The Artist's Way (and reading) by Michael Gettel-Gilmartin

A couple of Mayhemmers have recently blogged about their experiences of  either The Artist's Way (Caroline's Morning Pages One Year In) or going on a reading fast (Joanna's Fasting Story.) Since I am currently working my way through The Artist's Way, part of which requires giving up reading for a week, I thought I'd share my own progress report.

Caroline's piece actually was the boost that got me back to the practices Julia Cameron writes about it her book, the subtitle of which is "A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity." Towards the latter part of 2016, I was in a complete creative funk--a lot of which I trace back to the election and its aftermath. Add to this that, after parting ways from my agent, I had been having no luck querying my latest novel (lots of full requests and nice rejections, things like "not for me, but I can see this being a smash hit with the right agent,") I was finding it hard to hang on.

Intellectually I knew that the sun would rise again tomorrow, but my creative child was really feeling the slings and arrows. I'd had a similar creative crisis in 1997, after the birth of my first child, and the knowledge that I was soon turning THIRTY-FREAKING-FIVE (!) and that my creative dream of being a published author was still in embryo. (Fast forward 20 years, and here I still am.)

My wise wife gave my a Christmas gift, paying for me to attend a 12-week course on The Artist's Way. There were about twenty of us, and we met weekly in the back room of a music store. Our facilitator was funny and down-to-earth, and soon we were engaged in all sorts of kooky things, like making collages, writing affirmations, and bidding farewell to negative messages.

Week 4 of the course, however, was tough. That was the week where we had to give up reading and watching of any sort for one whole week. (The internet wasn't ubiquitous then so, looking back, it was not so tough.) But I freaked out. The Winter Olympics were being held in Nagano, Japan, and I really wanted to see a couple of my favorite skaters--Elvis Stojko and Michelle Kwan--compete. But, being the rule-follower I am, I buckled down. I also kept my wife busy: she had to remove the newspaper off the front porch in the mornings so I wouldn't be tempted to read the headlines, and then she had to videotape the events for later viewing. (Yes, after Week 4's dastardly task was over, I did binge watch hours of the Olympics!)

Here we are in 2017, and I am older and maybe just a smidge wiser. Week 4 was hard yet again, not because of The Olympics, but because I had to come face to face with my social media obsessions. Although a late adapter of Facebook and the like, I find it's a little like a morphine drip for me--a squeeze here, a squeeze there throughout the day and whoops! Where did the time go? (Twitter's even worse.)

What did I discover with my week off from reading screens and magazines and other people's books? First, my worry-levels dropped dramatically. (The media-free week coincided with the Inauguration, and during that blackout I was as happy as a clam.) Also, since I wasn't losing myself in others' stories, some of my own started to emerge. I'm not quite back at my fighting weight yet, but I'm getting there.

The creative life ebbs and flows. We all have wounds and scars, but we also have champions and companions on the road. (My friends on this blog are part of this support.) Julia Cameron is also a firm believer in serendipity and the opening of doors when we are ready. And that is happening to me now too. A young, highly creative friend from church has invited me to write the script for an animation series he's creating. We're having a lot of fun brainstorming ideas together. As Julia Cameron says, "Artists like other artists."

I've got three more weeks to go on The Artist's Way. I've been religious about my Morning Pages, and have done Artist's Dates most of the time. (I've put links to Julian Cameron's website, where you can find explanations of what these two practices are.) I'm sitting with and pondering these words in Week Ten:

"In a creative life, droughts are a necessity. The time in the desert brings us clarity and charity. When you are in a drought, know that it is to a purpose. And keep writing morning pages."

Have you ever read The Artist's Way? If so, what were your experiences? Do you think you could go a week without consuming text or media? Are you willing to try?

Fasting Story by Joanna Roddy

Photo by: Marco Ottobelli, Source: Wikimedia Commons

This fall, I was up to my eyebrows in work commitments with very little time to write. I knew the new semester in February would bring half the teaching load and twice the scope for creativity. In the months when my fiction writing lay fallow, I came to terms with the end of a long-hoped-for project and realized that the time I wasn't writing was actually rich creative time in a totally different way. 

Freed from the responsibilities of writing, missing writing and wishing I could have the time to do it again, I was suddenly filled with new ideas for stories. I've never felt like much of an idea factory, but it seemed like every day I had some new exciting thought for a character or setting or plot element. They were all thoroughly disconnected, of course, but I was swimming in a rich primordial soup of creative life. It felt like I was on the edge of something new, and I leaned into that with the total freedom of someone who doesn't have to do anything about it yet. 

Finally, in December, with the new semester coming and past projects shelved, I realized it was time to channel the next story. I didn't know what it would be, or if any of the myriad ideas I'd been entertaining would play into it, but I knew it was time to start dreaming something larger. 

Then I did something weird--something I've never done before. First you have to understand that I'm a total book gobbler. I get audio books through my library, I have several e-books on my phone or printed books on my nightstand (or in my purse--anyone else? Lit. nerds unite!), and at any given time, I am voraciously reading at least one or two of them at every possible opportunity. But in December I decided that if I wanted to receive something new, I needed to get other people's words out of my head. I needed to carve out quiet, empty spaces where my own words and ideas could form. So I decided to fast story. 

