The Artist's Way
Starting June 7th, I'm leading a small cohort to go through the full 12-week Artist's Way program together. If you want in, keep reading - there's a form at the end.
Hey Friends,
I fell off the horse a bit. Turns out a last-minute three week trip to Italy and the east coast are not the most compatible with me writing weekly essays. But here I am! I’m back. And this time, I’m here with a little invitation.
A year ago I finally did something I’d been putting off for years: I started Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”.
12 weeks. Three pages of longhand writing in the morning, before I was performing for anyone. No audience. No output. Just a pen and whatever was actually in my head before the day started demanding things.
I was skeptical at first; I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a morning person. People had been recommending me this book for years, but I didn’t think I’d be able to make the commitment.
The catalyst ended up being one of those synchronicities — two weeks in a row new acquaintances recommended The Artist’s Way to me out of the blue.
So last June, I decided to take a swing at it, not sure if I’d actually make it through the whole 12 weeks.
I’ve done it almost every day since.
A few weeks in, something started to crack open in me. Over the summer, I wrote half an album of original songs. In the fall, I wrote a treatment for a TV series and a feature film. 8 months later, I restarted this blog.
One of my favorite passages is from week 8:
“Focused on process, our creative life retains a sense of adventure. Focused on product, the same creative life can feel foolish or barren. We inherit the obsession with product and the idea that art produces a finished product from our consumer-oriented society. This focus creates a great deal of creative block…we may want to explore a new artistic area, but we don’t see where it will get us. We wonder if it will be good for our careers. Fixated on the need to have something to show for our labors, we often deny our curiosities. Every time we do this, we are blocked.”
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Chapter 8: Recovering A Sense of Strength
After nearly a decade working in tech, driving myself past the brink of burnout, this passage hit me pretty hard.
Here’s the thing about morning pages: most people who start them quit by week three. Not because they don’t work. Because there’s no signal that they’re working, and we’ve all been trained to stop doing things that don’t produce something you can’t show someone.
Morning Pages have changed my life*1. Through this simple daily practice, I’ve found my way out of the ash and back to myself.
So to mark one year of doing The Morning Pages, I’m putting together a small cohort to go through the full 12-week Artist’s Way program together, starting June 7th. One hour on Zoom, Sunday Mornings. Morning pages, creative check-ins, and real accountability in a small group setting.
The Artist’s Way, Cohort 1: June 7th - August 23rd
When: Sunday Mornings on Zoom for 45min-1 hour2
What: Weekly check-ins. People showing up for themselves in a group setting.
Cost: I’m still working that out. But if paying something would help you actually show up for yourself, you can pay me whatever keeps you honest.
Interested? Fill out this quick Google form and I'll be in touch with next steps: https://forms.gle/rvew44v4kW8k7DrD9
If the AI grind has been making you feel like you’ve outsourced the last creative part of yourself — this is for you. If you’ve been craving something that’s just yours — something that exists before the workday starts and doesn’t need to justify itself — this is for you.
This is for people who have been meaning to do the work and keep not doing it alone. You don’t need to be an artist. You just need to want to remember what it feels like to make something.
Fill out the short form above if you want in!
Til Next week,
Carly
Confession: I aim for the morning, but sometimes they happen later in the day. Some days you miss. The most important part is you get back to it. The goal is consistency, not perfection. The morning pages have no rules. I have several different sizes of notebooks depending on how much time I feel like I have to write. This past April/May is longest stretch of time I’ve gone without missing a single day. And sometimes that meant they happened at night right before bed. It doesn’t matter!
Timing is TBD depending on interest and the cohort dynamic.