The Artist's Way

Time Travel: List three old champions of your creative self-worth. This is your hall of champions, those who wish you and your creativity well. Be specific. Every encouraging word counts. Even if you disbelieve a compliment, record it. It may well be true.

1. Receive the criticism all the way through and get it over with. 2. Jot down notes to yourself on what concepts or phrases bother you. 3. Jot down notes on what concepts or phrases seem useful. 4. Do something very nurturing for yourself—read an old good review or recall a compliment. 5. Remember that even if you have made a truly rotten piece of ar

A mystery can be very simple: if I drive this road, not my usual road, what will I see? Changing a known route throws us into the now. We become refocused on the visible, visual world. Sight leads to insight.

1. Every morning, set your clock one-half hour early; get up and write three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness morning writing. Do not reread these pages or allow anyone else to read them. Ideally, stick these pages in a large manila envelope, or hide them somewhere. Welcome to the morning pages. They will change you.

7. Life Pie: Draw a circle. Divide it into six pieces of pie. Label one piece spirituality, another exercise, another play, and so on with work, friends, and romance/ adventure.

Imaginary Lives: If you had five other lives to lead, what would you do in each of them? I would be a pilot, a cowhand, a physicist, a psychic, a monk. You might be a scuba diver, a cop, a writer of children’s books, a football player, a belly dancer, a painter, a performance artist, a history teacher, a healer, a coach, a scientist, a doctor, a Pe

This week, please be sure to work with your affirmations of choice and your blurts at the end of each day’s morning pages. Convert all blurts into positive affirmations.

5. Write a letter to the editor in your defense. Mail it to yourself. It is great fun to write this letter in the voice of your wounded artist child: “To whom it may concern: Sister Ann Rita is a jerk and has pig eyes and I can too spell!”

A perfectionist friend, teacher, or critic—like a perfectionist parent who nitpicks at missing commas—can dampen the ardor of a young artist who is just learning to let it rip. Because of this, as artists, we must learn to be very self-protective. Does this mean no criticism? No. It means learning where and when to seek out right criticism.