Creativity for Skeptics Episode 6: The Artist’s Way Week One Preview

We’re starting week one of The Artist’s Way on Monday, January 4th.  In this episode, I’ll preview week one, plus I’ll recommend A.J. Odasso’s The Sting of It (Tolson Books 2019).

Or download here.

Transcript:

Hello skeptical creatives and creative skeptics. Tammy here. This is episode six of Creativity for Skeptics. It’s Sunday, January 3rd 2021 as I’m recording this, and we’re going to preview week one of Julia Cameron’s the artists way. So in just a moment, I’ll talk about how I’m approaching this first week as someone who decidedly does not believe in the supernatural.

One note. At the end of the show, I’ll be sharing a book I just adore, A.J. Odasso’s The Sting of It.

But first, let’s preview week one.

So, you’ve got your morning pages journal or like me, a very cheap college-rule notebook. I find I’m more open to getting down the messier stuff on notebooks that I don’t have to be precious about. But find what works best for you–that’s what this is about. I’ve been doing the morning pages thing off and on since at least 2000 when I was in my early 20s, and it didn’t take me long to figure out I’m happier writing morning pages on notebook paper or a cheap notebook than a beautiful journal. On a later episode, I’ll talk more about how my morning pages have evolved over time and why I still find them useful.

Notebook or journal, and a sturdy pen in hand. Now what?

I don’t know about y’all, but reading the title of this section, “Recovering a Sense of Safety,” I get that sort of visceral knotting, because we’re thinking about making this safe space to create in but also we’re in the middle of a pandemic. Safety is kind of a fraught thing right now. It’s never not been a complicated issue–I know that. So as you’re going through this chapter, it might be worth taking a moment to think about the layers of safety–or lack thereof–in your particular situation.

On page 30, Julia Cameron talks about core negative beliefs, and she lists a few. I’d like to add an example of my own, because of the way art is distributed and consumed now is very different from how it was in 2002 (the date of the edition I have) and 1992 (the original copyright date). For example, artists have to spend all their time on social media (which I’m terrible at, by the way). So just something to think about right now.

Another one, and I’m sharing this with embarrassment: In high school I wrote and I wanted to be a published writer. But I read somewhere that if you can’t be truly happy, you can’t be a poet. Now, I have no idea who said this or what I read it in, and I haven’t had any luck looking it up–I haven’t really tried much to be fair. As depressed as I was as a teenager, this dashed a lot of hope I had. So, if any of you have read anything as untrue as this, let me tell you this: you can be a poet (or any kind of creator) even if happiness is hard for you. So that was one particular pile of bovine excrement I’ve moved past. And you can too.

Anyway, on to the tasks. Here’s where you do the work to get where you want to be. First one is morning pages. I’m going to second her instructions: these are for you only. Don’t share them. Don’t even think you might possibly one day share them. Maybe. Just a little.

The second task is the artist’s date. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I don’t watch TV, if you don’t count PBS Kids, so I’d thought about watching a travel video or something like that. I told myself that when I finish the draft of the mystery, I could watch The Crown or something like that. So I might do that. We’ll see. If the pandemic weren’t the pandemic, I’d be off to the closest store with stationery and journals and notecards that I don’t really have a use for but love. Anyway, let me know what you do this week.

And I recommend doing the rest of the tasks, because you might surprise yourself what you dig up. I have been in the past, and that’s always been useful. I will be doing them again, and my answers now will be quite different from those I wrote 20 years ago.

I should also say here that I’ve posted the past few episodes over at Freethinking Ahead, which is my blog over at Freethought Blogs. I’ll put a link in the show notes. I’m thinking that’s going to be the best place for comments and questions, since I have transcripts up there as well.

So that’s it for our week one preview. Feel free to comment [below] over at my Freethinking Ahead. I’ll include that in the show notes as well.

And now, for a recommendation. For me, as a poetry reader, I’m looking for books that leave me with the sense of awe that you’re left with when you read a book that is both so well crafted and also speaks deeply on difficult and necessary subjects. Which is the case with A.J. Odasso’s The Sting of It, which was published in 2019 by Tolsun Books.

