee, occasionally alighting on the enticing bloom of non-fiction before despairing at my own ability to keep air-borne...aaaand the metaphor's over. 
  • See? I need to practise! 
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2 comments:

  1. Cailas27 April 2012 at 15:55

    Could you take the best of each approach and create your own program? Think about which bits of which approach you resonate with, get a kick out of and build your own picture of your writing day. That way, the support and guidance is there but it's tailored to your personality, lifestyle, kicks and needs. Unless the two approaches are mutually exclusive. Could you write your own contract?

    If you really want to focus on one rather than the other, personally I'd say the CaLWL method.. There's something in how you write about them. It sounds as though you're already leaning that way. Trust your intuition! Creativity and intuition are two sides of a coin after all :) Or something like that!

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  2. Glitterboots11 May 2012 at 21:09

    I have tried some sort of half-arsed amalgamation in the past to suit my own ways but I've never kept up with them because I let myself off the hook all to easily. I may have sounded negative about TAW but in fact it's exactly what I need: someone a bit bossy making sure I'm doing it every day.
    Eventually I will build my own "picture of my writing day" (I like that!) but for now I feel I need the structure.
    Thanks for the input 8) -gb

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