Clare, how much I've enjoyed this experience with you! You have led it with grace, honesty, deep engagement and beautiful facilitation of our community and I am grateful for the deepest experience I've had yet with The Artist Way, despite first encountering it and working through it over 30 years ago for the first time. This is the first time I did it in community and it was so enriching, thanks to how you've inspired and engaged us. I will certainly fill out the survey today.
I too enjoyed this chapter, I think my favorite of all, with its focus on trust, mystery and faith. Like you, I found the "escape velocity" didn't really come across clearly or speak to me. And as for surrendering control--sometimes I need to do that, when I get too attached to a certain outcome for my creative work ('I must publish a novel or I will die unhappy and unfulfilled', is not an unusual thought for me over the years, but it stings less than it used to! Such enormous pressure I have put on myself. But today, older and wiser, I am far more accepting of my beautiful life just as it is, and all its blessings, at sixty-five. I am a creative person, creative writer, and I will always have that as my identity but it not the defining one, especially when i define its success in market or capitalistic terms).
But in other ways, having a structure to one's writing life, a routine, is essential, or has been so for me. Also, writing within constraints, as Jeannine Ouellette has taught me in Writing in the Dark, has led to some of my strongest creative writing yet.
That ice cream cone looked divine, and I enjoyed your video when i first saw it on Notes.
I so appreciate your kind words, Amy. Thank you 💕 This has been such an enriching experience for me, and I'm deeply grateful for your presence here.
I hear you on the pressure! There was a time when I couldn't imagine being 30 and not having published a book. My younger self staked so much identity and self-worth in achieving that arbitrary goal. My 37 year old self is fine with not having published a book yet. I'd love to someday, but it's not essential. Like you, I know I am a creative person and that practice is worth more to me than an external metric. (My ego is loudly yelling that I should want to publish a book, that I'm not a "real" writer if I don't... perhaps you know the script?!) 🙃
One of the gifts of The Artist's Way for me has been realising how many people live alongside this voice. It's no longer me vs my ego, but me and all my creative pals vs all our egos. That feels a lot less lonely, and I feel so lucky to have discovered it! 💕
Clare, how much I've enjoyed this experience with you! You have led it with grace, honesty, deep engagement and beautiful facilitation of our community and I am grateful for the deepest experience I've had yet with The Artist Way, despite first encountering it and working through it over 30 years ago for the first time. This is the first time I did it in community and it was so enriching, thanks to how you've inspired and engaged us. I will certainly fill out the survey today.
I too enjoyed this chapter, I think my favorite of all, with its focus on trust, mystery and faith. Like you, I found the "escape velocity" didn't really come across clearly or speak to me. And as for surrendering control--sometimes I need to do that, when I get too attached to a certain outcome for my creative work ('I must publish a novel or I will die unhappy and unfulfilled', is not an unusual thought for me over the years, but it stings less than it used to! Such enormous pressure I have put on myself. But today, older and wiser, I am far more accepting of my beautiful life just as it is, and all its blessings, at sixty-five. I am a creative person, creative writer, and I will always have that as my identity but it not the defining one, especially when i define its success in market or capitalistic terms).
But in other ways, having a structure to one's writing life, a routine, is essential, or has been so for me. Also, writing within constraints, as Jeannine Ouellette has taught me in Writing in the Dark, has led to some of my strongest creative writing yet.
That ice cream cone looked divine, and I enjoyed your video when i first saw it on Notes.
I so appreciate your kind words, Amy. Thank you 💕 This has been such an enriching experience for me, and I'm deeply grateful for your presence here.
I hear you on the pressure! There was a time when I couldn't imagine being 30 and not having published a book. My younger self staked so much identity and self-worth in achieving that arbitrary goal. My 37 year old self is fine with not having published a book yet. I'd love to someday, but it's not essential. Like you, I know I am a creative person and that practice is worth more to me than an external metric. (My ego is loudly yelling that I should want to publish a book, that I'm not a "real" writer if I don't... perhaps you know the script?!) 🙃
One of the gifts of The Artist's Way for me has been realising how many people live alongside this voice. It's no longer me vs my ego, but me and all my creative pals vs all our egos. That feels a lot less lonely, and I feel so lucky to have discovered it! 💕
So beautifully said!