Vital Creativity Lessons from The Artist’s Way

The Artist’s Way: Essential Reading For Artists Seeking Creative Recovery!

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way is the best and most helpful book on creativity and creative recovery that I have read. (And I’ve read quite a few in the last year, trying to recover what I lost along the way.)

As a bonus, The Artist’s Way is also a workbook, which helps you make the leap from blocked, wounded creative to one coming into their intrinsic power of being happily, gloriously creative.

I read about the phenomenon of this book many times, before I actually bought it. What made me buy it? Author Deborah Cooke described the two main tools of The Artist’s Way in a blog post and it seemed to make a weird sort of sense to me.

When Amazon finally delivered the book, I was feeling like I was a decent place creatively. And I was in such a hurry to show progress, that I read the introduction and the first two chapters and decided to only focus on the two main tools: the morning pages and maybe attempt a few artist dates.

This was the first iteration.

I turned the morning pages into ‘anytime’ pages and just scribbled and scribbled. Going well over the 3 page limit on most days. My hair-trigger temper improved, fears quietened down; my writing became looser but flowed easier. I settled more deeply into the idea of being a creative being and writer.

The inevitable implosions followed. Julia does warn us that in the course of following The Artist’s Way, as you heal and course-correct, you can expect a few fireworks.

So, I picked up the book again: the second iteration.

This time, to read through and through. Julia’s words now made even more sense. What she describes in the book was exactly what had happened with me while doing the morning pages! This second time, I did a few of the exercises but mainly just read, absorbed her gentle wisdom, her permission to find that essential, creative me.

I continue to do the morning pages. However, I managed just about 3-4 artist’s dates in all this time – around four months or so.

In these four months I have filled four notebooks with my (almost) daily scribbles, exhausted countless pens, and emerged calmer, softer, stronger and more in tune with the voice inside that sings.

This is what I learned in my two-time immersion in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way:

Creative Recovery

If you have been discouraged as a child or have been forced to be ‘practical’ or have been unable to pursue your creativity for financial reasons or even out of deep insecurities; those impediments have left a wound on you. When creative people are not able to express their creativity, they hurt. And while you work on reversing the blocks and getting back to your core creativity, you need to realise that you are in creative recovery and need to be kind to yourself.

Be patient. You are forging a new you.

The path will resemble waves rather than an upward incline. And as mentioned above, might even bring with it a few squalls and tsunamis.

Creativity is Play

You have to allow yourself to play, to let what you are creating feel light as froth and as joyful as a blown bubble. Treating creativity as heavy-duty ‘work’ as found in an office, bound by productivity – might be fairly counter-productive.

I had a day when my writing for Rackety and the Beauty Spell felt like flying! I then proceeded to get totally shocked at myself, started to doubt the quality of the writing and promptly shut down for a few days. Though better now, I still need to get that soaring flight of fancy back.

No Uniform Day

There will be good days and bad days. Days when you will make art and days when you will need to rest and reflect. Don’t let the lack of ‘output’ impact you negatively as a creative being. Remember, you are in recovery, and need to be gentle with yourself.

Be a soothing presence within the maelstrom of the self.

Filling the Well

Nurturing the inner artist child or as Julia calls it, ‘filling the well’ is perhaps your most important responsibility, especially while in creative recovery. Immerse yourself in a rich array of nourishing inspiration – sights, sounds, smells, tastes. The more delicious the better! This in part is what the artist date is about.

My favorites are: taking flower-photography sun-walks, going to the movies, going to the bookstore and reading books. Traveling and taking a holiday are also great for recharging the well!

What are your favorites?

The Essential Morning Pages

The morning pages are a journaling tool. You write three pages of longhand in the morning, ideally before doing anything else. You write to clear your mind, to connect more deeply to yourself, and to discharge your silly, angry, irritated feelings into a safe space.

And let me tell you, the morning pages certainly worked for me! In a way that my earlier, more casual journaling had not. This is a more mindful practice.

