Artist Dates

For years, Julia Cameron has been telling me to go on what she calls "Artist Dates" in order to juice up my creativity. The idea is simple - spend some time alone doing something that gets you inspired. What have I done so far?

• taken up nordic walking, an incredibly dorky looking sport that actually feels quite effective. Nordic walking takes me all over the neighborhood and is helping me lose some of the pounds that probably scare away weightist employers ("lazy fat girl" is not the look they want in their offices)
• sewn, sometimes well and sometimes quite badly. Some of the results are at dawanda.com for the whole world to marvel at
• slowly begun painting again - trite, decorative, aphoristic pieces in a very girly style
• made homemade jam. Lots of jam.

The biggest killer of Artist Date time is my friend and my nemesis, the internet. I can surf for hours, looking at how other people are managing to be creative and pay their bills without selling their souls. Off to surf some more, thank you very much.