Tag Archive | guitar

The Artist’s Way Reflections – Week Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance

Oct15

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Week Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance

The Great Creator

This section strikes me kinda off. I hate to say that but it’s probably the part of the book I have the biggest problem with, and not in a grumpy, skeptical way as I do with other essays in the book.

A lot of the quotes are obnoxious and somewhat contradictory to things she writes. And I think things she writes contradict each other and the lack of internal consistency bothers me. So does the feeling that this chapter drives home, that yeah this is written for middle class people or above, SES-wise, and that bothers me.

But I also think about how AW came out in 1992, and given book publishing timelines and her own telling of how AW came together, she probably wrote a lot of it in the ’80s, which was a different time in terms of cost of living vs. wages, families being okay on just one salary, and so forth.

It just seems like it’s geared towards people who are depriving themselves of joy out of some idea of martyrdom equals goodness, and I get that, but there’s something glib about it that I don’t like. Like yeah, a lot of people would love to dump a drudgy job, or put art first and money second, but for a lot of people that’s just not possible because the money concerns are survival concerns. It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A lot of us would like to prioritize creativity more, but it’s hard to do if your basic needs at the base of that pyramid aren’t met.

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Creativity Goals Check-In October 11, 2020

Oct11

goals11Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

  • work on blog at least five days – three.
  • at least fourteen sessions of digitizing old writing – oh boy, I did six.
  • finish disability letter for the school – worked on it, didn’t finish.

Music

Lifestyle

  • sleep without the phone (a struggle you can read about here) – this will put me at 203 nights (29 weeks) in a row – yes.
  • write Morning Pages every day – oh no, just two (yesterday and today).
  • don’t look at phone until after Morning Pages – once, just today.
  • do an Artist Date – yes, two actually. As mentioned in this week’s Artist’s Way Reflections column post, I spent an hour listening to music and sorting through my clothes, and I’m counting it. I did one this morning too. I went to “The Differentialists,” a weekly meeting organized by some classmates where we go through and try to figure out medical mysteries, which is aligned with my imaginary life in Week Two of The Artist’s Way of being House. It was the most fun out of any Artist Date I’ve done in a long time.
  • clean my apartment – it’s gotten totally out of control and I have to move in less than a month so yeah – yes, finally. It was really stressing me out.

Reflections on the Week

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The Artist’s Way Reflections – Week Five: Recovering a Sense of Possibility

Oct8

whitepumpkinThis was another volatile week for me. I think it’s just a volatile time. I had a hard time sticking to things like Morning Pages, after thinking I’d turned a corner on that.

The damn pages just aren’t letting me ignore feelings that I’d much rather ignore and it’s annoying.

In this chapter, she talks about wanting to be left alone, and I’m definitely feel that to some degree, and also in these quarantine times, the need for human connection feels paramount, especially as someone who’s living the quarantine life alone.

It feels somehow that this is out of balance for me, like I’d like to work in more connections in some ways and less in others and I’d like to think and write on that to re-center as it applies to in-person, virtual, phone time and social media.

Week Five: Recovering a Sense of Possibility

Limits

One thing that really spoke to me in this section was the bit about how we’re miserly with ourselves because we’re afraid of overspending any spiritual abundance. For me, it manifests as a fear of jinxing things, a fear of getting my hopes up, a fear of what horrible thing will happen if too many good things happen.

Does anyone else feel this way?

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Creativity Goals Check-In October 4, 2020

Oct4

Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

  • work on Moonchild (writing project) all seven days – only two, more on this later
  • work on blog at least five days – DONE.
  • at least seven sessions of digitizing old writing – DONE and then some, had more like THIRTEEN, more on this later too
  • work on disability letter for the school – minimal progress

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Music

  • seven guitar practice sessions – did TEN, making up for last week, not quite fully caught up yet.
  • get up through song 100 of Book One of my Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition book (catch up from last week) – which means FINISHING BOOK ONE! – and move onto songs 1-4 (all very short) for the first lesson in Book Two, which focus on the Am chord – DONE. Yeah for starting Book Two!
  • seven piano practice sessions – did TWELVE, to catch up from all the missed ones last week.
  • Finish last week’s keyboard goals – catching up on Technic and Composition sections – and move forward, getting through page 61 – DONE.

Lifestyle

Reflections on the Week

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Creativity Goals Check-In September 27, 2020

Sep28

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Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Welllll, the fact that I’m writing this post a day late should say something. It was probably the roughest week yet.

Writing

  • work on Moonchild (writing project) all seven days – four.
  • work on blog at least five days – three.
  • at least seven sessions of digitizing old writing – I don’t think I did any?
  • craft and send an important tweet – I did this one. Now that it’s done I can say what it is. I tweeted my leaving med school post at Taylor Swift. I knew it was a long shot that she would ever see it, but her album, and especially “exile” has become so inextricably linked to me leaving school, and to me telling people I’m leaving school, that I wanted to share. I think that years in the future when I look back and think of folklore, I’ll think of leaving school and telling my story.

Music

  • seven guitar practice sessions – two.
  • get up through song 100 of Book One of my Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition book – which means FINISHING BOOK ONE! – nope.
  • seven piano practice sessions – two.
  • Continuing on my quest to catch up on Technic and Composition sections previously skipped in Keyboard Musician for the Adult Beginner book, I will do the composing for Unit 4, technic and compositing for Unit 5, and technic and composing for unit 6. Then I’ll be all caught up and can continue forward – nope.