I’ve been doing them for months and even when nothing else gets done, when I’m in a soggy, squelchy, muddy mood, I dive into the strong, lighted-up reassurance of the pages. Which are to me ‘anytime’ pages. I pour out all my froth and fury and clarify, clarify, clarify. It’s great therapy. And I get a mental tick-mark for getting them done too!

Morning Pages For Writers

For writers, having the pages to pour yourself into, is an amazing gift. Here is a place to just be you, in words. There is no need for style or artifice. No worries about publishable merit. There is no audience. You can just be. And be as narcissistic as you need to be. What a huge relief, right?

You get kudos for just filling pages, for messing around, for just being with words. It’s amazing and freeing and ultimately – healing.

Bad Art

Creative people like doing things well. They like creating things with beauty, impact and resonance. However, when you are in creative recovery or transitioning to a different sphere of the creative journey – that might not be possible. Such thinking might in fact, be harmful. What we need to get more comfortable with, counter-intuitively enough, is bad or blurry art. ‘Bad’ to our perfectionist eyes that is.

Give yourself permission to play in the mud, to make a glorious mess, before the masterpiece inevitably emerges.

Self-Care

You will need to work on yourself as much as you need to work on your art to effect a proper creative recovery. This is years of grime being washed away from the mirror of your creative spirit. Take the time to do it right.

Then it will shine! Then we have lift off!

That Abundant Feeling

A belief in abundance is essential. Call out to abundant inspiration, abundant opportunities and an abundant audience.

Make the pie bigger. There’s enough and more for everyone.

A Deeper Connect

You’ll get an urge to deepen your learning, especially knowledge of your craft, once you embark on this 12-week journey.

I got back my ability to read with stillness and absorption though this process.

Do It Your Way

You need not follow the book exactly to reap the benefits of The Artist’s Way. A DIY approach works very well too.

Look at me, I’ve done two laps and will soon go around for a third, when I feel in need of healing again.

The third iteration will be the one in which I plan to follow absolutely everything in the book. Each set of weekly exercises, the affirmations, the artist dates, etc. And all through I will continue with the morning-anytime pages.

Healing Has To Continue

Creative recovery, creative healing and making art are all part of an artist’s creative process. Once the blocks shift a bit, art evolves out of the pain, out of the recovery and out of the healing spirit. And it shines brightest from a recovered artist.

So our work is essentially to strive and to continue the healing process.

We are artists, we are stronger as well as more fragile than most, we need to take care of ourselves, always.

