Time Out

With the help of a book and a wonderful support group, I am back to writing my novel. I am going to finish it and submit it to an agent/editor before the end of the year. That is my goal.

But the help I'm getting is invaluable. The book "The Artist's Way at Work" has many tools to help someone get back their creativity. One aspect is Time Outs.

The idea behind a Time Out is nicely explained in this month's RWR, in the PROgress article by Barbara Samuels called Filling the Well.

Each of us gets burned out. We need time to relax and many of us take that time. For me, there is no more relaxing even than a hot tub and a book. I had been doing that, but my creativity had not returned. I still felt stymied, stuck at the starting gate. My writing was going nowhere. I would sit at my computer and nothing would flow from my fingers to the keyboards. Was I not trying hard enough? No, since taking part in this bookstudy and reading Samuels article, I know what was missing: Filling the well.

I had an empty well, but I needed to fill it. I needed to find creative outlets, for me to look at, read, watch, explore. I needed to refresh, renew and energize.

I am taking my time outs and am finding my creativity returning. My muse has returned. I am writing. I have written more in the past month than I have in the past year.

I have discovered that I must push myself to write, I do need to find the time to sit in front of the computer. But I needed more. I needed to fill the well.

I need to nurture myself and my creativity.

As parents, we spend much time to bring different expereinces to our children, sports, music, art, we haul them to museums and science centers, trying to have them experience as much as possible. Well, we need that as much as they do.

I challenge you to find yourself a creative outlet this week. Take a time out. Go to a museum all by yourself. Go visit a flower garden. Window shop at a store that you can't afford. Get out of the house and see something new. Don't go with a friend, but by yourself so you don't have a relationship to manage, just you and your experience.

Fill the well.