Yes, fasting. Like a spiritual practice, or a diet. That meant no books, no audio books, not even podcasts. I also took a break from mindless phone games that I sometimes play while listening to an enthralling novel. Instead, I sat with the silence and I waited. 

I'm not a saint, and I'm not a liar, so I'll be honest: it was uncomfortable. There were times I cheated with a podcast. But I pressed into my story fast anyway with the kind of dogged faith we creative people have to have, believing that there are stories for me to tell and trying to make my mind and heart open to receiving them. I had a piece of paper on my dresser that I looked at every day that said simply, "Let it come."

One night at the end of December, I lay in my bed, very tired and a little sick after all the holiday hoopla, and it happened. A story began to come into my mind in a series of images, scenes, characters, and plot twists. I could see it all unfolding in front of me. I was a bit bent on getting a good night's sleep, so I actually fought the idea of getting out of bed to write it down for a good ten minutes. But the idea was so vivid that all hopes of sleep had fled, and finally I went out to the dark dining room, sat down at the table, and filled a page in my notebook with lines and lines of small print as I shaped the idea into words.

And I'm excited about this new story. I feel it burning in me, waiting for the chance to move from my mind to the page. 

I don't know whether all this is merely coincidental--perhaps it is--but I think there's something true in the idea that our lives are so full of clamor that we miss quieter voices within us that would guide us in transformative ways if only we stopped to hear them. I know that for me, the act of faith precedes the miracle. If inspiration is to find a way in, leaving the door open to her can't hurt. 

On Letting Go of Books by Joy McCullough-Carranza

I was so proud of myself, having sorted through the picture book shelves with my kids. They’re five and nine, and while we still read plenty of picture books, we most often pull from the revolving library haul, rather than the old favorites. Combined with a general desire to declutter, I went through the shelves with them. If anyone wanted a book to stay (including me), it stayed.

When my husband got home and saw the 75 books marked for give-away, he howled. “Why do you hate books?! Dr. Seuss?? Sandra Boynton?? What is wrong with you people!!”

But it was freeing to lighten the shelves, to know these books will move along to homes where they’ll be loved. (I did tell my husband he was welcome to go through and pull out any he couldn’t bear to part with.) And in the process of thinning those shelves, we rediscovered a number of books we hadn’t read in ages. We've happily added them back into the regular rotation.

Just after we did the picture book shelves, I read a post by Project Mayhem contributor Joanna Roddy on a larger-scale decluttering she recently went through. I’m still waiting on my library hold on the book she recommended, THE LIFE CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP, by Marie Kondo, but Joanna’s post inspired me to keep going with the books. (Thanks, Joanna!)

Once I’d finished with my adult shelves, I had 275 book marked for giveaway.

It wasn’t always easy. When my daughter cleared out the American Girl books and only kept two sets, I balked. We homeschool, and those books are educational! What if we study the Great Depression and no longer have the Kit books?!?! But then I remembered that awesome place down the road where they let us borrow books. For free!

When I got to my own shelves, my holdovers from my theater major days just demanded to stay. I mean, I got rid of the books on design, the esoteric, analytical books. But RESPECT FOR ACTING? AN ACTOR PREPARES? I have to admit, I didn’t get rid of those, even though I’m 100% sure my acting days are over. I just wasn’t ready.

And I’ll admit: I barely thinned out any middle grade at all. But in my defense my kids are still on the younger side, so it seemed far too soon to get rid of anything they still might enjoy over the next five years.

If you get inspired to thin your shelves, here are a few ideas of what you can do with them:

·      DONATE THEM TO YOUR LIBRARY: I’ve seen some people mention donating books to their library for circulation. Maybe it’s because my library system is vast and decently-funded, but my library doesn’t use donated books for circulation. They do, however, take donated books and sell them in their regular Friends of the Library sale, using the funds to support the library. Win-win!

·      DONATE THEM TO GOODWILL, SALVATION ARMY, ETC:  When my kids were babies, I got very excited about the children’s books we’d read together. Long before they were ready for them, I built up our children’s library through second-hand stores. Your donation will help more overzealous new parents build their collections!

·      SELL THEM TO USED BOOKSTORES: In my area, I have multiple options for selling used books to second-hand bookstores. They’ll give me cash or in-store credit. They won’t take everything, but even a little in-store credit is better than none, right?

·      BUY NOTHING GROUPS: We boxed up the majority of our books and took them to the library, but when I had several complete sets of American Girl books, I offered them up on my local Buy Nothing group and people went crazy. There was a HUGE demand. I mentioned that I had more children’s books for giveaway, and teachers came over to see if there was anything they could use in their classroom libraries. See if there’s a Buy Nothing group in your area. 

·      DONATE TO A LOCAL SCHOOL: Speaking of teachers, I’m guessing local schools and teachers might be excited about an influx of new-to-them books as well. I’ve never gone this route, but maybe some of Project Mayhem’s teachers and former teachers can weigh in.

So what do you do with books you’ve decided you don’t need anymore? What do you do with all the extra shelf space? Is it wrong that it makes me want to fill it up with more books?