And then, as Neil Gaiman said: ‘Make good art!’

~~~*~~~

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(Image credits: Pixabay.)

(Image of The Artist’s Way book: Radhika Mukherjee)

 

 

 

An Ideal Writing Afternoon

To sit, in the afternoons, in a secluded pavement cafe, beside a sleepy street, sip chocolate hot or cold, or even green tea and – write…

The sunlight will dapple welcomingly all around and fall slantwise on my lightly ruled notebook, lighting up the words written with my pilot pen.

Passersby ambling along will look at my rapt expression and smile – indulgently. They’ll nod to one another and say, ‘Writer at work!’

For I will be clad in artist’s clothes – long skirt, gypsy top and lots of bangles and open wind-worried hair. Dark kajal will line my eyes, bringing depth and mystery to my glance.

There will be an ease to my walk, a swing in my laugh. I will be relaxed and elated and ready to share the ecstasy trapped inside.

A cocoon of inspiration will form over me and I will beam beatifically, lost in imagination, and just write.

Actual fiction!

And soul stories.

And poems.

Ah!

Eavesdropping, Observing, Writing In Cafes

Words free-flowing in the real world, that I had only read before, ‘Workshopped’, ‘freelancer economy’, ‘you must give me your card…’ – a couple of solopreneurs meeting at the coffee shop I’m trying to work in.

The tiniest, cutest Korean mother-daughter duo waiting at the cash counter. (They ordered a fluffy pink icing donut.)

 A few laptops, a ‘premium’ photographer and a few sets of friends on a girl’s afternoon out.

My back is not to the wall, as I prefer, but at least I’m seated at the extreme left of the café, after changing seats twice, by the glass wall overlooking the street. There’s a curious mix of comfort and discomfort built and baked into this experience.

There’s the glare from the truncated sun, there’s all these voices, booms from the kitchen, the clatter of cutlery, phones ringing, friends giggling with each other. Maybe lunch-time was not ideal to come to a café-restaurant?

The quieter, more open bookstore café, my usual haunt, has become a bit boring though. Seems to be a stultifying sameness there today. Still, I always got something or the other done. Something original I mean. It has some positive writerly vibes. Must be all those books nearby. But I wish the café space was actually closer to the book shelves, not at the entrance, parallel to the cash counter, tucked under the stairs.

I’m not at all hungry or even thirsty. What’s the protocol though, is a mug of green tea enough recompense for the time you spend here, the space you occupy? This is after all, a commercial establishment. So do you have to eat even if you’re not hungry? Also, why are there so few non-caffeinated drinks to be found anywhere? A warm drink with no sugar, no caffeine, no lactose – that’s what I actually need.

Why don’t cafés double up as juice bars? With healthful options like, ginger, wheatgrass, acai, tulsi, etc.? And why don’t they make more salads? They should also mandatorily have a library section, like Pink Butter has. A writer friend in Australia actually goes to write in her local public library. Which sounds just ideal, right?

Today was supposed to be a day trip day, in this startling sun that we’re having in the winter cool. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. This bright, in what is supposed to be winter, is a gift from the universe. You keep your snow, upper latitudes, give me this delicious winter sun. I’ll take the glare headache in stride.

So I thought at 8 am – Day Trip! But there were so many logistics to manage, so many unknowns, that baby steps were what was actually achievable. So, in this first day of me deciding to live my actual life, I settled for breakfast out – pancakes or bust! That didn’t work out either. It’s cruel to drag one’s tired husband to pancakes at 9 am. So we had a big (boring) breakfast at home.

It’s only then that we set out, to buy office Secret Santa presents. I of course, got me a little something, the most adorable Tweety Bird, but I also helped! I was so useful at picking out the actual present I tell you. I pointed it out and everything!

So now here I am, at our occasional weekend hangout, nursing my green tea and actually longing for my study. I’ve set up everything just right there. I even wrote a little – typed actually – before scurrying off to get ready. It seemed like just the right energies had converged.

Would it be a shame to just up and run away? Go home to my desk? Where I can get something of worth done. Or is this longing an illusion, another of my mind’s ways of putting off writing original fiction? Caught as I am, in a process of constant dissipation of fear and resistance. All part of creative recovery they tell me…

A bit of a waste of a bright day, to go to the dark indoors. When what I actually want is just the bright in my life. (The me, mine life.) To gather these fiery energies to permeate my stilled separate self. To fly in fire…

