http://www.youtube.com/laughingwithcancer#p/u/4/AFjAzzeBXCs

Suzy x

P.S Do come to our Big Leap Retreat in November where Nick will be running a session for me.
http://www.thebig-leap.com/big_leap_retreat.phtml

The Winning Words website is a directory of magazine deadlines and creative writing prizes, and a forum where members can get feedback on their work before submitting. Brilliant idea!

It was an intimate do and we got up close and personal with writer Vanessa Gebbie, who gave a supremely inspirational talk on the craft of good writing. She knows what she’s talking about – Vanessa’s work has won over 40 awards, including prizes at Bridport, and Fish (twice.)

A talented writer – Maggie Gee says ‘Vanessa is a prodigiously talented writer -  Vanessa’s also an intuitive teacher. She gave me a nugget of advice on a writing block that resonated so deeply I haven’t been able to stop writing since. I bought her book Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story - and again, have been suitably inspired and in the last 24 hours have penned my first ever short story (since childhood).

I also completely embarassed myself by proposing marriage to Robert Shearman. An internationally renowned playwright, he might be, but when I found out he wrote my favourite episode from Dr Who? That was it, I declared un-dying love. Apologies to Robert! And if I can get over my mortification, I will interview him for the blog.

In week 12, we were recovering faith. Faith to step into the proverbial forest and to have that adventure.

In week 12, we are being encouraged to ‘follow our bliss’ as the mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Reading those words, I feel like I’m coming full circle. Last year, I re-wrote my Big Leap book based on the hero’s journey described by Campbell. My whole business, my whole book Making The Big Leap is all about having the faith to leap into the unknown.

So in theory, I should know what I’m doing then! Ha! One thing knowing it, another thing doing it. But that’s why I love The Artist’s Way because it’s a self-help book that demands you leap – not once but every day. What with the morning pages and a weekly Artist’s Date, you have no choice to not just walk but run naked through that bloody forest.

And I always seem to get lost, fall over a bit stump or two, meet some weird gnome, a wolf dressed as my grandma and never ever get to eat the house made of gingerbread (too busy running away from that woman with the wart on her nose).

But I always get to Week 12, slightly bruised, with a graze on my bum – exhausted, but strangely euphoric. I end up learning something unexpected or discovering a new aspect of creativity that takes me by complete suprise.

This year, I’ve taken up film-making, as you do. I’ve found myself dressed up as darth vader, bouncing on a trampoline dressed as superman and getting buried neck deep in sand on Brighton Beach so I could create and star in a series of films. I’ve loved being completely insane – but creative with it. Working with my brilliant mate Nick, I’ve laughed a lot too. Which is a novelty. Writing can be such a solitary thing. It was a revelation to discover that you can co-create with someone else and it can feel like skiving off versus work.

I’ve been to an inspiring writer’s event that fired me up so much I wanted to give up everything and run away to a shack in that forest and hole up for eternity writing my novel.

I’ve got rid of my telly. Now that was a big leap. But that’s freed up a scary amount of time. I was in complete denial about how much TV I watched.

Thanks for taking this 12 week journey with me. I know that we’re going to be using www.ourbiglife.com to keep our creative community going.(If you’d like to join us, do sign up to www.ourbiglife.com and join the Artist’s Way group.)

And let’s do the Artist’s Way again next year.

Guest blogger Sue Thomason on week 11:

“The kind of autonomy that Julia’s asking us to connect with in Week 11 is what sports psychologists call being in the zone. And what a wonderful place it is to be – it’s the foundation of all creativity. Whether you call it autonomy or authenticity, it’s a way of experiencing the moment by being in the moment and wholly focused on the sensuality of your experience. In this space there are no neurotic voices, no past and no future worries and no looking through others eyes and definitely no looking at yourself and thinking about how you (or your art) are coming across. The zone is actually not just the only possible foundation of creativity but it’s the only time that I find myself feeling truly alive.

