Sunday, November 27, 2011

The Artist's Way

I've been very fortunate to be involved with hosting an Artist's Way workshop over the past few weeks. When I say hosting, I mean it's in my house and a fellow writer and I faciliated the meetings. We have a small, comfortable group that has become very close and realized that we have more support for our art than we'd anticipated.

Support as a writer, artist, human being is the most we can ask for.
Support from our loved ones, our friends and family, is necessary to grow and develop our creativity.
As odd as it sounds, support from ourselves is vital.

Ourselves? Why wouldn't we support ourselves?

Interestingly enough, a lot of us have tuned in those voices that tell us WE CAN'T.
The voices of people we love and admire and respect that say WE'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

That's what Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way teaches us.
She tells us to tune out those voices. Don't trust that critic, the monster in the back of our heads that tells us we aren't worthy.
WE ARE WORTHY. WE ARE GOOD ENOUGH. WE ARE ENOUGH.

I've done The Artist's Way exercises before. Years ago when I first moved to town and knew no one, had no support and didn't believe in myself or my abilities. I found it one of the best things I could have every done to feed my creativity and support my Inner Artist. That Inner Artist now thrives. She writes prolifically, creates amazing needlepoint ornaments and longs to finish editing the current novel to spend some time painting.

My current spin through The Artist's Way is a reminder that I still need to nurture and support myself. Feeding that Inner Artist with play dates like colouring, walking around town to see the Christmas lights or something as simple as soaking in a bubble bath all of these things ignite my creativity and allow me to write. Or draw. Or paint.

In short, to create.
Happy Creating!!


Monday, November 21, 2011

Novella coming out soon!

Great news!
After a long wait and a few glitches, my novella Murder on Manitou will be released by Wynterblue Publishing via Amazon very soon! Be sure to watch for release date!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Something to think about...

The following was written as part of a prompt at an HWG writing meeting:

We have an aversion to loss of control, as much as we love it. In writing, our goal is to form images with the written word and allow the flow of those words to stream from our pens like water from a tap. But taps still control.

We edit, we doubt, we scratch out our thoughts mercilessly and do rewrite after rewrite.
We seek perfection.
We seek control.

We are afraid of writing, even those of us who love it and live it. Yet we seek to let go and let the words, the universe, the stream of unconscious mind say its piece. When we do finally give up, we find great things appear. Thoughts we never would have thought. Associations that had never occured to us. Intuitions that have sought out an eager fountain to flow from. Thoughts that have travelled the universe seeking to be released and not controlled. We become better for giving them voice.

While the words we write may never become famous or find their way to the rest of the world, they have been given voice and were heard by us.

Even if only by us alone.

  

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