I’m writing this a few months after the fact. But like the “week” before, it took me more than seven days to finish my exercises from week three of The Artist’s Way.

Part of me was tempted to start over and try to do the work in a week but I decided to keep moving forward. I was afraid that it might be a sign of Resistance getting me to abort the process.

I can always redo the whole program later, if I want.

Week three was interesting because I started to see synchronicities happening. And oddly enough, that was an aspect discussed in this chapter.

One of the exercises was called “Detective Work”. Cameron posed a series of sentences like “My favourite toy was…” and “The best movie I saw as a kid was…”

You’re supposed to answer them quickly, without over analyzing them.

The fifth sentence was “If I cold lighten up a little, I’d let myself…”

I answered: If I could lighten up a little, I’d let myself sing more.

The response surprised me. I don’t sing. I sometimes wish I could. But I never thought of it as part of who I am.

And then a few days later, my wife got a call. It was the stage manager for one of the Community Theatres we have worked with. She wanted to know if Deb or I wanted to audition for the show she was working on.

It was a musical.

My initial reaction was no. I don’t do musicals. I don’t sing.

And then I remembered my answer above…

I read the script. And I thought it was silly. And I don’t sing. It was an easy “no”…

But I kept thinking about “letting myself sing more.”

So, I went to the audition. And I got cast!

Crazy!!

I was in my first musical and I had a blast doing it.

My artist date for the week was to go watch the sun set. I decided on the “perfect” spot and drove there. But it wasn’t accessible, so I drove along looking for another spot.

The next thing I knew, I was chasing the setting sun. And not finding any good vantage point.

But I enjoyed the drive. And I took this picture.

I ended up in an area I didn’t know and got to see a part the region that I don’t usually drive in.

I still haven’t started writing, but I’m excited to be doing a show.

And when I think about it, performing has always been part of my writing process. I wrote a few of my early plays while rehearsing or performing in other plays.

Maybe I need to do some more plays to get the playwriting juices flowing…