The Artist’s Way Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy

I have stumbled: Week 11 stretches to a fortnight due to a combination of anxiety, panic and listlessness. Is this lack of energy and enthusiasm the best I can summon by way of defence against worry and terror? There is so much going on – it doesn’t help that we’re trying to move house during this all-consuming crisis – and I am exhausted. An unpleasant encounter with a publisher ratchets up the stress and further depletes my confidence and I take what feels like a radical decision to hit the pause button. The problem with being a writer is that you have no boss to pull you to one side and suggest you take some leave. Better late than never, I suppose.

During this week off the morning pages* are the only writing I attempt. I’m allowed to read – it’s supposed to be a treat – and at some point, after three editions of the New Yorker (the pile of unread magazines is a throbbing source of disquiet) I return to The Artist’s Way. Autonomy? I’ve felt out of control, on and off, for weeks and right now it’s more on than off. My head swims with the coincidence or irony or is it a paradox? I can’t think straight. Is this where I was headed all along? Is it how this programme works? Has all the effort I’ve made to nurture and free my artist been leading to the point where I’m feeling so free that I’m in danger of letting go of all that I’ve regained? I’m overthinking things when I should be going with the flow. Take a deep breath, Rob, focus on the words on the page, work through the chapter and don’t think about anything else.

First things first: I must accept that I am an artist and I need to understand how best to configure my life to accommodate this. Some artists believe that working full time gives them stability to create, while others find that a nine to five job leaves them depleted and unable to focus on creative projects. I’ve already made the decision to go all in. In all my working life I never once (that I can recall) did anything creative or artistic for the sake of it. I spent a lot of time dreaming about being a writer and zero time writing. It’s all or nothing for me. What I must not fixate upon is market value: any thoughts about whether an essay or a story or novel will sell will constrain and choke the creative impulse. We’re back to the same fundamental principle: do the work and put it out there. It’s refreshing to read that ‘Sometimes I will write badly, draw badly, paint badly, perform badly. I have a right to do that to get to the other side.’ It’s crucial that I learn to accept this, because I put pressure on every piece of work as though it is the last one I will ever do. If I am going to give myself the chance to succeed as a writer, I have to learn to relax and teach myself to enjoy the creative process.

But what does success look like? I suspect this is a difficult question for any artist. It seems to me that we’re never satisfied with a piece of work. We paint over, we erase, we rewrite, we edit, and we alter plots. I might be wrong, but in the recent TV version of Normal People, I sensed the author tinkering at the edges, making changes that she could no longer make to the written text. But this is not a bad thing: this is the restless artist who can’t help but explore further. As Julia would have it, ‘we are spiritual sharks’ with no choice but to keep moving. Our creative selves will die if we remain static. We move on to something new and we begin again. Success is not a sequel – a commission for more of the same – it is the next risky project for which we have no concrete plan. It’s the freedom and belief in leaving what has been completed to go off in search of what has not yet been done. Commercial success is one thing, but artistic success is the absolute faith we have in the next new project and if it fails, so what? Move on to something new.

[At this point I should admit to experiencing a kind of detachment, as if I’m reading but not reading, writing but not writing and am somehow following but not quite following The Artist’s Way. This is consistent with my general feeling of being lost. Finding my way back (to where?) seems unimaginable, but I’m clinging on and the way I’m doing so is by writing the morning pages. Time and again in the chapters of this book, Julia reminds the reader that it’s these morning pages that demonstrate and prove a commitment to being a creative artist. It’s difficult to explain what it takes to write these three pages of longhand every morning and in doing so to unleash the thoughts that hinder creative possibility, but believe me when I say it is far from straightforward.]

The chapter ends with two exhortations and I’m happy to leap on board with the first: exercise. Walking is cited by many writers as integral to the creative process and Julia expresses her enthusiasm for what she calls ‘moving meditation’. It’s true that walks often provide both distance and solution: space from a difficult passage or idea; time to think it through and to let a remedy appear. I’ve been running for well over twenty years and I’m convinced that exercise, as much as anything else, has kept me going through the recent internal and external crises. I’m running more miles than ever and this is how I take time out from the incessant bad-news cycle. In less pressured times I have been known to ‘write’ and remember whole poems while running; and I’ve worked out all sorts of plot problems while out on the road.

I am not, however, about to follow Julia’s second suggestion and build an artist’s altar. It’s just not me. I don’t have little things, bits and bobs that make me smile and which are good for the soul. I love the quote from earlier in the chapter – ‘To be an artist is to recognise the particular...appreciate the peculiar...[and]...acknowledge the astonishing’ – but I’m not ready to build a shrine to this way of life.

POST-SCRIPT: *I deliberately missed three days of the morning pages when we travelled up north on a house-hunting mission. The break was welcome, but I was keen to start up again as soon as we returned home. Ideas for stories and essays have started to flow. Perhaps the week away from the desk was what I needed.

Read about the final week of The Artist’s Way here.