I live in this zone sometimes and then I lose it and live somewhere else entirely – and no prizes for guessing when I’m happy and writing and when I’m unhappy and not writing! What The Artist’s Way has done for me is to make me realise that, even though I’ll never stop going in and out of this ‘zone’, I can control it a lot more than I have before by following the steps in the book, writing morning pages and, most importantly, going on my artist’s dates. Artist’s dates are like trains that drive you straight to destination ‘zone’. I’ve also noticed that when I’m going on artist’s dates and writing morning pages, I’m always in this autonomous and creative space and when I’m not doing these things I fall out of it and into a kind of unhappy, unproductive apathy.

To be able to move into the big open space of being in the here and now and to be present in the moment and with your mind able to notice and feel the thrill of the smell of coffee or the sight of the clouds in the sky and to feel that sense of belonging and of being whole and to not give a flying fig what other people think is really the only state of mind that can create authentic art.

And you can only get in the zone when you accept yourself as an artist, which means developing a sense of confidence in your own thoughts, feelings and beliefs and creating whatever it is that you create based on this – whether it’s good or bad. Autonomy, in this sense, is the root of our art and without this root, our creativity doesn’t exist. Without the sense of our own ’self’ and a feeling of fearlessness, what we produce isn’t art at all, it’s photocopying.”

Just come back from the opening of Big Leaping Natalie Turner’s exhibition: eternal spirit of the chainless mind.

It was inspiring, amazing, beautiful. Just like Natalie, really. Having suffered from severe depression since childhood, Nathalie’s work has been inspired by her recent road to recovery. Adopted at eleven, Turner grew up within the British social care system, and has chosen to support YoungMinds, the young people’s mental health and wellbeing charity.

Turner noted: “My background is similar to many of the children and young people YoungMinds supports and in expressing who I am through my work, I feel this series relates directly to this charity. I was fortunate enough to receive so much care and support as a child, which helped me express and develop myself creatively. I feel it is important for me to do whatever I can to ensure that children and young people with mental health issues get the support they need.”
Here’s a quick video interview I did with Natalie tonight:

As I threatened in the longer interview I did with Natalie last week, I did take my son Charlie so it felt like two worlds colliding. A posh gallery in Mayfair with my 7 year old with a new Dr Who Sonic Screwdriver (I had to bribe him) but luckily he didn’t cause too much havoc. And I also got to meet the people there from YoungMinds and was incredibly impressed and inspired by the work they are doing with young people.
Natalie Turner exhibits ‘Eternal Spirit of the Chainless Mind’ at Mayfair gallery for YoungMinds
Cielo Gallery, 3 New Burlington Street, London, W1S 2JF
Thursday 20th May – 7th June 2010

21 Days to write a book?? 21 days to find an agent? 21 days to create a film? (that’s what I’m going to do. I just had the idea today and already got two professional actresses and a film soundtrack!)

Here’s the video: If you want to sign up for free video series log on to www.bigleapchallenge.com

Jan says: “Strange, I never used to have a problem getting my homework done, but that was a [very!] long time ago. OK, here goes. I’m writing this in bed on a Friday morning and know full well I need to be up, showered and ready to go to Brighton in about 2 hours. Plus the technology may fail, as the netbook is distinctly flaky. And I’m a bit distracted by election results, because it could mean 40% cuts for my job and that’s a bit of a worry.

Right, cats still haven’t eaten my homework, so I’d better start. I felt immense resistance to week 9. Yes, I’d love a sense of compassion, but the very idea of looking back at my  morning pages had me in a panic. I’ve done this course twice before, once in 1999 and once in 2001. When I tried looking back at my old pages I ended up feeling very emotional, and I was very fearful that I’d end up immobilised by fear and hating myself.

This week I’ve done my morning pages every day. I journalled online about my fears and got some lovely support. Must say that is one thing I am incredibly grateful for, doing this with other people. There is such a supportive atmosphere, it’s fascinating to hear the different responses to the weeks, and I’d really love this community to continue after the 12 weeks.

The weekend was frustrating, highlight being the loo flooding the kitchen in a random way on Mon afternoon. We got it sorted but I started to feel the Universe was out to get me. But I kept on doing the pages. Tues I had a bit of an epiphany – started to do the breaking through blocks,  did a lot of blurts re inadequacy, and to my great surprise found myself writing “You CAN do it” to an ever-increasing number of things.

