This, Too, Is Part of the Process

The Artist’s Way Week Two: Recovering a Sense of Identity

Week Two of The Artist’s Way is not so much about identity as it is about protecting our artist selves from undermining forces. Basically this chapter reads like a warning that the castles of our new—or renewed!—artist selves are more like sandcastles that must be protected from an indifferent sea.

That Punishing Sea

The basic message is this: Writer beware! Not everyone has your best writerly interests at heart! Cameron calls these nefarious forces “poisonous playmates” (blocked artists threatened by our movement toward writing lives they can’t create for themselves) and “crazymakers” (self-centered folks threatened by anything you do—writing included—that doesn’t center around them).

Think robber barons after our time and attention.

To protect our inner artists during these early sandcastle days, Cameron suggests we “draw a sacred circle around [our] recovery” to become people who not only “discover the pure joy in practicing [our] creativity” but also prioritize process over product.

Which is all well and good until you consider that this sacred circle you’ve drawn around your writing self also includes your anxious snake of self doubt. I don’t know about you, but walling myself in with a venomous snake has never been anywhere near my bucket list.

Cameron might point out that the previous paragraph is an excellent example of skepticism—another wave battering the sandcastle of our writing lives—and ask me to examine the sentiment in a conscious attempt to open up my mind to the idea that the antivenom for the snake of self doubt is attention to the joys in the world around me:

“The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity of delight is the gift of paying attention.”

So how do we pay attention?

Cameron seems to be saying it’s one part natural byproduct of morning pages and one part will. We can curse the rain, say, or we can take delight in the ripples that raindrops send skittering across the surface of the puddles.

Rereading this workbook now, I can see The Artist’s Way as one my foundational texts for mindfulness even though I first read it years before I ever even encountered the term mindfulness. In some ways, then, Cameron is my OG mindfulness teacher. Not that I can claim to have done morning pages every day since I first read The Artist’s Way—not even close—but freewriting itself has become a beloved tool in my writerly toolbox. In fact, after getting feedback last week that did my head in—the feedback was strong, but my understanding of how to use it was weak—I spent much of my writing time this weekend curled up with pen and paper asking questions and exploring (possible) solutions (see photo).

Did it work, you ask?

If what you mean by did it work is did I come to the end of the weekend with one true answer, then no.

It did not work.

If I’m being honest, there was much despairing, in fact.

So much despairing.

Despair aside, though, I think the freewriting actually did work because it gave me a place to ask the questions buzzing in my brain, a space to explore dead ends, a space to bang my head against how exactly I’d ended up with a draft full of the very problems I’d been consciously trying to avoid this time around. The nutritional equivalent, say of ordering a healthy salad only to find out your meal had more fat and calories in it than a Big Mac (womp, womp).

But most importantly, at the far end of all this weekend’s freewriting—and despair—came a quiet voice reminding me that this, too, is part of the process.

So today I’ll pull out a fresh sheet of copy paper and try again.

WEEK TWO TASKS & CHECK INS

TASKS—So many choices this week have to do with setting boundaries for your inner artists. If you’re having trouble coming up with artist dates task three might help you remember what you actually like to do. I did the ten tiny changes task (#8) because that was the one that appealed to me most and the life pie task (#7) because that was the one I wanted to avoid. The first task reminded me I really want a dog and the second task reminded me that ranking subjective items on a concrete scale is always a catawampus task for my brain. Which exercises appeal to you?

CHECK-IN—If you started (or restarted) the morning pages, how did it feel to get back to them? I did seven out of seven days and found that some mornings I just wanted to get on with things—I remember this as the gateway to letting the habit slip. How about you?

What about your artist dates? I took myself on a train ride and then walked almost ten miles around Manhattan. This was one part artist date and one part a day set aside to spend with my mom’s memory during my first holiday season without her. How about you?

About the photo—This is the parade of 8.5-by-14 copy paper where I did my freewriting this weekend—all the better to recycle it, my dear. Yes, I used the spin filter. No, those pages don’t all have writing on both sides—only most of them.

About buying the book—If you need a copy of The Artist’s Way, please consider ordering through Bookshop.org, an online retailer that allows you to pick which independent bookstore gets credit for your purchase. If you’re not sure which store to support, might I suggest All She Wrote Books, an “intersectional, inclusive feminist and queer bookstore that supports, celebrates, and amplifies underrepresented voices”? They’re a new and beautiful book store in Somerville, MA that could really use an extra boost.