I’ll read the blurb: “THE STING OF IT is cradled in classical form and bubbles with luscious language from a bygone era. Fans of Spenser and Donne will find comfort here. But this formal order only just restrains the chaos from Odasso’s own body and past. Their explosive and candid revelations make us aware of our beautiful, mortal grit. Odasso’s ferocious imagery within measured verse reminds us that life is mysterious, painful, and fantastic.”

I highly recommend this book, and a link will be in the show notes [above].

So that’s it from me today. If you have any questions about creativity you’d like me to address, feel free to send me an email, info@tdwalker.net. Or post a comment over at my blog, freethoughtblogs.com/freethinkingahead

Thanks for listening to Creativity for Skeptics. For more information about the show or to listen to past episodes, go to creativityforskeptics.com. We’ll talk creativity again soon.

Creativity for Skeptics Episode 5: Intro to The Artist’s Way

In preparation for doing The Artist’s Way (without the woo) on Monday January 4th, I posted an episode of Creativity for Skeptics with an overview of the introduction to the book. Transcript is below.

Or download here.

Transcript:

Hello, skeptical creatives and creative skeptics. Tammy here. This is episode five of Creativity for Skeptics. No intro or outro or plug today, because I wanted to get this up tonight—it’s the first day of 2021 as I’m recording this (happy new year)—and I am at the tail end (I hope) of a now three day migraine.

My migraines come with all the standard symptoms plus a lot of bonus features I guess you could call them. One of which is that sometimes I physically can’t talk while having a migraine, which means I can’t record a podcast. And that was my new year’s eve. So that’s why this is late.

A couple other things. I should probably introduce myself at the start of the episodes, since this is a new podcast. As T.D. Walker, I have a couple poetry books out, Small Waiting Objects which was published in 2019 by CW Books and Maps of a Hollowed World which was published by Another New Calligraphy in 2020. All that on top of my other writing.

Also maybe I should use a different word besides plug when I was to share stuff I love with y’all, because plug is a word people use for their own stuff? I don’t know. If you have an opinion, let me know.
Anyway, all this to say that I wanted to get this out now, a few days before we get going with The Artist’s Way without the woo.

Just as a reminder, I’ll have the episode to introduce week one up late on Sunday the 3rd of January. If you want to go ahead and start the morning pages on the 4th without listening to the podcast first, that’s great too. As a reminder, morning pages are the daily three handwritten pages.

The book is available just about anywhere you buy books. If you want to grab a copy on the cheap and help out a small business, as I’ve said before, there are tons of copies of this book out there, so I’d have to imagine you can find a used copy without too much trouble.

So let’s talk about the introduction to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

First off, Julia Cameron calls this method the spiritual path to creativity. So we have to ask ourselves what is spirituality in the first place? For some people, that might look a lot like their connection to the creator idea she uses. For me, though, it’s something quite different. Part of the reason that I love science fiction is the idea of the sense of wonder–something amazing about the idea of the possible. Spirituality for me is that sense of wonder applied to what’s here and now. My definition doesn’t need a deity or a conscious universe or even a spirit, really. So if you want to call it awe-filled (as opposed to awful) path to creativity, there you go. You can define it for yourself.

Let’s dive into the Introduction. there are intros to the later ones, but this is about the original intro. And you can safely skip this and come back to it later. Main idea is that she’s not tied to you being tied to any particular idea of god. See page xxii.

On to Spiritual Electricity: Basic Principles.

So I have a scream and throw the book moment at Cameron’s use of the term “spiritual chiropractic.” on page one. To prevent you from doing so too, I’ll note a few things you might want to pay attention to and things to skip.
On page 2, she talks about synchronicity, if you show up and do the work, the universe opens up more opportunities for you. Here’s another take on that idea. If you’re doing creative work and attending events and, you know, talking to other people about what you’re doing, then you’re probably going to make more connections around your work than you were when you were just daydreaming. That happened for me. Start working? Voila, more opportunities. No universe magic needed.

The “how to use this book” section is a good one to read, but be aware she does use metaphors of substance withdrawal and suicide of your former self in this section, particularly on pages 6-7, so skip that as you need to.