So after that I thought I’d start looking through  my pages. I was amazed at just how much I’d dealt with, and how many changes I’d made, going from the “feel like a s***ing frog in a blender” in week 1 to “I have decided I need a chunk of time off this summer…and I have booked it” in week 9. I’ve also seen I’m trying to connect with people a lot more – have been inviting friends over,  catching up with old friends, writing more letters…Small changes, but they’re leading to a richer life. I guess it’s also been about lowering the jumps. No, I don’t appear to be writing the 1970s campus novel any time soon, but I am considering writing about my wartime research for a local history journal.

I’ve gained so much from these 9 weeks. I’ve started walking pretty much every day; I even came 8th out of 54 in my workplace’s “Walking to work week” in week 8, and I’ll be doing the Race for Life in June. My wardrobe is still cluttered…but it’s cluttered with more colourful stuff that fits better! I’ve started to play more with my watercolours [OK, the Barbie side of floral painting!] and am starting to feel my way to doing more writing. And I’m being braver. Which is why I volunteered to write this.

Good luck with week 10, everyone, and thanks for being there!”

“Beware what you wish for…” somebody wise once said and, in the most extreme case of synchronicity I’ve ever experienced, I’ve found this to be true over the last fortnight.

Let me explain…

Week Eight deals with another creative block: time.  Somehow I never seem to have enough time to do everything I want to do, (sound familiar?), and as I’ve progressed with my Morning Pages over the last two months it has become increasingly clear that this is a growing problem.  I feel overwhelmed most of the time and, although it’s great to be involved in lots of different projects, could I really say I was enjoying my life?  Where was the fun?  I was too tired, too frazzled, to look for it.

So, mid-way through Week Six, I booked a three-night break to Barcelona; a place where I once stayed for a few weeks when I was younger and more care-free.  Maybe I wanted to recapture that feeling of being lighter, more relaxed.  As I got on the plane, I knew in my heart of hearts, however, that three days wasn’t going to be enough.  I needed more time to myself; some quality down-time.

I’m sure you’ve worked out what happened next.  Less than twelve hours after I checked into my hotel, an ash cloud brought flights to the UK to a halt.  My three night break became a ten day holiday and involved a manic (and, at times, very stressful) journey home via Paris.

I’m not making light of it.  Realising, however resourceful and savvy I like to think I am, that I couldn’t get home was not a pleasant experience.  I’m severely out of pocket and I’ve been completely worn out since I got back trying to catch up, (thank goodness for the Bank Holiday weekend!), but here’s the thing:  somewhere in those ten days, I met up with my younger self again.  I rediscovered how much I truly love being in Europe, just wandering the streets, eating tortilla (or falafel, in the case of Paris) and being free of all those ‘to do’ lists and nagging anxieties that disturb my peace of mind in my normal life.

(Am I really one of those blocked creative-types who, according to Julia Cameron, “have an active addiction to anxiety”?)

When I finally got home, I read Weeks Seven and Eight in one sitting.  They are probably, however, the chapters that most deeply resonated with me.  Week Seven told me to kick my perfectionism habit into touch.  Week Eight taught me that now I need to take my goals seriously and start to ‘fill in the form’.

My enforced holiday forced me to slow down and re-evaluate.  I remembered what it is I really want to do with my life.  The Artist’s Way told me loudly and in no uncertain terms to just Get On With It.  I’ve promised myself that they’ll be no more “low-grade pain” and I’ll embrace what JC calls “the drudgery of small and simple steps in the right direction.”

Here’s to a future with more time, more fun, and more of all the things I truly want to do!

