The last six months have been tough, but I’m beginning to find my way, the artist’s way.
I’ve always had a million excuses not to write, but I now at least have a couple of valid ones. This war has made it impossible to sleep, nearly impossible to function. To get on track, I knew I needed help. I needed an outlet. It was time to turn/ return to writing.
I first decided that I needed to give myself permission to be ‘selfish’ which as the mother of five (and cat mom to a geriatric cat and a new kitten), just means doing something for myself. Even ‘working’ seems like a selfish act to me when there are so many others with needs turning to me.
I booked Highlights Foundation’s Jewish Symposium: An In-Community Gathering for Jewish Writers and Illustrators. A Highlights Jewish retreat is what initially gave me the spark that I needed to officially launch into a career as a Jewish kidlit author.
But I knew that I couldn’t wait until May. Faced with an existential threat, I needed a way to write myself out of my state of permanent anxiety and despair. In the mornings, after school drop-off, I try to walk and I’m successful with this most days. It’s my time to think and listen to podcasts. I was listening to Book Friends Forever and Laurel Snyder was the guest. She was talking about being in a slump and what she has done to work her way out of it. She mentioned a book (and a course) called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
I only had $13.99 to lose and thanks to my Kindle, it would be in my hands as soon as I returned home from my walk up Victoria Peak.
I’m only just beginning Week 2 of the process. Why I didn’t know about this before?
I’ll write more on that in a separate post because it turns out that I did. The Artist’s Way – A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity is exactly what I needed now. It’s a twelve week program designed to help creatives find their way out of a block and back to their creative self.
Now I’m finding my way, the artist’s way and I’m excited to see where it takes me. I have 11 weeks to go, but I’m already opening up to the possibilities.