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Recovering a Sense of Strength: The Artist’s Way Month Eight Recap (Chapter Eight)

Hi! If you’re new here: I’m doing a year-long series where I work through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and document it here on the blog. This is the eighth post of the series, all about recovering a sense of strength; you can find the explanation for this series here and the previous post here.

Before we begin: I started making Youtube videos again! My most recent one is a few days in my life as a small business owner.

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Recovering a sense of strength: survival

In chapter eight of The Artist’s Way, Cameron opens with the statement: “One of the most difficult tasks an artist must face is a primal one: artistic survival.” She goes on to say that, as artists, we must learn the art of surviving loss—of hope, money, and self-belief. Through this, we allow ourselves to recover a sense of strength.

While not exactly uplifting, she is right: there’s no way to be an artist and not experience these losses, especially in the beginning. It takes time to build up skill, and to learn to make art in the way that you like to make art. And, if you’re opening a creative business, it takes time to build up customers and see any sales, too.

I’m the kind of person who’s not exactly patient with skills—I want myself to be perfect right when I start. But I know that’s not possible; strength helps me move through this and not drop everything I’ve worked toward.

Recovering a sense of strength: gain disguised as loss

Another way to recover a sense of strength is to find what you gain in any losses. Cameron says that, in order to move forward with strength, artists need to learn to frame artistic loss as gain. Yes, we spent time on something that didn’t succeed in the way we wanted it to, but it’s still a valuable learning experience: we know what we’ll do differently next time.

As Cameron states, every end is also a beginning. And while we’re focusing on what we’ve left behind or lost, we should change our perspective to look toward what’s ahead. 

In order to frame a loss as a gain, Cameron says to ask yourself these two simple questions: “How can this loss serve me? Where does it point my work?”

I tried this out on myself just this month, and it works! While I wasn’t necessarily feeling a loss, I did feel lost. Using these questions, I was able to get back on track creatively.

Recovering a sense of strength: age and time

Cameron also states that, in order to recover a sense of strength, we must learn to change how we view time. A lot of the time, we look at creative pursuits in terms of time: how long it’ll take to learn a skill—how long it’ll be before we’re at the high standards we place on ourselves. Because of this, we don’t actually start—we sit there, wishing we could do the thing we want to do, but not doing it.

And through this, we’re losing time. Time spent wishing we could do something is time we could be spending learning how to do it. It pays to start on something now, rather than sitting around wishing we were doing something. Sitting around wishing will take the same amount of time as actually doing the thing will.

One thing I’m struggling with in this department right now is taking painting classes. I keep telling myself I’ll do it, but then find other ways to fill my time. A week passes, and then a month, and I’m no closer to having this skill—I’m just left here wanting it. (It goes without saying that I will definitely be signing up for a painting class soon.)

Morning pages

Morning pages written this month: 28/30

For those of you unfamiliar with The Artist’s Way or morning pages: morning pages are a daily writing exercise where you dump everything in your brain onto the page. You’re supposed to just write—no stopping or reading back on what you read—for three whole pages. If you don’t know what to write, you write “I don’t know what to write” until you do.

Personally, I’ve never been all that good at following rules or instructions (no surprise to anyone who knows me in real life!). However, I do take these as guidelines. So, for the first few days, I was writing my morning pages by the book: three pages, no stopping or looking back. 

But, aside from my morning pages, I have a journal where I write every day: thoughts, ideas, what I’m planning for the day. Basically, morning pages, but smaller. And because I didn’t want to give up this journaling practice, and I also didn’t want to do three morning pages and write in my journal, I ended up combining them, which has worked so well for me.

This month, I did most of my morning pages: 28/30. After slipping a little last month, I made sure to prioritize my morning pages as soon as I woke up each morning. I found it much easier this month—less like a chore. I think this is, in part, due to the face that I realize this experiment is coming to an end. I want to make sure I take in every part of it before it’s over.

Artist dates

Another pillar of The Artist’s Way is artist dates, where you (the artist) take yourself on at least one date a week. This could be anything from writing in a coffee shop to visiting an art gallery to making art in the park. The goal of this is to “nurture your inner artist,” as Cameron states in the introduction of the book. 

You can read about how I’ve bent the rules to this in this post.

During April, I took myself on six artist dates:

• Writing in the park alone x1
• Reading at the library alone x2
• Making art in a coffee shop with a friend x2
• Making art in a coffee shop alone x1

Spring is in full swing, meaning the warmth of the season and all the pretty flowers draw me outside more often. I’m definitely looking forward to making art in the park more often now that the weather is nice.

Tasks

In every chapter of The Artist’s Way, Cameron outlines a list of tasks for the reader to engage in. Each chapter’s list is extensive, and so I choose just a few to do. This month, I chose:

“In a perfect world, where would you like to be in five years in relation to your dream and true north?”

“In the world we inhabit now, what action can you take, this year, to move you closer?”

“What action can you take this month? This week? This day? Right now?”

—Above quotes are taken from The Artist’s Way, Chapter Eight

Some important creative things of note for this month:

• I’m most excited about the fact that I finished the first draft of my novel! 
• I’ve also started editing that novel, and am about 35% through.
• I finished knitting a light green tank top I started a few months ago.
• I also knit a moss green bandana, and started in on a burnt orange one (and bought light pink yarn for a third).
• I made my first digital drawing (of a lavender-colored teapot) for the first time in months.
• I doubled down on my business and wrote out quarterly goals for the rest of the year, to help me stay on track and measure my progress.
• I started doodling in my sketchbook again, with no pressure to create a set number of times per week or month.

How did you make time to be creative this month? And what did you create?

xoxo

Catherine

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Thank you for reading! There’s no new printable this week, but you can see all the printables I’ve made previously in my shop, Toad in the Attic.

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Some more posts you may like

Digging down into the dirt to find who I used to be: A year of creativity

Blooming, breathing: How no longer setting goals for myself has made life better

Recovering a Sense of Connection: The Artist’s Way Month Seven Recap (Chapter Seven)

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