This week focuses on Recovering a Sense of Compassion.

It’s funny. Week 9 of The Artist’s Way has been the longest week for me so far. I “started” this week at the beginning of June last year. And I only moved onto week 10 seven months later.

It’s not that I was working so hard on it. But I didn’t seem to be able to move on.

Many of the ideas resonated with me.

When we don’t do the things we know we should do, we beat ourselves up for being lazy. Cameron says we aren’t lazy. We’re blocked.

The inability to start isn’t laziness, it’s fear. And the fear blocks us.

Our need to create “great” art makes it difficult to create any art. That is a biggie for me. When I wrote my first plays, they were ideas that just needed to pop out. And I wrote them.

But after writing a few plays and having them performed, I mulled over future projects. Were they “worthy”? Were they “important”? How would they be received?

Many potential plays never made it to the page. I spent to much time thinking about how they could be “great”. Instead of just writing the story I had to tell at that time.

We can’t take the baby steps forward if we focus on the big, impossible tasks that we want to do.

Cameron says to give yourself permission to begin small. Take baby steps. And reward those steps.

It’s funny because I wrote my most successful plays in small, baby steps. They started with an idea. It’s the last night of the world and two people meet. Or a mother and daughter spar verbally. Or a man and woman journey through parenthood.

And then I wrote them in baby steps. The first draft, not knowing where the story would end. And discovering new things in the next draft. And so on. Moving along. Taking baby steps.

Your Inner Artist needs to be coaxed to work by treating the work as fun.

Art is a process. It might be challenging, but it should be fun, too.

Cameron also talks about Creative U-Turns that we take. Essentially self-sabotaging ourselves.

I’ve done that a few times.

A friend expressed interest in doing one of my plays. I said that it still needed rewrites. And then I never did the rewrites. I’ve done that more than once.

I was going to email another friend about a creative project we were discussing. Six months ago. I just reached out today.

I’ve got to stop beating myself up for not doing things. Think small. Think baby steps.

Have compassion for your Inner Artist.