And on to the Basic Tools section. This is worth reading, since it tells you about morning pages and the artist date as well as her ideas about refilling the creative well. All super helpful. This is actually the real core of what has worked most for me, so I’d recommend not skipping out on these tools as we go along.

There’s also a creative contract you can fill out. If that’s something that helps you stick to the whole twelve weeks, go for it. If, like me, you don’t get anything out of symbolic rituals and ceremonies and the like, skip it and don’t feel bad for doing so. Remember, this is about making this work for you.

That’s it from me for now. Next episode of Creativity for Skeptics will be up Sunday the 3rd to get us ready to jump in to week one on the 4th. Happy 2021, and we’ll talk creativity again soon.

Creativity for Skeptics Episode 4: My Word for 2021 and Getting Ready for The Artist’s Way (without the woo)

It’s episode 4 of Creativity for Skeptics: Flaneur 2021 (or I need to get outside!!!).  Transcript is below the podcast links.

Or download here.

Hello, creative skeptics and skeptical creatives. This is episode four of Creativity for Skeptics. Tammy here. In episode two, I talked about agency, my word for 2020, and how that worked out and didn’t, ultimately, it sort of did. Anyway, it’s the last weekend of 2020 as I’m recording this, so it’s time for me to choose my word for 2021.

Given how rough 2020 was and how much I didn’t do, I’d thought about choosing a very serious word to guide 2021. Something outwardly focused, since I’ve essentially been at home since mid-March. Plus, it needs to have concrete actions and goals associated with it, something I can actually do.

So at first, I thought about focus or concentration, something that gave me a firm direction. Yeah, these are abstract, but my brain loves shiny new projects, and my concrete steps could be something like “if you’re distracted by a new project, write it down, save it for later, and go back to what you need to finish.”

Which is good, but there’s something missing too.

After spending so much of this year inside my house and, let’s face it, inside my own head, I need something to draw me out. I need to, well, just play in 2021. Which so many of us need right now. A long extended session of “refilling the creative well.” Focus as a concept is good, but I don’t think it’s going to be what I need.

Which brings me to what I did land on: flaneur. Okay, first off, I apologize for my bad pronunciation of French. What does flaneur mean? It’s the idea of being a detached observer of society, someone who walks through a city watching the workings of the world around them. I’ll admit, this is not a great choice, because it’s a loaded word, it’s fraught. There has been much written about that, including whether or not a woman can be a flaneur (or flaneus, again, apologies for the pronunciation) in the first place.

But that aside, here’s what appealed to me:

First, it’s external. A flaneur is supposed to observe. A flaneur is supposed to get out of the house and look at the world around them. Which is what I need to do after being inside so long.

Second, there’s a sense of play, of adventure about it. I don’t have an end goal in mind, just getting outside. Which, again, is useful after a year of extreme vigilance and hard-core goal setting. (Not creativity-related, but I’ll talk about that in another episode.)

And finally, there are concrete actions to associate with it. It’s simple, but go take a walk. That’s good advice for anyone, really, but it’s especially useful for creatives. And it features in a lot of advice guides for writers, for other creatives. And it ties in to The Artist’s Way and some of Julia Cameron’s other books, which I’ll be talking a bit more about shortly.

So, this is late December 2020, and while there are vaccines available, they’re not widely available, and they’re going to the exact people who need them most, the front-line medical professionals. Wider access won’t be available for a while, so this means we’ll all need to wait until we’re able to get out into the world safely. I’m not going to risk mingling with the general public—no one should just yet—so how am I going to get out into society and just observe?

That’s a question I’ll go into more detail about later, but for now, I think it might involve a bit of virtual strolling through places. We’ll see.

Do you have your word for 2021 yet? If so, I’d love to hear about it. You can drop it into the comments for the episode over at creativityforskeptics.com [or below].

In just a moment, I’ll plug a new podcast about creativity that I’m really enjoying, but first, here’s what’s coming up on Creativity for Skeptics.

