EddieOlivas.com

I read this book once called the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron in which she describes the use of “morning pages”. The idea is in the morning as soon as you wake up you sit down and write 3 pages of stream of consciousness writing. Just write whatever you want no matter how silly, meaningless, or ridiculous it may seem. Well I don’t use that formula exactly, but I’ve stuck pretty close. Almost everyday when I get to work I will put on my headphones and write 2 or 3 pages of stream of consciousness. I’m a night person so I have a hard time waking up early just to write 3 pages. But today I’ve decided instead of writing the pages I’ll just write in my blog.

Being in college has definitely hit me full on by now. This past Monday I gave an 8 minute informative speech for my speech class. You should have seen be before hand I was a wreck. All weekend I procrastinated and tossed back and forth about whether or not to just quit and drop the class or sit and just get it done. At one point I full on decided not to do it. I was convinced this is all too much, I don’t have enough time, I’ve never done this before it’s going to be awful blah blah blah. But after a while I just knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do it. I put myself in college for a reason, I love it, and I’m not gonna quit! So I wrote the speech and got my visual aid printed out on a big poster board, practiced a bunch of times and it went great. I did the speech on Creatine. Afterwards I felt awesome, I swear I’ve never been so relieved and proud of myself.

It’s been tough to fit in anything but work and school, but I’ve been working on writing a new song in the past few days and still jamming with friends. We had a jam the other night it was great to play again after stressing about school so much. I’ve been living in my new place for a few months now and I’m still loving it. For once I feel like I’m free. Going to be working on some recordings in the next coming weeks. Should be fun. There just never seems to be enough time in the day for all that I want to do. Anyway there’s my semi-stream of consciousness morning post for the day. Peace.

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
~Andre Gide

I started reading a new book this week, The Artist’s Way – A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. I was looking around Craigslist a few weeks ago and found an interesting group listing called “Artist’s Way Group”. The listing said “Explore your creativity in a small group setting with guided exercises and fun activities. Needed: Bring the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, your inquisitive spirit, and a desire to be more creative.” I was intrigued that a group would get together and only require this particular book so I looked up the book, read some reviews, and promptly bought it on Amazon (used for a few bucks). If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few years about myself it’s that I want to be a creative, productive artist. No getting around it. I get so much energy, enthusiasm, and hope from creating things and expressing myself. I’m not happy unless I’m being creative in some way.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve taken from the book so far is on the topic of the fear of being wrong. We all want to improve, learn, and get better at our craft, but we also want to look good while doing it and that’s just not possible all the time. I’m gonna write songs that no one likes, draw pictures that I end up hating, get up on stage and completely screw it up, it’s all a part of the journey. We can’t let the fear of being wrong or imperfect stop us from moving forward and creating. In years to come when we’re further along the road, who the hell is gonna care how many times we screwed up getting there? As the book says “Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.”, “Give yourself permission to be a beginner.”

There’s so much wisdom in these pages it amazes me. I can see why this book is so popular and why people teach classes based on it. I would recommend this book to any artist wishing to get over a block, be more creative or to any person who is looking to finally give themselves permission to be the artist they were meant to be.