When I went to bed New Year’s Eve night, I looked at my copy of The Artist’s Way and realized that I’d had the book for a year already. Longer than that – it had been a Christmas present in 2007. While I had the best of intentions in 2008 to use it, take Artist’s Days, do morning pages… it somehow got lost like so many other things.

I decided that, instead of trying to guilt myself into doing the ‘program’ for artists (of any kind) in the book and likely just stressing myself, I would incorporate one thing at a time. The two main staples of The Artist’s Way are Morning Pages and Artist Dates.

For where I am right now, I decided that Artist Dates would be the best for me to incorporate into my life. I could explain why I chose them over Morning Pages, but it’s not necessary for this post.

My Artist’s Date/Day quickly turned into an Artist’s Afternoon when I didn’t get as much work done over the weekend as I wanted to. That was okay, though, because the point was to get out there and take time for my writing. I could work on the duration later. My husband came home from work early because he was feeling ill, which ended up pushing my ‘out the door’ deadline back even further. But I still prevailed!

I went to the library and, for a few glorious hours, I just worked on my novels. (I have two vying for my attention and I don’t mind working on them both right now.) The feeling of having a specific chunk of time just for my writing, away from home… Wonderful. The whole thing was just wonderful.

The Artist’s Date isn’t meant specifically for getting out of the house to go write somewhere else for a while. You’re meant to woo your inner writer (painter/singer/actor) any way you choose. For the moment, my inner writer just wants to feel safe. She just wants to know that her time to write is important.

Thus, for me, I’ll be taking myself out for writing dates.

Do/have you used The Artist’s Way?