Later this week, sometime around the new year, I’ll post an episode in which I talk about my plans for doing The Artist’s Way from a skeptical perspective and without the woo. I’ll go through the introduction and tools in that episode, and we’ll plan to start week 1 on Monday, January 4th. I know, I’m in the US, but weeks start on Monday in my brain, so there it is. I’ll have the episodes corresponding to the weeks up on Sunday, so you can take a listen to the first one on January 3rd, and we’ll check in about week 1 tasks and look ahead to week 2 on January 10th. And if you’re hearing this sometime in the future, then, you can listen to the weeks as you come to them.

There have been over 4 million copies of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way sold, so I’m imagining that they’re probably easy to find at used book stores, if you want to go that route.

And now, I’m going to point you to another podcast about creativity that I’m really enjoying. I’ve been a fan of Rachael Herron’s for a while now. Her podcasts How do You Write which is ongoing and the writer’s well (which is on hiatus) are ones I recommend too. Her book about writing, Fast Draft Your Memoir, gave me a lot to think about even though I don’t write memoir. So I had to take a listen when she announced her new podcast, You’re Already Ready. The short episodes are a mix of personal narrative, thoughts on creativity, and gentle reminders that you’re already ready to do the thing you most want to do. And it’s aimed at a wider audience than her writing podcasts, so it’s broadly applicable to creatives in general. Take a listen, there’s a link in the shownotes.

So that’s it from me today. let me know your word for 2021, if you choose one. If you have any questions about creativity you’d like me to address, feel free to [post in the comments or send me an email].

Thanks for listening to Creativity for Skeptics. For more information about the show or to listen to past episodes, go to creativityforskeptics.com. We’ll talk creativity again soon.

Creativity for Skeptics (or, I Finally Got Around to Starting a Podcast), Solstice Edition

Creativity for Skeptics is now available in podcast form!  Here’s the latest episode, in which I talk about marking the December solstice and using constraints to foster your creativity:

After making the creativity for skeptics video for Winterfest, I wanted to put up more content that wasn’t necessarily in written form.  Couple reasons for this.  First, writing for another medium gets around my internal editor, and second, I listen to dozens of podcasts, and I appreciate what the medium can do.  After doing a couple videos, I concluded that video editing is . . . not a good use of my time?  Not a good use of my time.  But, from doing a radio show last year, I was already familiar with audio editing, and that is actually interesting.

I plan on posting each Sunday, and I will post transcripts here as well.

Episode 3: Solstice and Constraints (Transcript)

Hello, creative skeptics and skeptical creatives.  Tammy here.  It’s the weekend before the solstice as I’m recording this, the winter solstice in my case, as I’m in the northern hemisphere.  So, happy winter or summer solstice depending on where you are.  I bring this up because I want to talk about the solstices and the equinoxes a little bit.  And I will eventually tie this back to creativity.

So, the December solstice.  I didn’t celebrate the solstices or equinoxes when I was a kid, and to be honest, I didn’t really register them.  I grew up in Houston, and as an adult, I moved to Dallas which is a bit less than 250 miles, so a good distance.  I think it was moving to Dallas that made me recognize the seasonal shifts, which are far less striking in Houston.

After my partner and I had kids, I wanted to find a way to mark the changing seasons for a couple reasons. First, it’s a concrete and fun way of talking about science, so there’s that. And second, it’s a way of fostering a sense of wonder about the world–what do we notice about the world around us, and why do things change, and what stories do people tell about why things change.

Not celebrating seasonal shifts in my own childhood put me both in a good but daunting position. Good, because we as a family could create out own traditions and really think about why we’re doing what we’re doing. Daunting, because it’s the blank page problem. There are too many possibilities.

I think winter solstice is easiest, because we’re already in a festive mood this time of year anyway. Pretty early on, we started with putting out bird feeders in the morning, taking a walk, and talking about what changes we saw around us. Later, in the day we’d have a nice dinner, and after, we’d give the kids presents, which are always books, usually science books. It’s small, but it feels special.

I haven’t been as good about spring, summer, or fall. Spring and fall because we’re often busy with school, and summer, well, because summer around Dallas is awful in my opinion and who wants to celebrate that? Though, the hours of daylight waning is pretty nice to think about. We’ll bake seasonally-themed cookies, and we’ll talk about the world around us, but since we don’t have the day off as we often do in the winter, the days go more or less like any other day. And we don’t have any particular reason to do anything in particular anyway.

