In this episode of Creativity for Skeptics, I’ll recap week five of The Artist’s Way and preview week six. Since task #5 involves sending postcards, I mention A Month of Letters at lettermo.com.  Transcript below.

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Transcript:

Hello, skeptical creatives and creative skeptics. Tammy here. This is episode eleven of Creativity for Skeptics. Another quick one today, just recap of week five of The Artist’s Way, and a preview of week six.

How did your week five go?

My major light bulb moment wasn’t from the tasks or from the Morning Pages, but from the Artist Date. Or the thing I’m calling an Artist Date because of the pandemic but wouldn’t otherwise call an Artist Date.

On Friday, I had to run some errands in a part of town that I used to go to daily, but I haven’t driven through for almost a year. It was weirdly familiar, but enough of it had changed that it wasn’t quite. Anyway, why am I calling this an Artist Date? First off, it was the most “out of the house” I’ve been all week, so there’s that.

Second is the aha moment I mentioned. For me, and maybe for you too, the pandemic sheltering in place and physical distancing has changed the way I think about where I am. Before all this, if I were driving somewhere, if you ask me if I’m in place A or if I’m just driving through place A, I’d say I’m just passing through. Now, it’s different. Maybe because I haven’t been there in a while, I felt more present even just driving through. The upshot of all this is that because of the pandemic, being somewhere in my car feels more like being there than it did previously. I’m curious about how you’re affected by a sense of place after nearly a year of sheltering in place.

On to week six. The first section, “The Great Creator” section is, of course, full of god-talk. But as I’m rereading this, I kept thinking, “This isn’t an artist problem, this is an America problem.” If you’re listening from outside the US, I’m curious about whether or not this first section resonates with you.

I do love the “Luxury” section, just pay attention to the idea of authentic luxury and luxury’s connection to play. The two exercises are helpful as well, but the first one, about counting what you spend, that will be interesting for a lot of us when we’re trying to be out as little as possible.

Again, great tasks for this week. In a nice coincidence with task #5, February happens to be A Month of Letters, and I’ll link to that in the show notes. It’s just lettermo.com. For years, I’ve said, I’m going to do that, and I never have, so maybe I’ll do five days this week.

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, [email protected]. 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.