Lifestyle

  • sleep without the phone (a struggle you can read about here) – this will put me at 189 nights (27 weeks) in a row – yes. Getting extremely tenuous.
  • write Morning Pages every day – four.
  • don’t look at phone until after Morning Pages – this is back on – four.
  • Finish The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd – I’m very close to the end – and start a new book. Not sure yet what I’ll start with, as I’m in a few different book clubs and have so much I want to read – DONE, and I also read 11/22/63 by Stephen King, which is 850 pages, this week.
  • do an Artist Date – maybe? Maybe some of the reading counted? I don’t know.

Reflections on the Week

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Creativity Goals Check-In September 20, 2020

Sep20

notebooksGoals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

  • work on Moonchild (writing project) all seven days – did six.
  • work on blog at least five days – did four.
  • at least seven sessions of digitizing old writing – DONE.
  • craft and send an important tweet – didn’t even think about it, will have to put this back on for next week.

Music

  • seven guitar practice sessions – did six.
  • get up through song 98 of Book One of my Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition book – just one new song this week, it has melody, harmony and rhythm parts and it’s long so it’ll be plenty to keep me busy – DONE.
  • seven piano practice sessions – DONE.
  • Continuing on my quest to catch up on Technic and Composition sections previously skipped in Keyboard Musician for the Adult Beginner book, I will do the composing for Unit 2, Technic and Composing for Unit 3, and Technic for Unit 4 – DONE.

Lifestyle

Reflections on the Week

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Creativity Goals Check-In September 13, 2020

Sep13

window sept 13Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

  • work on Moonchild all seven days – only five
  • work on blog at least five days – DONE.
  • five digitizing sessions – DONE and then some; I did seven – nothing like the threat of wildfires to light a fire under your ass.

Music

  • seven guitar practice sessions – DONE and then some – I did ten to get caught up back on track from previous missed sessions.
  • get up through song 97 of Book One of my Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition book – the new songs focus on the A7 chord – DONE.
  • seven keyboard practice sessions – DONE.
  • Finish Unit 7 in my Keyboard Musician for the Adult Beginner book, and then go back and do the Technic and Composition part of Unit 1, and the Technic of Unit 2 – DONE.

Lifestyle

  • sleep without the phone (a struggle you can read about here) – this will put me at 175 nights (25 weeks) in a row – DONE, but it was really, really, really hard this week.
  • write Morning Pages every day – yeah no, I did three.
  • don’t pick up the phone until after Morning Pages – of the three pages I did MPs at all, I think I resisted picking up the phone till after on one of them, which was Monday, before the fires.
  • get up through at least page 210 in The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd (and I wouldn’t be surprised if I get further) – close, I got to page 198.
  • do an Artist Date – DONE. Once again, I took time out and watched a movie.

Reflections on the Week

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Creativity Goals Check-In September 6, 2020

Sep6

goals8

Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

  • work on Moonchild all seven days – DONE.
  • work on blog at least five days – DONE.
  • journal about blog at least once – DONE.
  • five digitizing sessions – DONE.

Music

Lifestyle

  • sleep without the phone (a struggle you can read about here) – this will put me at 168 nights (24 weeks) in a row – DONE.
  • write Morning Pages every day – DONE.
  • don’t pick up the phone until after Morning Pages – I held off on picking up the phone until after MPs on four days, and definitely felt the MPs went smoother and faster on days I didn’t look at my phone first.
  • do an Artist Date – DONE. I took time out and watched a movie.

Reflections on the Week

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Creativity Goals Check-In August 30, 2020

Aug30

goals6

Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

  • journal about Moonchild (writing project) at least once – for the second week in a row, nope, didn’t do it.
  • work on Moonchild all seven days – I did six.
  • work on blog at least five days – DONE.
  • journal about blog at least once – DONE.
  • bank two more Better Call Saul recaps for this site – nope, didn’t do this either. Rethinking how far ahead I do or don’t want to plan these out.

Music

Lifestyle

Reflections on the Week

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Creativity Goals Check-In August 23, 2020

Aug23

Goals from Last Week – How Did it Go?

Writing

goals5

  • journal about Moonchild (writing project) at least once – oops, I completely forgot. I usually journal about it on Sunday mornings and today I just got up and went to my regular Moonchild work.
  • collect all relevant old notebooks from storage and bring them up into my apartment – still on here, gotta do it – DONE today!
  • work on Moonchild all seven days – and to get more specific with what I’m working on with this book project, my goal convert all reeeeeally old Moonchild files that are locked in old ClarisWorks and AppleWorks files (.cwk) into files I can read and search – DONE – there were two files that were too corrupted to be salvaged, but all the rest are salvaged, converted, and saved.
  • work on blog at least five days – DONE.
  • journal about blog at least once – DONE.
  • bank two Better Call Saul recaps for this site – DONE – recaps for “Uno” and “Mijo” are written and scheduled.

Music

  • seven guitar practice sessions – did six, will do one extra this coming week
  • get up through song 90 of book one of my Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition book – instead of a new lesson this week, it’ll be a lot of practice integrating from the last several lessons – DONE.
  • seven keyboard practice sessions – DONE.
  • get up through page 55 in my Keyboard Musician for the Adult Beginner book – yes, this is the same page as last week; it’s a loaded page – and get through the G major/minor scale building and exercises – DONE.

Lifestyle

  • sleep without the phone (a struggle you can read about here) – this will put me at 153 nights (five months) in a row – DONE, except my math last week was bad, 147 + 7 = I’m up to 154.
  • read through page 477 in All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which I’m reading for the NOAH (National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation)’s PWA Book Club – DONE. I’m LOVING this book, sad I’ll soon be done with the whole thing!
  • write Morning Pages every day – six out of seven.

Reflections on the Week

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