Winter comes with ready-made constraints. We’re feeding the birds (and let’s be honest, we’re feeding the squirrels, too) because there are fewer things for them to eat over the winter. We take a walk because the weather around here this time of year is quite pleasant. It’s overcast and in the 50s today, which is about as perfect as it gets, in my opinion. Thus, it’s easier to find ways of making new traditions because we have the constraints in place.

In 2021, I’m planning on thinking about the seasons more, thinking about how we can use the constraints of engaging with something outside, for example, as our way of celebrating. In March, I’ll report back on what we’ve figured out for the first day of spring. Maybe we can start planning our garden, for instance.

What does all this have to do with creativity, you ask?

If you’re feeling daunted by too much possibility, think about the constraints you can put on your creative project. That makes the scale more manageable, and removes one block between you and the work you want to do.

Have you used constraints to help you along with a creative project? I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a line, info@tdwalker.net.

And now, a little plug for one of my favorite technologies.

One other thing I’m trying to associate with the change of seasons is doing a health and safety check around the house. Changing air filters, checking smoke detector batteries, things like that. And making sure our emergency kit is ready. I live in tornado alley, and though tornadoes are more common in spring, they can happen any day of the year, so our emergency kit is all about the weather, really.

Part of that is checking the weather radio. I laugh whenever I hear the “you can listen to our station on your phone, your computer, your smart speaker whatever by downloading this app” or whatever. That’s fine for day-to-day listening, but what happens if your power gets knocked out? Thinking safety, you can spend less than $20 on a small portable AM/FM radio and some spare batteries, and there you go. A number of these have the weather band too, which is where you’ll hear the NOAA All Hazards Radio, which is even more important to have in an emergency. So, there’s my plug for something to keep in your emergency supply kit. And, if nothing else, if your power goes out, you can break out the radio and listen to music, so all the better there.

Thanks for listening to Creativity for Skeptics. If you have any questions about creativity you’d like me to address, feel free to send me an email [or post a comment below].

We’ll talk creativity again soon.

Creativity . . . without the woo

As part of the December 5th Winterfest, I’ll be talking creativity without the woo along with fellow bloggers from The Bolingbrook Babbler and From the Ashes of Faith.  And speaking of the Ashes blog, check out Megan Rahm’s new collection: “My poetry book is now available for pre-order on Amazon“!

The talk will be posted on my shiny new YouTube channel, which is also Freethinking Ahead.  There’s a quick intro post in which I introduce myself, talk briefly about creativity without the woo, flash a bunch of books on the screen (mine and others’), and geek out a bit about poetry, radio, and poetry on the radio.   Also, I really need to figure out the “blue light on the glasses” thing.

If you have any questions about fostering your creativity without relying on the magical thinking so many guides frame it in, please leave a comment here, over at YouTube, or send me an email at info@tdwalker.net.  And stay tuned for the talk on December 5th!

In a Desperate Search for Voter Fraud, TX Lt. Gov. Offers a Million Dollar Reward

Another day, another round of Texas in the news….  From The Texas Tribune, “There’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud, but Dan Patrick is encouraging people to report it with up to a $1 million reward“:

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday he is offering up to $1 million to “incentivize, encourage and reward” people for reports of voter fraud in Texas, even as there’s been no evidence of mass voter fraud and experts say it’s rare.

The Republican state leader’s crusade for proof of election problems in Texas comes as members of his own party dominated up and down the ballot.

So, the Democrats just managed to orchestrate fraud at the top?

More news on this from CBS and The Hill.

I have to wonder if this is meant to distract from the fact that Texas recently surpassed 1 million COVID cases.…

Also, if this keeps up, I’m going to have to make a category for “Texas 2020 Election: GOP vs. Reality” or something like that.

Biden/Harris Won, but the Chair of the Texas GOP wants “a permanent asterisk by their names”

In “nasty things coming out of Texas” news for today, the chair of the state Republican Party, LTC Allen B. West, had this to say, which I’ve quoted in full if you don’t want to click the link:

The news has been announced that the Democrat Socialists have found and counted enough votes to declare Joe Biden the 46th President.

