Check-in Week Six

1. I did my morning pages four days out of seven. I didn't do them on Sunday because I don't do them on Sunday and I missed yesterday and today. I missed yesterday because I had a disturbance in my schedule and then I didn't get to them until the afternoon and there didn't seem much point by then. Then I didn't do them today because I lost the book I was writing them in. Yes, I do think about how to help myself do my art with them. I felt pretty lost yesterday and today without doing them.

2. Artist dates are what they can be while I'm in this phase of life, so I try to notice beauty where ever I am, but I don't always have time to schedule time to myself - time just happens, so I try to make those times count. They show up when I least expect them. Thus - I just try to be open to noticing things. So, there's a fifteen minute artist date here and an hour and a half there. I do what I can do.

3. I didn't notice how much I kept my dreams and wishes to myself. I was at church and I happened to mention to someone that I wanted to buy tiny ice cream cones, but the place I had been buying them from didn't sell them anymore. The next week that same lady had seen them in her shopping and told me where to find them. It was like when I was a teenager and stupid about Brad Pitt. I didn't need to look for pictures of him - the whole community cut up their magazines and sent me the goods. People are truly amazing.

4. Something did happen that was interesting. I believed that I didn't have a valuable story in me. Well, when I was on a road trip with my family this past weekend, I crossed my legs in the passenger seat and engaged in a little meditation exercise when an idea for a novel crept up on me. No fantasy. No explosions. No fireworks. Actually, it's a story inside me that would be quite painful for me to tell. So painful that I tried to get out of it. First - I didn't write out my idea. Sometimes if I don't write out the idea - I'll forget it. So, I didn't write out a storyboard. Then I told my husband. Sometimes the very act of telling someone else your idea is enough to help me lose steam. But I didn't. Then, I started writing out some character sketches telling myself that I could quit anytime I wanted to. But I wasn't finished and I was bothered by it until I started working on the first chapter. But I keep telling myself that I can quit whenever I want. All I can say is that I have wicked flow because the ideas just keep coming.