The universe, it has spoken. Notwithstanding fears, notwithstanding base practicality, I am for the life fecund and free. Just to spin my stories is all.

It is required that I free fall. That I let go of the illusion, the utter falsity of the ‘sensible’ persona I had adopted. Just to let go, that’s my job right now. In this space that become less crowded, a bit quieter, it seems almost possible.

Here, there are people being friends and acquaintances and having actual conversations! That’s worth being near for a while. If only to infuse more life into my made up worlds.

Actually, this is kind of like being at the long forgotten office desk. Since pen and paper are right there, and nothing else, especially not the internet, one can just scribble away. Write in flow.

Not literature yet, but things resembling usable pieces.

Even this blog post is a boon, right?

~~*~~

 (Photo Copyright: Radhika Mukherjee)

The Gifts The Universe Has Given Me

At the end of this year, 2015 – a transformative year – in this season of gifts, I’d like to share with you, in the spirit of SONO GRATA (Italian for: I am grateful*), the gifts that permeate my life.

So, Universe: Hello. Namaste. I would like to thank you for:

My Ma

My Nikhil

Books and stories and their writers. Oh so many writers am I unbelievably grateful for! (Special shout out to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.)

Poetry

Music

This mind of mine

The ability to laugh and smile

The ability to cry

Empathy

The unbelievable joy of the act of writing

The sky, clouds, sunsets and sunrises

Trees

Flowers

The power and beauty of the cycle of nature

Human ingenuity and creativity

Acts of giving and kindness

Those essential conversations – digital and tangible

The internet

Blogging and other bloggers: have kept me going for so many years

That feeling that people care about you

The ancient wisdom of India, native Americans, Japan…

All the struggles I have ever faced: family, financial, emotional, creative – it is through fire that one smelts the pure ore

Babies, all babies – human, animal, plant. Babies remind us of a purer state of being, they make us smile and laugh and make our hearts expand. That’s magic!

Stuffed toys: they make me smile

Sketching and coloring: strangely therapeutic

My trusty old Dell laptop, still going strong after 4 years; notwithstanding a keyboard and battery change.

Loose sheaves of paper, my numerous notebooks, Evernote, MS Word, Pages, pilot pens, drawing pencils: so important for the working writer.

My study (a.k.a. the spare bedroom), with my tiny desk and chair, an armchair and shelves of books.

Photography: is like little presents of beauty and meaning the world gives you through the lens.

The numerous talented photographers on 500px, 1px, Instagram and WordPress whose works light up my day.

The generous photographers at Unsplash and Pixabay who provide their photos so freely and where I go to when I don’t have an appropriate photo of my own.

The activists who fight to make the world a better place. They need help, support and compatriots and I hope very soon to contribute more myself.

The organic farming movement and the availability of some organic produce at least. (It’s not that much more expensive to eat organic, here in India.)

The folks who are fighting to protect forests and conserve habitats. The folks planting trees.

The brave hearts who protect animals against poaching.

Virtuous cycles: we need to always aim to create virtuous cycles.

For being a woman: I think I am finally beginning to understand what it means and to celebrate my quiet, flowing strength.

For being born a woman in this time and in this country.

For India: there is so much depth here, so much potential. It both breaks and lights up my heart, this country.

My beaches: Juhu Beach in Mumbai for special memories. Goa beaches for feeling like infinite home.

My mountains: The high Himalayan mountains are a place of ecstasy for me. I will always feel like running away to Kurseong where I spent some magical childhood years.

My cities:

Kolkata, where I feel radiant and strong.

Mumbai, where I feel active and energetic.

Pune, for quiet pleasures, contemplation and lots of fresh air!

For art, debate, sport: anything that keeps us off the path of violence and war.

Meditation: though I am a beginner, it brings me a measure of peace, calm, connectedness and flow.

Dance! 🙂

~*~

What would you like to thank the universe for today?

I would be honored if you shared it with me!

Thanks!

~*~

Thank you for listening! This was my last post for 2015.

Happy holidays! Wish you also a very Happy New Year for 2016!

In 2016, let’s promote peace and harmony.

Let’s plant many, many trees.

And laugh, let’s laugh a lot! Okay?

~*~

 

*[Hat Tip: Elizabeth Gilbert]

Celebrating Bloggers: 3 Amazing Short Poems

This is a poetrypressed post, in which I celebrate three poets who wrote three short poems that moved me, made me think or made me smile.

Probably best read accompanied by a piece of cake and a hot drink?

1.

A simple, joyful poem that makes you fall back in love with life.

I Would Love

By/On: Spanishwoods

2.

