Words on blank pages

I love the moment before the photo resizes smaller on blogger, right when it comes up in your text box and it is still really bit. I like it because I see in close detail a part of the photo I never really look hard at and I find myself wondering what picture I just uploaded. Then it shrinks and I realize that it was, in fact, the same photo. 

Random bit I know, but I've thought it a lot over the past few posts and decided this time to share. 

Today was another productive and I guess you could say artistic day. I've been treating myself to artist dates every day to keep motivated with the beginning of new habits. Morning Pages are still happening, day 3... today I also went to a coffee shop with my dear friend Mandalin and we drank our beverages and wrote. I read short essays and then wrote from prompts following the essays in Julia Cameron's book The Sound of Paper. I highly recommend it. I've been wanting to write so much more now that I've taken the time to make myself put pen to page. I don't always have to repeat to myself: I am endlessly interesting. But when the hard times come, when I feel I am uninspired and the words are just crap then I just say to myself "endless" and continue with whatever might seem drivel to the snob in my brain.

I started my interest in Julia Cameron not because I went through The Artist's Way, though I did have the book and had planned on it, I found her memoir and was hooked by the end of the first page. Her writing lulls the anxious beast that lives inside me. It brings out the melancholy from time to time but the shear panic I find biting at my edges dissipates for a second and I can think a little more clearly. After her memoir I was still not ready for The Artist's Way but looked at her books once again while in Powells. I found The Sound of Paper and decided that would be a great starting point. I'm really glad I did. She has quite a few gently brilliant things to say. Things that could seem like common sense but are never acted out as common sense acts would. I appreciate that. I appreciate the simple, the big picture broken down into manageable pieces.

Before I go on too long about Julia and how I'm going to crown her my guru blah blah blah la di dah and then turn you off completely I'm just going to say I don't like the word guru very much AND that if you ever feel you want to write more, The Sound of Paper is a helpful little gem. Also, if you're not ready for tasks, reading Floor Model could calm your anxiety about how your crazy (like seemily not sane, not in the producing all over the place) creativity. 

I'm doing a lot better on my goals this week as well! More on that Sunday though.

Who's story has helped you?

xoxo