final Writers: An artist's way
Writers: An Artist’s Way
Final Evolution Arts course starts Monday 5 October Brighton
Back in 2010, my writing life began as a result of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s book to encourage creativity, at a course run by Evolution Arts. I’ve written previously about how it helped me find my writer’s voice and start to find characters and stories in the practice of writing morning pages. And for the last 2 years, I have been running groups based on Julia’s Write for Life book, to give writers a 6 week burst of Artist’s Way magic. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the UK doing this.
In these groups, I’ve seen writers go on to create incredible work and strike out in different directions – novels, poetry, plays, stand up, memoir and much more, all within a supportive and nurturing environment.
Sadly Evolution Arts as a charity will no longer be continuing in the same way, so this is the last course I will be running for the foreseeable future. I don’t have plans to run it elsewhere, as my focus for the next period is on finishing the novel and other new projects, more on which another time.
So if you’re looking for a fresh creative spark or are bogged down in procrastination and perfectionism and want to banish your inner critic, join me for this last group, which I’m sure, like others will be special.
In the words of a previous participant, Steve T: ‘This course was life-changing!’
PS Want to know how life-changing The Artist's Way can be?
Each time I run the course, I do the 6 week programme myself again, which includes the practice of Artist’s Dates. This is where you give yourself permission to go off and do something each week on your own that brings you joy and pleasure.
In the February/March group this year, I gave myself Italian themed artist’s dates because I wanted to bring out the Italian more in my life. I went to an Italian comedy night, a talk by the director of Pompeii about the development of a vineyard in the ruins, joined a research conversation about Italian lifestyles, started reading fiction in Italian again, bought and cooked my favourite Italian foods.
This set off the spiral of seemingly unconnected happenings that culminated in the appearing at Festival delle Storie in Atina, Italy, speaking about Broken Madonna in Italian, with a warm reception from an audience of 200 people.
If you had asked me in early Spring whether I could have ever imagined this, let alone have the confidence to speak about my book in Italian, you would have got a rueful laugh.
I rest my case about the power of the Artist’s Way.
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