The Artist's Way: Week 12 (A Retrospective)

     

It's the end, woohoo/boohoo! This week's chapter is really short. I guess Week 11 already prepared me for The End. 

A few words of advice

The final week of The Artist's Way is really just a parting shot with a few words of advice. I'll summarise my takeaways below.

TRUST

At some point later on, we may lose faith and encounter roadblocks in the form of "sluggishness, confusion, 'I don't know...'" But the truth is we do know. We're just afraid to trust that life could be anything other than what we've been conditioned to believe (we suffer, and then we die).

MYSTERY

We must remember that creative work requires gestation: murkiness, darkness. During this period of seemingly aimless mulling about, it'll be tempting to try and "push, pull, outline, and control our ideas" at this point. But to do so is to risk forcing a premature birth. Rather than charge ahead like an engine, we must be willing to mull and ponder. 

PLAY

Art isn't work. It's play. When stuck, we can often get breakthroughs while engaged in hobbies (that is, activities that are of no economic or marketplace value). Try doing the household mending, some gardening, refurbishing, cooking, and/or decorating.

WET BLANKETS

Wet Blankets have a habit of popping up just as things are about to get good for us. Wetblanketery is often disguised in the form of a compliment or professionalism or flattery. But it really says "we know better". It plants self-doubt. An artist must therefore be discerning about the wet blankets in one's life, opting to disengage where possible. We must "keep our own counsel" and "move silently among doubters".

The Artist's Way: a retrospective

My self-prescribed task this week is to look through my entries for the past 11 weeks of The Artist's Way and record some thoughts.

WEEK 1

Shadow Artists. Many of my issues stem from the fact that I used to work in the creative-adjacent field of writing (especially sponsored content). I could never feel like a "real" writer, I think, if I did not try to write some stuff that was of no monetary value to any brand. Something just for me.

WEEK 2

Along the same lines, I wrote: "The idea of myself as an artist is, at the moment, absurd. This is despite 2 recent moments of professional success: having my work praised by a client and getting my highest-paying writing gig ever. Actually, these incidents depress me. I'm afraid that I will only ever be good as a paid writer, while my own work is crap."

WEEK 3

Childhood. It had been so long since I indulged in childhood memories, but once I started, I couldn't stop. The sensory memories flooded back (my grandma scratching my mosquito bites; jumping around to Beastie Boys with my brother) and I found myself becoming... less adult. That is, much more willing to follow instincts and whims rather than rational thought. (That toddler cry: "Because I wanna!")

WEEK 4 

Reading Deprivation. A revelation: books are my crutch. "The more self-improvement I read, the worse I feel... I try out new “systems” and “hacks” in the hope that one day I will be that person who’s totally clear about her values and mission in life and has the daily routine to prove it."

WEEK 5

Listing the ways in which I'm mean to myself made me sad: "I make it a point to keep my pets and Jon well-supplied with food, yet I don’t do the same for myself. I'll often eat something that I don’t really want, just to save $1 or $2, rationalising that it doesn’t matter because it’s “just” food."

WEEK 6

Counting Money. Doing this expense tracking exercise, I confirmed that I spent money trying to make everyone else rather than myself happy. On the other hand, I gained some new flow in my life: a bunny boarding business & part-time bookstore job.

WEEK 7

Came close to burnout. Yet despite the packed schedule and emotionally running on fumes, I religiously did my morning pages and was writing better than ever.  "It seems my creative life has gone on despite the time crunch."

WEEK 8

Fill the Form. Small, daily actions are what we need to overcome most creative stumbling blocks, from a low-grade addiction to anxious thoughts to an artistic blow in the form of criticism or rejection. I attempted to write in 2 notebooks: 1 for morning pages and 1 for "my book".

WEEK 9

Creative U-Turns. Interestingly, I was doing one about "my book". If I'm being completely honest, writing a book is just a shortcut to intellectual prestige and artistic accomplishment for me. Yet it's not the most natural of formats for me. I don't want to add 29487238 anecdotes and scientific studies just to hit a 50,000 word count, you know? So I thought I'd stick to blogging.

WEEK 10

Bottom Lines. In which I discovered how much of my time and attention is taken up by household chores. (Living with 6 pets will do that to anyone, really...)

WEEK 11

I did something previously unthinkable. I wrote a summary of my unemployment experiences in one blog post and posted it on LinkedIn. It. Exploded. Doing this was... curiously freeing. I feel I accomplished something quite major for my standards, which is to write and publish a piece of personal content.

Week 12 check-in

Morning pages: Maybe I'm slacking off because it's the end of the course, but I did not write the full 3 pages on any day this week. On the other hand, I did still write daily. I also DREW. I have been working on a home re-org all week, you see, and I filled my pages with new layouts and furniture ideas. 

Artist date: As artist dates, I went out to Canberra and Serangoon to collect furniture from Carousellers. I had forgotten how much I love doing this. 

Issues this week: None.