Beautiful, inventive words which make such music, musically.

Disharmony

By/On: Putting the Dog to Sleep

3.

Clever and delightful all at the same time.

Time Climbs Over The Fence

By / On: Meadowpatch

 

Enjoy! 🙂

 

Chant of the Inner Child

We all are children, adrift in the harshest world…

Forever afeared and covering it,

Forever seeking, forever stoic.

 

We may add a few layers of growth,

But that tenderness at the core remains.

Whether it’s shielded, shrouded or indulged.

 

The most wonderful things can come out of it,

So much impetus for love, laughter and creativity.

Also hurt, vindictiveness and destructiveness…

 

The calm watcher isn’t half as real,

Has much less influence.

Yet is needed to temper the wayward child.

 

When joy gets cut off and the child retreats; what then?

When it’s too scared to come out and play?

When its secret wishes can’t be heard?

 

How do you comfort it, upset as you are?

How do you soothe when you are chaos?

How do you connect, to heal and ascend?

 

That is the essential journey.

The Thing About Strength

Sometimes, the best things about you make the most trouble for you, out in the world, don’t they?

In a light-bulb moment, I learned, that you have to accept your strengths if you want to cultivate a calm, purposeful sense of yourself. If a situation or relationship seems better if you diminish your strengths: it is going to make you weaker, or turn your own sense of self into a brittle sort of ash you will not be able to gather up. It’s like trying to throttle the sun!

Much better to quietly accept who you are, even if you think others will be uncomfortable, and hold on to the certainty that one decision brings; though you may chose to assert that quality in a register that is comfortable to you.

For me, I’m a planner and can take charge of situations. For decades that’s been filed under the pejorative ‘bossy’ in my head. Because don’t you know, you’ve got to be ladylike, you’ve got to be polite, all the time, everywhere!

I’ve therefore held back in expressing myself fully, or appeared quite wishy-washy, in myriad situations. Or when trying to express myself at last, have been overly aggressive. There was less balance and more uneasy striving and strife in my behavior.

In an intense session of introspection late at night, curled up in the armchair in my study, I finally reconciled myself to being the person who can ‘see’ and ‘fix’ or ‘see’ and ‘action’ and so on. And boy, did I feel a seismic shift within myself! I literally felt parts of my brain leap and then settle down in their proper places. A burn that I was not even conscious of seemed to have cooled and healed.

I emerged calmer, more confident and more grounded. A space has been cleared for light and deep joy.

I can do the things I need to do now. I can be me more fully.

***

It’s a worthwhile endeavor to take around one hour and figure this out for yourself. Just think about how you act and react at home or work and if in any way, you are holding back, though you know better or castigating yourself for being too *insert best qualities*, it’s time to work towards accepting and integrating your strengths with your everyday self.

It’ll all seem much better afterwards. And people around you will welcome the change.

I promise! 🙂

Balancing on Spider Webs

I’m running in story! I’ve been able to pick up the Rackety and the Beauty Spell  story (light fantasy fiction), after long last. The roughest of rough first drafts is hand-writing itself.

The first 3 chapters have been set out – which covers the premise and character introductions. And now, Rackety and Maya and Cherry Pie are ready to set off on an adventure across the whole world!

Just wrote a dark character and you know what? I can carry off a villainous voice! Who knew?

The plot is slowly spinning complexity around itself. Detail building upon detail. And I say, it is doing so, because while I am indeed the medium, the story itself has its own kinetic energy. Its very own sort of shape and feel.

I am getting to know my characters, bit by bit, deeper and deeper. And they are just so intent on being themselves! All my masses of notes from the last year, all the planning, seem to count for nothing! But it’s amazing when the voice, the flavour, in my mind changes from one character to the other.

I’m mainly relying on dialogue to move the action forward right now. When I type it all up, I know I will have quite a bit of filling in to do in terms of narrative.

As for the narrative, it’s the pull and push between show and tell that I’m trying to balance. I’m trying to write in an engaged and engaging narrative voice, so the story seems three-dimensional, with an energetic but comforting tone.

There is so much to give, so much to learn and discover. It is art and craft and story and sustenance and utter delight! And so very addictive, it’s scary. I’m trying to stop myself from overdoing things. To stop my imagination from burning itself out and my brain from crashing. Balance, essentially, is what I’m striving for – an easy, playful writing process.

