I Hear You, Julia Cameron!

In 1998, my DW (dear wife and dangerous writer both) gave me the Christmas gift of attending a 12-week Artist's Way workshop. For 12 weeks a host of us aspiring but blocked writers, painters, musicians, and photographers worked through Julia Cameron's famous "Artist's Way." There were morning pages to write, artist's dates to take, and a weekly fast from media. (Curses, this week fell during the Winter Olympics in Nagano. I had my wife videotape all the events and then went on a binge after media week was over.)

I threw a mini-tantrum of self-doubt about week 5, which I learned was par for the course. I found myself writing poetry--something I'd never credited being able to do before. By the end of the workshop, I had created an Artist's Circle (kudos to you Annelie, Carolyn, and Sari: my creative companions for several years, now residing in Sweden, Mexico, and California, respectively), and then underwent one of the scariest, most dangerous writerly events of my life by reading my newly created poems at an open mike.

I was reminded about all of this when I clicked on one of the blogs I follow, Alvina Ling's Bloomabilities. In a recent posting, she writes about attending the winter SCBWI conference and listening to the marvelous Libba Bray's keynote. What does Libba Bray call this year? "The Year of Writing Dangerously!"

Libba Bray and I are on the same wavelength. That's what Julia Cameron calls "synchronicity." I decide to blog, come up with a title, and then find that someone as magnificent as Libba Bray is shouting it from the SCBWI rooftops. Thank you, universe, for your faith in me.

(If you want to read something very funny, check out Libba Bray's blogpost about getting a massage. What a dangerous writer!)