Fifteen years ago, in 1993, I read The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. (http:// www.theartistsway.com) That’s not entirely accurate. I didn’t just read it, I did it.  The Artist’s Way is a 12-step program for recovering your creativity. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It quite simply transformed my life, allowing me to become on the outside what I’ve always been on the inside. And it is still ongoing. I still do Morning Pages, every morning. I still do Artist’s Dates, nearly every week. (If you don’t know what those are – read the book!) They are the basic gas that fills my tank. And yet … I have to admit that nearly every morning I feel resistance. I start whining to myself. “I don’t feel like it today … I have too much to do … Skipping one day won’t hurt …” and so on. Even though I know Morning Pages and Artist Dates work. I mean, I wouldn’t expect to fill my car’s gas tank just once and expect the car to keep running for months and months, would I?  Yet it still amazes me when I write morning pages and three stream-of-consciousness longhand pages later, after whining about irritants, narrating my to-do list, and basically dribbling on about nothing – a brilliant idea shows up, like a tulip blooming in a sewer.

This blog entry is an example of this phenomenon. It’s what I wrote this morning in my Morning Pages (although I’ve edited it, of course. I mean, you don’t really want to hear about the hole my dog chewed in my pillowcase, do you? Or how I need to buy a new power cord for my laptop? Because those deathless topics were in there too.) Yesterday I was moaning to myself about how I didn’t want to write a blog anymore, it was too much work, and besides I had nothing more to say. As if in answer to this self-pity, today my Morning Pages told me that this is not true, I do like writing a blog, it’s not that much work, and above all, I still have something to say.

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