Deborah Macaulay on saying it how it is:

Week 8 of the artist’s Way and my enthusiasm in waning.  That is me all over though I tend to go charging in full throttle and then wear myself out or rather the boredom sets in.  This week I’m feeling bored with me.  I have a feeling of apathy; I want to write that masterpiece now.  I want to skip the mp’s, the first, second, third drafts of my programme, my book, I want to just write reel it all off and for it to be perfect.   Plus there is the washing to do, the ironing to do, the kids to feed blahblahblah.  I have thought if only I had a cleaner, a gardener, someone to do the ironing, if the kids went to boarding school, If I was someone else I could write but being ‘me’ I must  just be fooling myself, I’m just deluded …..I have way too many other things to do then write.   I have found 101 reasons to be doing anything but creating my masterpiece or rather I have been thinking about doing 101 things other than my masterpiece.  This week I have spent dreaming.   I keep telling myself that if I haven’t created anything worthwhile by now then it just ‘aint gonna happen’.  Although this week has been about strength I’m actually feeling a bit wibbly wobbly like a jelly.  I’m scared what if I’m not creative enough.  What if I’m just not enough?  What if I can’t write? My morning pages seem to be drying up it is taking me a lot longer to write the 3 pages and my artist’s dates are getting rather boring too.  I think this coming week I need to nurture myself and treat myself with love and kindness. Maybe I will double up on my dates.

Here is a quote that I like;

Be really whole and all things will come to you (Lao-Tzu)

To be whole I need to write, I need to create.  I just know it…. I feel it burning within.

I know this post sounds so negative and it really does go against all that I have been studying about the mind and the power of our thoughts.   Yet it is how I am feeling so it is just about being honest although I really am working on turning this around and I am looking forward to having a better week with week 9. I will be working this week with affirmations and lots of walking my dog meditation to get me centred and hopefully my creative juices flowing.

Have a great week 9 everyone x

Deb Macaulay .

“When I answered Suzy’s request for guest bloggers I didn’t know that the action of writing this would be so relevant to Week 7 itself. I promised to have the copy in by Friday and read through Week 7 and then I sat down to write this blog post. Eight terrible drafts later, I went back to the Artist’s Way. I laughed and laughed as I read the sections on perfectionism and risk.

I was writing about not allowing perfectionism to take over your life and I was trying to do it perfectly!

My creativity was stifled by the need for total control over the outcome – the perfect outcome. Perfectionism is just a fear of failure, of looking bad. I know what happens when your writing is motivated by what people think instead what’s coming from inside you. You can see it when you look at any creative effort. When you see films, for example, that are obviously created solely to make money, such as some big budget blockbusters that are all action and no plot, lots of exploding cars and weak dialogue where every character sounds the same, and compare them with beautifully executed films full of passion and story that light up the screen and pull on you in a way that makes you think about them for days and you know that they have come from somewhere deep in someone’s heart and mind. It’s the same for writing, you can tell when someone is dipping into that rich well of inner ideas that Julia describes and when someone is self consciously thinking about how others will see what they’ve written. Same for painting, drawing, making music or any kind of art.

And most brilliant art isn’t perfect anyway (except maybe for The Great Gatsby). It’s flawed and it’s the flaws that make it brilliant. They aren’t really flaws at all but as much a part of the personality of the artist as the bits that do turn out to be perfect.

Perfectionism is a lie. It promises you a diamond, unflawed and glittering and all the adoration and approval you could ever ask for. But what you really get is procrastination, fear, stifling self consciousness and inaction.

And that’s exactly what I got when I started writing this, my first ever guest blog post. And that’s also what I’ve had from the past five years of working on the same single book that I still haven’t finished because it’s just not perfect enough and I can’t get past chapter six without going back to the beginning again and changing something.

I’ve learnt a big lesson this week. Quite a practical lesson too. So to get this blog post written, I abandoned the first batch of ‘imperfect’ drafts and started again. One draft, a stream of consciousness with no going back and no editing and, most importantly, no thinking: ‘What will they think of me?’

I asked myself Julia’s question: ‘What would I do if I didn’t have to do it perfectly?’

And this is it. Now I’m going to take this question and apply it to everything else in my life.

Week 6 – the Artists Way Recovering a sense of abundance. Guest blog by Marilyn Henderson

This week has been full of tantrums and tears (mostly in the morning pages-er..mostly), with a stinking cold thrown in for good measure.  Volatile – moi?

These last couple of weeks have been the hard slog for me.  Thanks to the group I’ve been able to keep going at the pages and see it through.  It’s really been worth it.  I’ve reached a state of calm and clear thinking that you only get after letting it all out, having a good full on cry and letting rip. And once that knowledge of the truth has been revealed – what choices do I have?  I could bury myself deeper into denial or finally – actually do something about it and see what happens.

