The Artist’s Way: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection (Week 10)

On workaholism, creative drought and fame (& an opportunity to be featured in this newsletter!)

Welcome to Life after Trauma; I’m Clare Egan. We’re in Week 10 of The Artist’s Way, a community exploration of the intersection of creativity and recovery.

You know the drill: each week, we read a new chapter of The Artist’s Way and do our best to write our Morning Pages and schedule an Artist’s Date. On Tuesdays, I share my reflections on that week’s theme and on Fridays, we gather to share our experiences in the weekly thread.

Our next virtual gathering will be on Sunday June 8th at 1pm Irish Time. Please leave a comment below if you’d like to attend.

Thistles are a obvious example of nature’s self-protection, though I also find them quite beauitful (Photo by Mandy Bourke on Unsplash)

An opportunity for you

Before wrapping up The Artist’s Way, I wanted to give you - the members of this community who’ve been chatting with me in comments, Notes and our virtual gatherings - a chance to share a little of what The Artist’s Way has meant for you. I’m planning to do a roundup post on June 17th, and would love to include your perspectives, as well as a link to your newsletter or another creative project.

I’ve made a short google form to capture your stories. Please be sure to share your experiences by Friday, June 13th. I can’t wait to hear from you!

The Artist’s Way Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection

I can’t believe it’s time to tackle the final 3 chapters of The Artist’s Way. When we began this process back in March, I couldn’t really imagine how it would go. Would people show up? Would they care? Now that we’re a handful of weeks away from finishing this crazy adventure, I know that I’m really going to miss it.

But it’s not over yet, and I’m going to try to finish strong. I took some much needed rest over the last while¹, but I want to conclude this creative journey with intentionality and as much mental energy as I can manage. That means a steady commitment to my Morning Pages. Even if they’re rushed or incomplete, I want to make time to meet myself on the page. In terms of Artist Dates, it’s a good time to see if there’s anything else you’d like to prioritise before this process ends. I’d like to find an hour to spend with my watercolours, experiment with some project baking and maybe write some more poetry. (An aside: I can’t believe I shared a poem during this process.

Jeannie Ewing

asked nicely in the comments a few weeks back, and I drummed up my courage to share a poem-ish thing that I don’t think is very good but that I did manage to complete last year!)

How are you feeling about the final leg of this journey? Are there any particular Artist’s Dates that you’d like to make time for? How are you feeling about your Morning Pages?

This chapter begins with God in the first sentence, which is always slightly off-putting. Cameron lists the various things people use to block their creative energy (food, work, alcohol, relationships) and suggests that we break those habits and focus on our work instead. Great idea! If only it were that simple..

She believes that despite all the hurdles before us, we can have faith in our ability to overcome them. There’s something encouraging in her optimism, but I don’t think just wanting to change is enough. Throughout the book, Cameron sees creativity through a very individual lens but our lives are deeply influenced by the world around us. If we want to build a sustainable creative life, we can’t do it alone. We need the support of others to achieve that goal.

I got a lot from the section on workaholism. I no longer identify as a workaholic (pause for laughter - I’m editing this at 9.47am on a Saturday morning!). Earlier in my career, my identity was fully subsumed in my career (which led to some pretty devastating consequences). I don't work like I used to. My behaviours have changed, though perhaps my mindset hasn’t quite caught up. It often feels like I should be doing or achieving more, that I don’t deserve to rest, that I’ll just tick off a few more things before I let myself relax.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate it is to show you my results of the workaholism questionnaire:

Looking at the results, it’s hard to argue that I don’t have a problem with workaholism. It’s much better than it used to be, but it’s still not great. When I wonder why I’m not progressing with my creative work, this feels like an important factor.

“We have doubted, yes, but we have stumbled on”

I’m going to admit something that might be controversial, but I haven’t had a lot of experience with creative drought. That’s not to say that I haven’t had periods in life where I couldn’t do my creative work. There were years lost in this tailspin of trauma when I couldn’t organise my thoughts enough to write a paragraph. There were times when I had no space in my mind to consider anything but the next immediate steps in my practical survival. There were times of deep emotional pain, times when I couldn't face my subconscious and didn’t trust myself to be able to handle whatever emerged from it.

But when other creative people talk about experiencing drought, I can’t really relate. I’ve always had ideas. I’ve always had creative impulses that I wished I had the time to pursue. I’ve had times when my creativity was pushed aside by overwork (see above!) or mental ill health or the demands of trying to survive what many people would say is unsurvivable. But my creative instincts have always pulsed with life.

Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here. Perhaps it doesn’t matter why my creativity was stalled, only that it was. But I think it’s important to be accurate. I think it helps to be clear and precise about the things that are causing problems in our lives. For me, it was the long tail of trauma caused by childhood sexual abuse. It took decades to find my way through that trauma, and I don’t think I would have gotten through it without writing. I kept doing my Morning Pages. And I kept moving forward, because sometimes you just need to keep living long enough for things to change.

