The Clock is Ticking

A few weeks ago, R suggested that I look into The Artist's Way. It's basically a 12-week creativity workshop/experience. I think (and I'm probably speaking out of turn here) that the point is to help you find/foster/facilitate your inner creative self. From what I gather, it looks like many find that their creativity becomes more productive--in the sense that they are producing things grounded in their creativity. It really did sound very up my alley, though it bugged me that R was the one suggesting it. (It bugs me that someone who has been conspicuously absent from my life for 2 years knows me well enough to suggest something that is so obviously right for me.) So, I ordered the book and the workbook and well...they're gathering dust at the moment.

I really do want to do this. I do. And I have to keep telling myself that. See, I'm hung up on the first thing you're supposed to start doing every day. Their called "morning pages." The very thought of them has rendered me unable to read past the introduction of the book.

Morning pages are meant to be a connection with your "artist brain." You get up in the morning and before you do anything else you write 3 pages of whatever, longhand. Totally stream of consciousness writing. Then you put them aside and don't read them for several weeks. I think the book says 6 or 8 weeks in you can start looking at the early ones. They may be full of nothing, or you may spark something that turns into a new piece for you.

It's the "before you do anything else" bit that's getting me. It's also the "longhand" thing that gets me. I have a specific pattern in the morning, a routine. I get up, start the coffee, walk the dog, drink the coffee and swallow some Tylenol Arthritis, because my hands and I don't get along very well in the morning. (My back and I don't either, but I'm not sure that would have an affect on my writing abilities.) Until the Tylenol kicks in, which is aided by the heat in the shower, I couldn't possibly grasp a pen long enough to write three pages.

Just writing that sounds like an excuse in my head. I've got to find a way to make the morning pages work for me. I've been toying with the idea of doing them at work in the mornings. I've been getting there earlier the last couple of weeks, and in my office in quiet for at least half an hour. There's nothing that has to be done during those thirty minutes that can't be done just efficiently a little later in the morning.

Okay, that's what I'll do. I'll make a stop today to buy a pretty binder, some bright paper, and a pretty pen. Because it's all about the tools, right? That's why Emily here is metallic spring green (Emily would, of course, be my laptop).