Upcoming Workshops and Offerings
On July 30, Book Club for Writers will discuss Daily Rituals: Women at Work. Paid subscribers are invited to attend book club meetings on Zoom. A recording will be available for those who can’t make it live.
Writing workshops begin again in the fall! Keep an eye on the newsletter for class announcements. Reminder: paid subscribers get 10% off all classes.
I’m working my way through The Artist’s Way for the very first time. For those unfamiliar, it’s a book by Julia Cameron designed to help artists work through creative blocks. There are two non-negotiable habits Cameron urges all artists to build: weekly artist dates and daily morning pages, three pages minimum every morning for 12 weeks.
For the past three weeks that I’ve been doing The Artist’s Way, I’ve found that I consistently write quickly through my first two pages of morning pages, only to arrive at page three and not know what to say. My third page is typically a lot looser than the first two. Often, at a loss for words, I’ll pull a tarot card and take notes on it.
That’s exactly what I did on Monday morning. I slipped my tarot cards out of their navy blue box and pulled The Magician. The tarot book and deck I use—Neo Tarot: A Fresh Approach to Self-Care, Healing & Empowerment by Jerico Mandybur—includes a section with a “self-care” tip.
On Monday, it spoke right to my heart:
“We all have the one song. The one that’s so emotionally moving, so brilliant, so affecting, it brings us to our knees. The type made by artists who seem possessed, channeling something from another dimension.”
We all certainly do have that one song. I knew right away what mine was: Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars.
I often joke that my entire musical taste comes from the TV series The O.C. It was a terrible show with excellent music (The Shins! Belle and Sebastian! PHANTOM PLANET!) that was popular when I was in middle school, a dark time in history when it was very cool to wear Etnies with layered Aéropostale polo shirts.
I heard Your Ex-Lover Is Dead for the first time on the episode where Seth (Adam Brody, the first great love of my life) tells Summer (Rachel Bilson—what happened to her?!) that he’s OVER her brunette ass.
Beneath the thick layers of teen melodrama, the beauty of this song broke through. Those sweeping cellos! Those harmonies! That plinky piano that somehow makes the song 10% more weep-worthy! The lyrics, which were just angsty enough!
I’m not sorry I miss you
I’m not sorry it’s over
I'm not sorry there’s nothing to say
I’m not sorry
There’s nothing to say
As the show credits rolled, I went on iTunes on my family’s desktop computer and used my allowance money to buy the song for 99 cents, which I’m realizing is the millennial equivalent of “back in my day, I had to walk five miles to school.”
“Know that we all have access to this.”
That’s what the tarot book says, referring to the possessive, channeling feeling of the song.
*record scratch* Wait. I have access to that? I can make something as good as this song? I have those channels of creativity moving through me?!
The tarot book goes on:
“Ask yourself what you can do to bring heaven down to earth today.”
What can I do to bring heaven down to my creative practice?
I can write morning pages as honestly as I can.
I can continue to check in with myself on the page long after these 12 weeks of The Artist’s Way are said and done.
I can work on my writing projects and keep them moving forward.
At the same time, I can take breaks from my projects.
I can swim in the ocean and pay attention to the way the light meets the water, the stretch of sea out toward the horizon.
I can share my work with others when it feels right.
I can keep my work close to my chest when I want to.
I can rinse.
I can repeat.
Book Club for Writers: Sunday, July 30, 1PM EST
“If you have writer’s block,” says Nikki Giovanni, “you’re not reading enough. And you’re not thinking enough. Because there’s no such thing as writer’s block.”
I read this tough-love quote in Mason Currey’s book Daily Rituals: Women at Work, which the Book Club for Writers is discussing later this month!
In addition to discussing Mason’s book during our meeting on July 30, we’ll do exercises designed to help you find your own writing rituals and examine what is/isn’t working in your writing life.
Join the club for the month of July for just $5, or subscribe for the whole year and save 27%. Upgrade your subscription by clicking below.
How you can participate in the next Book Club for Writers discussion:
Get the book via Bookshop, Amazon, or your local library.
Add the book club meeting to your calendar and start reading.
As you read, take notes on the artist routines that stand out to you. Hunt for patterns.
Join the discussion live on Zoom on Sunday, July 30, 1-2:30PM EST. Paid subscribers will receive a Zoom link the day before our meeting.
Can’t make it live? Our recorded discussion will be available on Zoom afterward.
Is your summer schedule too packed to read this month’s book selection? The Book Club for Writers will meet again in October to discuss Matt Bell’s Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts. (Pssst: it’s a great one to read if you’re thinking about participating in NaNoWriMo!)
View the full book club schedule here. 2024 books will be announced in the fall!
Thank you for reading. It means the world to me.
Happy writing,
Hurley