Biden and Harris will be similar to Barry Bonds and have a permanent asterisk by their names. Americans don’t like cheaters, and the perception of such lends itself to reality, just ask Tom Brady about Deflate=Gate.

Regardless, a Harris-Biden presidential administration serves to make my position easy. As well, Kamala and Joe will solidify the fact that Texas will only grow redder and stronger as America’s leading conservative state. If the progressive socialist left believes for one minute that Texas will acquiesce to their collectivism and tyranny, they are delusional.

Texas was born because rugged men and women fought, alone, against tyranny. We will do so again, and lead America to do so, as well. And, in two years, Texas will lead America in delivering a resounding midterm defeat to the Marxist, Socialist, Antifa-loving left.

What happened to the Democrats in Texas this election cycle is only the beginning. It’s time to “cowboy up” y’all.

I’m not going to begin to untangle all the falsehoods in this post.  But I have written postcards, so if you’re a Texan and would like to press your Republican elected officials to call Mr. West out on this one, they’re here: https://www.tdwalker.net/postcards/#postcards. (Scroll up that page for printing instructions.)

A Dark Web: Part Two

Missed the first part?  Go to The Bolingbrook Babbler to check it out!

Connie Herbert slipped the badge between the seat and the armrest, cleared her throat, and pulled at her neck gaiter. They had a job to do, and if she was lucky, no one in Gabriel’s Crest would find out who she was. Not even Mary–the third Mary of Mary’s Meat Shop–who might remember something of Connie’s eyes. Or the eyes that she shared with so many of the women in her family.

“What’s bugging you, Herbert?”

Connie looked over at Mateo at the wheel of the pickup truck. “You think we’ve got the wrong ant hill?” They’d worked a hundred of these parties together over the last twenty years, cleaning up before anyone thought to get their hands dirty on substances the Feds wouldn’t know what to do with. If anyone knew something was wrong, though, with the party or anything else, it would be Mateo.

“So, I think we’ve got the wrong party, confreres,” Kyle said. Except for the way he spoke, he could have easily been mistaken for a bored farm kid from some town thirty miles away but seemingly in the same corn field. Fresh out of college, he landed on their team. “I mean, this rural setting just jeopardizes their contraband commerce.”

Mateo turned toward the back seat. “Small towns like this, they thrive on local legends. Best business is where they believe in what they’re buying.”

“You’d know first hand, small town boy like you, Kyle,” Connie said. Her voice wavered, and she cleared her throat. “Can’t get this dirt road dust out of my lungs.”

“You never get used to that, do you, big city gal like you?” Mateo shook his head at her.

Connie tried not to think about what that meant. Like her, he was from Chicago. She let it lie at that. He was, for all intents and purposes, family to her, like so many on the teams she’d worked on had become. But she couldn’t help thinking about where she came from, if not directly. Story was that her grandmother and great aunt had lived in some small town like this, though Connie’s dad never let slip the name of the place. Connie’s grandfather had gone off under “mysterious circumstances,” that long phrase that sounded like a magic spell. Some commotion around her grandmother’s sister, too. Her dad was so young when they pulled up stakes that he hardly remembered either of them. “Look, I doubt it’s really what they say it is, Kyle. It’s just a name. It’s just a marketing gimmick.”

“Then why are we carrying a metric crap ton of antivenom in the cooler, Connie?” Katie pulled her medic’s bag into her lap. “Did you fall for the marketing gimmick too? Because that’s going to do a giant load of bull plop for anyone who uses it, if I’m getting the big picture right on this.”

“Look,” Connie said to the team. “Here’s the thing. We get in, we get the stuff, and we get out before the Feds get here–especially before the Feds get here. Then we find out who’s making the stuff in the first place. But we worry about that later.” She pulled gloves over her long fingers. “If we’re lucky, we do this quietly.”

“If we’re lucky,” Katie said, her medic’s bag in hand.

If they were lucky, no one in that raucous, dressed-up crowd would know what they were doing.

If Connie was lucky, no one would know what she was doing, in the crowd or in the cab of the pickup. If she was lucky, no one would see who she was.

Or, she shuddered, what.

Read Part 3 over at Impossible Me!