the ARTIST DATE !!!!! the Other BASIC TOOL .....

The other basic tool of the Artist's Way may strike you as a non-tool, a diversion.  You may see clearly how morning pages could work yet find yourself highly dubious about something called an artist date.  I assure you, artist dates work.

Think of this combination of tools in terms of a radio receiver and transmitter.  It is a two-step, two-directional process:  out and then in.  Doing your morning pages, you sending--notifying yourself and the Universe of your dreams, dissatisfaction, hopes.  Doing your Artist Date, you are receiving --opening yourself to insight, inspiration, guidance.

What exactly is an Artist Date?  An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousnesses, your inner artist.  In its more primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers.

• You Do Not Take Anyone on this Artist Date But You and Your Inner Artist, aka, your creative child.
• That Means NO Lovers, Girlfriends/Boyfriends, Spouses or Children, NO One !!! ONLY YOU--Yourself & YOU ALONE !!!!  NOBODY ELSE !!!!  SOLO-SOLA !!!  UNO just you...ok ??  Just making sure you get the Absolute Point....
• If you think this sounds stupid or that you will never be able to afford the time, identify that reaction as resistance.  You Cannot Afford NOT to find time for Artist Dates.
• Do you spend quality time with each other?  
• Your artist needs to be taken out, papered, and listened to.
• There are as many ways to evade this commitment as there are days of your life.  "I'm too broke" is the favored one, although no one said the date need involve elaborate expenses.
• Your artist is a child.  Time witha parent matters more than monies spent.
• A visit to a great junk store, a solo trip to the beach, an old movie seen alone together, a visit to an auarium or an art gallery--thse cost time, not money.
• Remember, it is the Time Commitment that is Sacred.

Spending time in solitude with your artist child is essential to self0nurturing.  A long country walk, a solitary expedition to the beeach for a sunrise or sunset, a sortie out to a strange church to hear gospel music, to an ethnic neighborhood to taste foreign sights and sounds00your artist might enjoy any of these.  Or your artist might like bowling.

Commit yourself to a weekly Artist's Date, and then watch your Killjoy side try to wriggle out of it.  Watch how this scared time gets easily encroached upon.  Watch how the sacred time suddenly includes a 3rd Party.

•  Learn to guard against these invasions.
• Above All, Learn to listen to what your artist child has to say on, and about, these joint expeditions.
• Fore example: "Oh, I hate this serious stuff,"  your artist may exclaim if you persist in taking it only to grown0up places that are culturally edifying and good for it.
• Listen to that !!!  It is telling your needs more playful inflow.  A little fun can a long way toward making your work feel more like play.  We forget that the imagination-at-play is at the ehart of all good work.
• And increasing our capacity for good creative work is what this book is about.

If you are likely to find yourself avoiding your Artist Dates.  Recognize this resistance as Fear of Intimacy--self-intimacy.  Often in troubled relationships, we settle into an avoidance pattern with our significant others.  We don't want to hear what they are thninking because it just might hurt.  So we avoid them, knowing tht, once they get the chance, our significant others will probably blurt out something we do not want to hear.  It is possible they will want an answer we do not have the can't give them.  It is equally possible we might do the same to them and that then the two of us will stare at each other in astonishment, saying, "But I never knew you felt like that"

It is proabale that thses self-disclosures, frightening though they are, will lead to the building of a real relationship, one in which the participants are free to be who they and to be come what they wish.  this possibility is what makes the risks come what they wish.  this possibility is what makes the risks of self-disclosure and true intimacy profitable.  In order to have a real relationship with our creativity, we must take the time and care to cultivate it.   Our creativity will use this time to confront us, to confide in us, to bond with us, and to plan.

The Morning Pages acquaint us with what we think and what we think we need.  We identify problem areas and concerns.  We complain, enumerate, identify, isolate, fret. 

•  This is Step One, analogous to prayer.  In the course of the release engendered by our Artist Date, 

• Step Two, we begin to hear solutions.
• Perhaps equally important, we begin to fund the creative reserves we will draw on in fulfilling our artistry.