After all these emotional highs and lows, I’ve finally been able to read the chapter again and hear what Julia Cameron is saying, or at least saying to me.

What has really hit home is her simple question of ‘What gives us true joy?’  It struck me that I have denied this to myself for too many years to say.  I had a mental image of my artist self wasted away, weak and despondent from lack of attention and sustenance.   I’ve had to look at how I have denied myself the right to do art and do it well or badly, to be a beginner, to start again and try again, to experiment.  If it couldn’t be perfect then I wouldn’t allow myself to do it at all.  So I’ve successfully made myself very unhappy and dissatisfied.  I could choose to continue in this way, or –  if I want to –  take a deep breath and take the leap into the scary and unknown.  The luxuries I crave are not grand or expensive and I’ve promised myself that I’ll start doing them.  (So, out comes the hairbrush and my favourite song…)

This week is also all about money.  Money.  I am not very good with money, having it, keeping it or earning it.   Doing the counting hasn’t really been that revealing it’s just forced me to face up to what I knew already.  That I’m so mean with myself.  Nothing is spent directly on something I would really like to do. Julia Cameron is saying to us – do what you love, what brings you true joy and the rest will follow- the house, the bills will be paid, a partner, friends.  Frankly it sounds crazy, and yet – it does make sense in a bizarre way.  I realised I’ve been stopping myself doing anything because I had no money.  I still have no money, but I’ve committed to a couple of things and I’ll see if the universe will help me out.  I’ve got nothing to lose and in getting out there I might just enjoy myself. (woah, steady on!)

So this week has finally been about making the leap of faith.  I’m scared and excited.  .  My artist self is giving me a hopeful grin.”

Debs MacCaulay says:

Money, Money, Money!  What a week.

“The morning pages 7 out of 7 so does that deserve the winning lottery ticket this week at least. Only joking abundance obviously isn’t about the money.  Abundance is feeling rich even if we happen to be overdrawn and now we are learning that if we are overdrawn then we need to look at where and why we have such poor thinking = so much introspection.

Keeping tabs on what I spend has been insightful.  This week shows that I spend most on feeding and clothing the kids and on their entertainment and social events yet I am very stingy with myself. I question everything that I buy for myself.   I actually thought that I was quite good at treating myself I thought that I was mastering self love whereas what I have uncovered from this week is that that  isn’t  so true after all. Great how we manage to fool ourselves really easily yet get so p’d off if anyone else tries to fool us.   I am quite skimpy with myself so will work on that.

An interesting little conversation around money that I just over-heard whilst in the checkout at the supermarket.  Little boy asked his Nan for something and she said “no”.   She said she didn’t have the money. The boy said to her “of course you do” he said she had loads under her bed.  She looked very uncomfortable and embarrassed and said to him “I don’t know what you are talking about”. It was clear the little one had stumbled upon something she didn’t want him to know about.  I don’t know why she had a stash of money under her bed or how much it was.  All I know is that it just brought to my mind that sometimes we save for a rainy day or out of fear of not having enough to survive and sometimes in that process we can miss out on lots and deprive ourselves and our loved ones of things .    At the end of the day money is just energy isn’t it?  Do we value ourselves on how much we have that sometimes we find it hard to part with it.  Do we value ourselves so little that sometimes we spend too much?

I believe in a higher power haven’t got round to giving the power a name yet and I’m not too sure that the god word sits well with me.  Also I love to be in control so turning the control over to something/someone that I can’t even see is pretty scary.   I am working on that one too = lots to work on.

I haven’t completed all the tasks yet = working on that one too.

My artist’s date.

I remember being told by a member of family when I was a kid that I have 2 left feet and no rhythm so I have always been really self conscious about dancing.  Last night I went to my first dance class well zumba dancing which is exercise in disguise.  I had such a laugh I loved every minute of it.  Why I ever listened to someone else’s limiting beliefs I don’t know.  So overall I am feeling very abundant this week.  Looks like I will be dancing all the way to the bank.

Enjoy week 7.  I hope you all prosper wherever you go.”