The artist’s date

On Personal Things

I started Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and am loving it. For those of you who are not familiar, it’s a “course” that is intended to help unblock your creativity. I’d heard rave reviews about it from friends over the years but had never felt compelled to try it myself.

Cue #quarantinelife which is murdering my creativity and… here we are.

There are two tools in this book, so far, that have resonated with me: first, morning pages. I love morning pages. The concept is that you write three pages each morning. Doesn’t matter what they are, so long as you do it. It can be three pages of you going ugh over and over again. It can be creative writing. It can be a rant. Who cares! Doesn’t matter. The point is that you start off each day with clearing out the “dreck” from your mind. I’ve been doing it each morning in tandem with my beloved 750words.com and I am surprised at how effective it is at clearing things out. I find my morning pages start out with rambling and ranting, and end with me thinking critically about my current project. I can sense this will make a difference for me in the long run.

The second tool is the artist’s date. Once a week you make a date with yourself to pursue something creative that interests you. The key is mystery, not mastery. I tried doing a photomanipulation of two of my characters last weekend and I was surprised at how easily I got into the flow state. Since this pandemic started, flow state has NOT been a given. No idea of what I’ll try this weekend, but it’ll come to me…

On Writing

Okay, here’s something cool – I finished the current draft of my book on the anniversary of the battle of Culloden. As my book concerns the Jacobite uprising, that is oddly prescient. I didn’t even realize until I happened to watch a Youtube video about Culloden and saw the date.

Since I finished the draft, I’ve been researching as much as possible, while also revising my outline. I want to have a lot of the big “eh” areas, and all of the big decisions, figured out as much as possible before starting this draft, so I can hit the ground running with this draft and really have a smooth, fully-realized writing process. I have no idea how long the draft will take me but I feel like I’m zeroing in on having something I can share with my alpha and beta readers… and, ergo, something I can begin using to query agents.

Other Fun Stuff

At McSweeneys, Hamlet or an American Millennial? LOL.

At the Mary Sue, admire Stanley Tucci with me.