And I’m so nervous! I’ve never read anything like this, so I’m just making it up as I’m going along. I just hope Rackety resonates with readers (pardon the serendipitous alliteration).

That’s it from the story trenches. Back to scribbling furiously!

Happy weekend! 🙂

Chaos Dancing

Wizards and philosophers had found Chaos, which is Kaos with his hair combed and a tie on, and had found in the epitome of disorder a new kind order undreamed of.

Chaos is order in a mask.

Chaos. Not dark ancient Kaos, left behind by the evolving universe, but new, shiny Chaos , dancing in the heart of everything.

~ Terry Pratchett (Thief of Time, Page, 373)

What I Learned Today

Today started as a video day. While listening to Buddhist meditation music on YouTube, curled up on the sofa, the serendipity of suggestions at two remove led me to Oprah’s interviews with Thích Nhất Hạnh and J.K. Rowling. Amazing treasures to stumble across!

From Thích Nhất Hạnh came a lesson in compassion and the power of being. The inter-ness of us all and how to share our selves with compassion with the ones we love. (A lesson I have to keep on learning.)

I have often rued the violence I witnessed as a child and adolescent. Sometimes, it seems as if the violent tinge on the world will never leave. And this video made me think, what if? What if the reaction dynamics had been set to compassion, healing, generosity and empathy; instead of rage and hurtfulness and meanness and intent to destroy? A darkness I both fought and cowered from?

What if a position of radiant strength had won the day, set the agenda? What if, someone, anyone, had embraced some light?

Just the thought of the possibility of such a thing occurring acted as a balm upon these old traumas. Carved out in my mind, a new mode of action and reaction.

Not anger but compassion – a calming, serene and powerful energy.

Here’s the video:

From J.K. Rowling and Oprah’s dialogue – how to own one’s journey and power. To push for one’s dreams, the thing that burns inside of you, in spite of poverty or pressure. And to reward yourself a little, if you happen to make it! J

Here’s that video:

I also learned today, or re-learned, how sweet the rain can be. I watched the green turn intense and celebratory in the first proper rain of this parched season, and then when I went walking in the rain, in late evening, I savored the spray and the splashing and the utterly delicious rain-kissed air!

A good day, don’t you think?

What has been your most valuable learning experience recently?

The Question of Ecstasy

Weeks go by, shrouded in indoor sublimation.

A drowsy fuzziness.

An amiable darkness.

While the rain calls and beckons.

 

I slip from sleeplessness to epiphany.

Through a touch of the profound.

 

Oh ecstasy, how dear you are to me!

One day I glimpsed you in a heron’s white flight above a greenish-dark bamboo grove.

 

Richness!

Utter Richness.

 

If only one could linger…

Could the salt doll withstand the ocean this time?

 

This space of consciousness, this decoupling from basic biology,

How did it arise?

Have we really transcended the basics?

Or is there a more evolved species to come?

 

There is a gap through which we pass,

We who search…

 

Is that part of the design,

Or have we just jumped; ascended inexplicably?

Who can answer?

Who can solve the puzzle for which even questions cannot be framed?

Till The Stars Align And I Can Write

Till the words align themselves just so—

In elven formation in my mind.

To shoot enchanted scenes like gilded arrows on paper and screen.

Till fate smiles,

Till my own volition allows me permission,

Till a thousand intangibles are resolved,

Till all daily tiny irritants are neutralized,

Till I can reside on a fluffy cloud of silence and inner peace,

Till divine rainbow light shines directly on me,

Till I complete all my myriad preparations.

Till I read enough,

Till I learn enough,

Till I know enough,

Till I am enough.

 

– I float.

A Selection Of Soul Sketches And a Quest Story

I sketch to find the shapes hidden in my soul.

Without training, without the intervention of thought.

Just the pure instinct of pencil moving freely over paper.

And then emerge shapes that mystify, surprise and sometimes delight.

In the days that I have thirsted for my own artistry – my magical words,

These Soul Sketches are what have kept me going.

Pushed me to reclaim my words.

And for that, they are a most wonderful gift to me.

~*~

First comes a sketch that works two ways.

First as an Alien Duck and then as The Shrouded Ghost of Past Fears:

Alien Duck

Fear ghost

In keeping with the theme of fear, here’s my Ode to Unfinished Art:

Ode to Unfinished Art

To get over fear, you will need to call upon the magical powers of The Wonder Tree:

The Wonder Tree

Which will grant you the boon of an audience with the mystical Furious Smoke:

Furious Smoke

Which will lead you to the ever-wise and willing Alien Octopus:

Octalien

And with the Octalien’s words of wisdom ringing in your ears, you will go back to your art with stars in your eyes:

Pretty Stars

And create fantabulous art!