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The first time I can remember hearing about The Artist’s Way was via some podcast featuring Tim Ferris who mentions frequently how doing Morning Pages has changed his life.
I was curious, but I didn’t get into it until sometime in late 2020.
And I didn’t start in one go. Not really. What I did was that I started by writing three pages of free flowing thoughts in the mornings. This practice helped me stay sane at a time where things were changing so quickly for us, and we went through quite a few challenging transitions.
The first time I did The Artist’s Way
About halfway through 2021, I felt the need for something “more”.
We had just moved into our new hometown (Brisbane, where we still are and plan to be for a while), my kids had all settled into their new school/kindy/daycare and I finally had time to get back to writing.
This time, I wanted to do it “the right way”. So I bought myself the book, a new notebook to record my thinking for the various tasks that required a writing practice (other than the morning pages) and some pretty pens.
My partner knew I was going through it, but didn’t know the specifics. I had no other person holding me accountable.
Did I finish?
I wrote my morning pages the whole way through. Probably with a few exceptions, because, you know, life happens.
I went on two or three Artists Dates.
And I did my best to read all the book (Q&A included) and spent my Sunday evenings focused on the tasks I could do on my own, from home, while the kids were sleeping.
Did I feel like a changed person?
Not really. I’ve always thought of myself as a fairly creative person. I’m always trying new things, especially crafts, recipes, sewing, crochet and so on.
But I also discovered that maybe I am a little blocked. Or a lot? All these artistic adventures I go on a fairly private and limited. Even though in my head I would love to work on bigger and crazier things than just a new dinner recipe for my family, I wasn;’t really going beyond my comfort zone.
So while I enjoyed this first round, the biggest lesson was probably that I have all sorts of blocks and fears around being an artist. But also, that it’s okay to be an artist on whatever level I’m comfortable with, or that this stage of life allows me to be.
The second time around
This year, I had fun building what I call The Artist’s Way Companion. It’s a Notion template that makes it easier to track all the reading, morning pages, tasks and artist dates that are recommended to go on, for the full experience.
I issued a call-out when I launched the template to see if anybody else would be interested in joining me. A few were interested, but the timing wasn’t right.
So it ended up being just me and lovely person named Kaitlin. We exchanged emails every week on our progress, answering the four main questions that are asked at the end of each chapter:
- How many times did you do your Morning Pages? How did they go?
- Did you go on an Artist Date? What did you do? What did you think of it?
- Did you experience any synchronicities? What were they?
- Are there any issues towards your recovery/the process?
At times, we’d also write to each other when it got hard, or when we had ideas of how the other might approach their own challenges.
In a way, this felt like an “extra” task, writing to my buddy each week, but it was the glue that kept us both going when it would’ve been easier to just stop. And there was something special about writing to someone I have never met in my life, not even via Zoom. Needing to take the time to write down my thoughts, meant I was really reflecting on what the process meant to me, and also trying to see if some of the things my partner was discovering could apply to me as well.
I’m writing this as we’re in the middle of Week 11. A lot of this week is about reflecting on all the topics that have been discussed and slowly planning out what will happen beyond week 12.
What I’m noticing is that while I’ve been able to write most days, and do a higher number of Artist Dates than before, I think I could dive much deeper, take my time a bit more and tackle more of the tasks that I’ve been resisting.
Third time’s the charm?
I want to do the whole process. Again.
But it’s too soon to do this.
When you read the whole book (I’ve got a version printed in 2020), towards the end Julia suggests that while it’s good to repeat the process when needed (or wanted), it’s also a good idea to simply give yourself a full 90 days to focus on getting your morning pages and your artist dates done. It’s part of “The Creativity Contract” you get to sign at the end of the 12 weeks.
So that’s what I’ll be doing for the next while.
But, I don’t want to just leave it there or wait too long before using the template with extra guidance to let other people join in the fun.
I want to experiment with the idea of giving people the option to go through the process with some form of accountability and extra support so they can get all the way to week 12 and to be able to say they did a thing to its end.
And I’d love to kick-start this in the next couple of months. So June-July 2025-ish.
Introducing...
The Creative Companion
A weekly guided journey through The Artist’s Way
What it is:
- A supercharged Notion template (with a few extra tools/pages to help you tackle some of the trickier tasks compared to the basic version)
- A live “Week 0” Zoom call to help you set-up your Notion and ask questions about The Artist’s Way
- A weekly email to remind you of where we’re at. Each email will include a video that tells you what’s coming soon, and what you need to know about the week ahead.
- An invitation to a private Slack community where you can (but don’t have to) share your weekly check-ins, your artist dates and ask questions from the group. I’m there as a facilitator, there will be guiding principles, but this a community effort, so everyone is allowed to share their tips and tricks or answer people’s questions.
For now, this is still a dream of sort. That I’d love to launch next month. And I need your help to bring it to life.
How you can help…
If you have a minute or two, and you’d be interested in joining me and others, could you please fill out this questionnaire for me?
Filling out this questionnaire will help me build the program so it’s awesome for you, but it doesn’t mean you’re committed to doing it. I’m gathering feedback, so even if you’re on the fence (or pretty sure you don’t have 12 weeks to give to this process), I’d still love to hear from you.
Thanks!
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