Have you read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way? If you’re a creative or you want to be, this is a must-read. I worked my way through it in 1997 and while most of its brilliant suggestions and guidance didn’t get through my carefully constructed walls made from self-sabotage and unhelpful patterns, it seems that its lessons lay dormant until I was ready.
One of the practices recommended/created by Cameron is the Morning Pages ritual which regular readers and long-suffering friends/family will have heard me banging on about constantly. I cannot stress the importance of the discipline to not only write daily but to fill at least three pages with the contents of your whirling mind. It stops the whirl and it’s quite possibly the only thing that can.
Another of Cameron’s suggestions is the Reading Fast. It’s a fast, but instead of eating nothing, you read nothing for seven days. Not even the cereal packet and these days would have to include social media and such. I have done this twice in twenty years and I can attest to its almost magical powers to bring forth a flow of creativity. (I was lucky in that I worked for myself and didn’t have to read anything for work.)
I love the concept of restricted consumption and I plan to go on retreat next year for a week in Bali and do yoga and chill by the pool and eat yummy food and have a week away from the constant consumption I have been surrounding myself with this year. The movies, the books, the Netflix, the constant fucking scrolling through social media to promote my shit. gah, it’s exhausting – but I love it! Some people get all holier than thou about Facebook but I’ve met far some quality people on social media that I would never have met IRL.
Some people get a bit hung up on consuming content. I read a post recently that said a well-known business coach was telling his readers they needed to be creating 1000 pieces of quality content a DAY!! wtf?? yep, you read that right. What a joke. I think if someone if creating 1 piece of quality ‘content’ i.e. original writing, photography, original art, craft, recipe, whatever per WEEK, then they are smashing it! No wonder people get freaked out about networking, marketing and creativity in general.
HAVING SAID ALL THAT…this is what I am consuming right now!
BOOKS! Helen Garner’s Everywhere I Look is my introduction to all things Garner and Graham Robb’s The Ancient Paths for #preptober.
Movie – See my review of A Star is Born. #swoon I am also very keen to see Venom. Sadly I missed The Wife with Glenn Close at the cinema so I’ll head over to Apple TV to rent it.
Netflix – Lucifer!
Podcasts – for writers – Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn, for everyone else – Heavyweight from Gimlet Media.
Music – November (feat. Lisa Mitchell)
New stuff from Aussie group Rufus du Sol.
Facebook goodness – The wonderful Dr Michael Lennox who dishes up brilliant astrological insights and is a remarkable dream interpreter also.
Instagram you MUST follow
In the words of Dr Lennox, Have at it!
I’ve only recently come across your blog. And I like it a lot. I have to say I don’t do any of the stuff you recommend because I’m lazy, but I am familiar with most of your tips and recommendations. A lot of the stuff you mention are things that’s I really like and associate myself with. I dunno. I just felt like I had to say something instead of just “like”
I dunno. I dont know why. Just.. hello 🙂
Hiya ☺️ I love that you said hi. Everyone is different – I can be one of those annoying extrovert types. 🤭
I can also be annoying and extroverted too!!! But this whole *outside stuff* what people see isn’t always reflective of what happens underneath, in the black behind our eyes. If you know what I mean? I think you do anyway 🙂
I do. I’m deeply aware of that stuff you mean, behind the eyes.
Yay! It’s so nice to find people who just “get it”. Because no one can really understand everything, so we reach out to find those individuals who we can relate to at least part of ourselves. 🙂
So I just wanted to let you know that hi! I’m here. In your little audience of followers, and that your posts really do mean a whole bunch to different people. I assume so anyway because they mean stuff to me 🙂
You know, that’s the nicest thing. I write this stuff for myself but holy shit, to know that someone is getting something out of it is gold. Thank you. What a gift you’ve given me tonight 🙏
A tour de force, Christine! I am a prolific reader for all sorts of reasons; pleasure, entertainment and educational. However, as my work requires enormous ‘consumption’, I tend to seek respite from it by not reading anything! Then I am sad because I am missing a dear friend and something that is very important to me. I too, have been seeking (alas, also no Quidditch pitch required, although I know where there is one!), ways to deal with this conundrum, and now I think I have found it, or at least the path towards it! I will consult Dr Lennox. Congratulations on a great blog. Only the second I have ever read. The first being Julie Powell’s, but that wasn’t a great introduction. While I loved the film, I didn’t like her much, at all! So this is great! Thank you!
Thank you for reading. I wasn’t much taken with ms Powell either. The book was my punishment for enjoying so many silly movies 😩
On reflection, I don’t think I will be much of a challenge for Dr Lennox! I always delude myself that sleeping will provide the respite from and stop, the ‘whirl’, at least for a while. But it does tend to give me extraordinary (I think), yet weirdly mundane dreams! I am intrigued by what Julie Cameron will ‘say’ to me, though! Another Julie! lol
I love watching the videos Dr Lennox makes about how real astrology can inform our choices each day. Not the zodiac in the paper, but real guidance “from above”. As for dreams I gave up trying to work mine out when I had a dream that a wet towel jumped up like the cloak from Dr Strange and scared me awake. Nothing to see here people. 🙄