The Artist's Way: Week 3

As promised, I will be blogging lessons and activities from Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" every week to help you (and ME!) unleash the artist trapped underneath work deadlines, household responsibilities and the new fall TV lineup. So often we allow outside stressors keep us from finishing that script or novel or blog post, even though, out of everything we do all day, it's the one thing we want to do the most. Cameron's workshop is not a cure-all, but rather a way to get in the habit of putting your creative life among the other immediate priorities on your list.

I'm not even going to discuss my lack of action on the Week 2 activities and just trust that YOU were not the same lazy procrastinator that I proved to be. Let's just jump into Week 3 and act like nothing is wrong...

This week it's all about taking back some power in your creative life. While reading the chapter to write this post I was overcome with a sense of "OH MY GOD! Cameron just described my problem to a T!" I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the majority of creatives doing this workshop will feel the same.

Cameron discusses:

>Anger as a source of fuel for creativity
>Synchronicity and the anxiety it may cause
>The function shame serves in blocking our creative selves
>Sorting useful criticism from harmful criticism
>Allowing for growth, even in spurts, in your creative life

All of these topics apply to me and my creative blockage 100%. Let me share a little story with you.

When I was a little girl, I wrote a story, "The Castle Beyond," that dealt with the supernatural and such. Remember, I was into the macabre from a very early age, borrowing as many Stephen King and Clive Barker books as I could get my hands on. Naturally, this was what I gravitated towards with my first story.

I typed it up, had my cousin illustrate it and proudly presented it to my mother. Her only comment was a harsh, "This is what you want to write about? Ghosts and monsters?" It broke my little writer's heart.

After reading this week's chapter, it occurred to me that I kept a lot of my writing to myself because I was made to feel ashamed of it and I feared criticism. And even though I didn't take Weeks 1 & 2 seriously, I definitely plan on working the hell out of Week 3 because this is the source of my blockage!

I'm actually looking forward to the tasks, which include finding the source of YOUR blockage (because I already found mine!), taking stock of our habits (good and bad) and acknowledging our inner compass. This is a good thing we're doing, fellow creatives. We're on our way to a greater version of ourselves!

xoxo,
Raquel Ivelisse