In a lot of ways, creativity was what helped me rebuild my life. It was the catalyst for broader changes in my life. Creativity wasn’t something I rediscovered when I was “cured”, it was an essential tool in getting well.

I was curious to read about fame which frankly terrifies me. I hate the idea of being known, even if it’s because people enjoy or respecet my work. I know that I’ve both consciously and subconsciously kept myself small in order to avoid it. It’s why I hate social media. It’s why I hate self-promotion (though I also know that I need to get better at it!) At my core, I’m quite shy. I’ve been happily writing for several decades without much of an audience, and it’s fuelled me in so many ways. I don’t need an audience in order to enjoy my work, though if I want to make it a more sustainable career, I know I need to overcome my hesitations. Interestingly, Cameron has no advice on this perspective. This section is focused only on those creatives for whom “fame is really a shortcut for self-approval”. I’m sure that’s a struggle for some but it’s far from a universal experience. What about us introverts? The shy creators beavering away in isolation without much interest or success in finding an audience? I think we also need some guidance.

Other thoughts & reflections from Chapter Ten:

• “If creativity is like a burst of the universe's breath through the straw that is each of us, we pinch that straw whenever we pick up one of our blocks. We shut down our flow. And we do it on purpose.” I like this metaphor. It’s useful to think about what I do to stall my creative flow, though I think it’ll require more than understanding it to be able to meaningfully change it.

• “There is a difference between zestful work toward a cherished goal and workaholism. That difference is less in the hours than it does in the emotional quality of the hours spent” This is so true. There have been seasons in my life when I worked long hours but felt deeply fulfilled by my work. I treasure those times when I achieved that flow state and felt in tune with what I was creating. That’s something I strive to recreate, and it’s important to distinguish it from workaholism.

• “For all creative beings, the morning pages are the lifeline - the trail we explore and the trail home to ourselves.” This is beautifully put.

• “Blocking is essentially an issue of faith. Rather than trust our intuition, our talent, our skill, our desire, we fear where our creator is taking us with this creativity. Rather than paint, write, dance, audition, and see where it takes us, we pick up a block” What are your blocks? I have so many, but the ones that come to mind are overwork, mindlessly scrolling (especially the news) and not leaving enough mental space to think, breathe, create. Share yours in the comments:

• “In creative recovery, it is far easier to get people to do the extra work of the Morning Pages than it is to get them to do the assigned play of an Artist Date” This struck me, as it seems like the opposite has often been true in this community. Obviously, it’s not a scientific study but my impression is that more of us have struggled to face ourselves on the page than have struggled to make time for an Artist’s Date. Perhaps that’s partly due to this community being framing around painful topics like trauma? I’m not sure.

• “Never, ever judge a fledgling piece of work too quickly. Be willing to paint or write badly while your ego yelps resistance.” This is great advice and something I want to remember when I return to my novel later this summer. I’ve written 2.5 drafts but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that I ought to go back to the first one. I think my edits and revisions have actually made the book worse. I think those changes (which were made from a position of self-consciousness) squelched the pure, youthful voice of my protagonist and I’ll need to dig through my manuscript and try to unearth her again..

• “When the fame drug hits… pick up the tools of your work and begin to do just a little creative play” This feels like really good advice. (It also made me smile to see Cameron compare fame with nuclear waste which seems a bit of an exaggeration. This book was first published in 1993. I wonder what Cameron would make of the fame machine that has exploded in the decades since.)

• “The desire to be better than can choke off the simple desire to be” This chapter concludes with a section on competition, which felt like an echo of Chapter 7 on creative envy. “Only when we are being joyfully creative can we release the obsession with others and how they are doing”

• “All work is influenced by other work. All people are influenced by other people. No man is an island and no piece of art is a continent unto itself.” A helpful reminder!

Tasks :

• Dance it out! Inspired by

  Mazsi Jávorszky
  , I want to dance it out when something doesn't go my way.

• Cameron encourages us to set some boundaries around work which I’ve been trying to do over the last few months. I’ll try again this week.

• Touchstones. Make a quick list of things you love, things that are happiness touchstones for you. We’ve done a few tasks in this vein throughout the Artist’s Way, but I’m eager to experiment with this one. I love the tangibility of keeping more things I love closeby.

• Cherishing. List 5 small victories. List three nurturing actions you took for your artist. List three actions you could take to comfort your artist. Make three nice promises to yourself. Do one lovely thing for yourself each day this week.

• Another task from the chapter itself: mail yourself a fan letter. This feels both kind of cheesy, but maybe also necessary? I’m going to give it a shot!

Best of luck with The Artist’s Way this week.

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1. Or at least as much as anyone can really rest when they’re less than a month out from their wedding 🙃