i'm still working my way through the artist's way. this week, our main assignment is reading deprivation. (my cyberfriend msafropolitan mentioned that this was where she called it quits, or some such.) though i've contemplated ignoring this assignment, i am dutifully NOT reading as much as possible given that i remember how useful this was at hedgebrook, allowing me to access a deeper level of my inner thoughts.

and since i can't read other people's work--books, newspapers, blogs--i'm taking the opportunity to read my own, which brings me to the title of this blog. since there's not much else to do (no facebook status updates, no twitter, no cnn news crack), i am finally going over something like six years' worth of writing, which also involves organizing six years' worth of writing.

i am outing myself as completely disorganized (and i have it on good authority that i'm not the only writer out there who is). i've been wanting to get my shit together for some time now, so i suppose that this seems like a very natural progression. but it is entirely unnatural for me to be mining my literary archives for whatever gems lie buried there. to sit and read and assess with care. to try to figure out what i meant when i wrote this or that, where i was in my head, in my life, whether there is some usefulness to it or it belongs rightly in the scrap heap.

i think i've struggled to feel good about my writing my entire life. i've actually hidden most of it away from inquiring eyes. julia cameron, of the artist's way, calls it the internal censor--the inner monster who says This is no good, get rid of it and start over. mine has been rather overactive, but i am shutting him up now.

there are entire lives and families and mini-universes buried in my laptop. it's quite astonishing. at least maybe some of them, by grace, will have a life outside the notebook. i pulled some words from the pile above:

everyday i wish to
know and
stimulate
the ancient miracle of flow,
inviting the
lost muse
home.

--AL.

i recently dusted off my old copy of the artist's way and set about finally doing the exercises designed to "recover" my lost creativity. easier said than done, as the book was trapped in one of many unmarked boxes in a storage unit in brooklyn. i had been searching online for books and resources regarding creativity, and came across this one, which i remembered that i had bought once upon a time and never read.

i am more of a grazer when it comes to reading--and, incidentally, eating as well--and had skimmed through each chapter rather quickly without ever really internalizing the lessons and insights. boy. i had no idea what would come up out of the depths. so far, the past couple of weeks have been very interesting and certainly worth the hour it took to find it.

Here's a brief excerpt:

"Most of the time, the next right thing is something small: washing out your paintbrushes, stopping by the art-supply store and getting your clay, checking the local paper for a list of acting classes...As a rule of thumb, it is best to just admit that there is always one action you can take for your creativity daily.

By setting the jumps too high and making the price tag too great, the recovering artist sets defeat in motion. Instead of writing three pages a day on a screenplay, we prefer worrying about how we will have to move to Hollywood if the script gets bought. Which it can't anyway since we are too busy worrying about selling it to write it.

Rather than take a scary baby step toward our dreams, we rush to the edge of the cliff and then stand there, quaking, saying, 'I can't leap. I can't. I can't.'

No one is asking you to leap.

Take one small daily action instead of indulging in the big questions. When we allow ourselves to wallow in the big questions, we fail to find the small answers. What we are talking about here is a concept of change grounded in respect--respect for where we are as well as where we wish to go. We are looking not to grand strokes of change--although they may come--but instead to the act of creatively husbanding all that is in the present: this job, this house, this relationship."