🎨 Let’s do The Artist’s Way together

Exploring survival as a creative act

Welcome to Life after Trauma. Before we start, a quick re-introduction: I’m Clare Egan. I’m a queer Irish writer on a mission to help survivors rebuild their lives. I founded Life after Trauma in 2023 because I wanted a space for survivor-centred conversations. Today, we’re embarking on a new adventure: exploring The Artist’s Way as a community. I hope you’ll join us:

The first time I started The Artist’s Way was in 2010. I got a couple of chapters in, before falling out of the habit. It was a horrible time in my life. I was grieving my mother, trying to come to terms with the sexual abuse I’d experienced in childhood and working multiple jobs to try to keep myself afloat financially. It’s not a surprise that ‘recovering my creative self’ slipped off my priority list.

I wasn’t ready.

The Artist’s Way is a powerful program of creative reawakening. Over 12 weeks, you tackle all the things that come between you and your creative expression. For a long time, I wasn’t ready to do that. I tried again in 2014, and in 2023. I failed both times. I finally completed the program in Spring 2024, and felt an enormous sense of achievement at having found my way through it.

My well-worn copy of The Artist’s Way

Creativity is a deeply personal thing. It was one of the most important tools I used to rebuild my life, and I believe it can be a useful resource for almost everyone.

When I started thinking about hosting The Artist’s Way for the Life after Trauma community, I knew I wanted to adapt the program a little. I wanted to invite more space for rest, intuition and processing the triggers that might arise. I wanted us to think of ourselves first as people who need care and support, before thinking of ourselves as creative workers. I wanted to create a space where we could approach the program critically, where there’s no expectation that you have to do any activities that might trigger or upset you and where we can bring a more modern lens to this classic work.

For me, the power of the programme came from embedding two primary practices in my daily life: Morning Pages and the weekly Artist Date. Morning Pages (or some variation on them) have been part of my life for more than a decade, and have kept me going through many difficult moments. I am less intentional about Artist Dates, though I do tend to make time for some kind of creativity each week. If you have the capacity to, these two practices are the things I would prioritise through these next few months.

But I also know that life happens. You might not always feel well enough to write. You might be juggling so many priorities that a weekly Artist Date just isn’t realistic.

Dipping a toe into your creative life might be all you have capacity for right now, and that’s OK. It’s still worth doing, and I hope you’ll do it as part of this community.

Let’s talk logistics

I’ve scheduled the programme to run between March and mid-June. I’ve incorporated a week of rest (or a catch up week) every three weeks in the hopes that it’ll make this process feel more sustainable. I’ll still be doing my Morning Pages and Artist Dates through those rest weeks, but we won’t be reading a new chapter or gathering for our usual Friday thread.

I won’t write about my learnings every single week, but I will share a few diary-style essays about what I’m learning and experimenting with. You might like to do the same in your own newsletter, on Notes or via our Friday threads.

I’m excited to write more about survival as a creative act. I’m working on some essays about writing about trauma (how I set the boundaries around my work, how to write without retraumatizing yourself etc) and also some of my other creative practices for recovery (cooking elaborate meals, art therapy etc). I welcome your questions about creativity and recovering from trauma for the Ask Clare advice column too:

What you need to take part:

• A copy of The Artist’s Way. It’s easily available online as a print or ebook, or via your local library.

• A notebook for your Morning Pages. Julia Cameron recommends a plain A4 spiral notebook. I use my usual moleskine. Use whatever feels right to you.

• A small slice of time each week for your weekly Artist Date (Some of my best Dates took less than an hour, so please don’t let a lack of time put you off embarking on this adventure!)

• A willingness to try

Our guiding principles

• Our central goal is to explore our creativity in a gentle, low commitment way. We might not “complete” the program or do every week’s activities perfectly, but we’ll show up to create as often as we can.

• We’ll join the experience at any time. Just discovering this post during week 3? No worries. You’re still very welcome to take part.

• We will find small ways to tap into our creativity in the course of daily life. Very few of us will ever be able to quit our jobs to focus exclusively on our art. But we can incorporate more creativity into our daily lives and feel more fully self-expressed in the process.

• We commit to doing The Artist’s Way imperfectly, rather than not doing it at all.

• We will build in time for rest and recalibration. Every three weeks, we’ll take a week off. Life happens and we’re all likely to get off track at some point. But with the support of this community, we’ll try not to be discouraged and to keep going regardless.

• We will use The Artist's Way as a framework, taking what’s useful and leaving the rest. We will make it our own.

• We will have fun.

• We will support each other.

• We will show up to cheer each other on.

I’m so excited to get started in March!

If you enjoyed this essay, you might also appreciate:

I don’t have many regrets, but this is one.

On ambition, trauma and how we define success

💕 If this piece resonated with you, please tap the heart below to help spread the word.

💬 In the comments, I’d love to hear about the role creativity plays in your life. Have you done The Artist’s Way before? What are you hoping to get out of this experience?