Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ May 6, 2013
If you aren’t doing your creative work as often as you’d like, recommit to a regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if possible — is one of the best ways to stay in touch with how you make meaning.
What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention or practice plan — and ink that time in your calendar. The scheduling part is important, because as you know, if you try to “fit it in” around the edges, it generally won’t happen. An intention as simple as “I will write for 20 minutes every morning after breakfast” or “I will sketch a new still life on Wednesday evening” is what it’s all about. If appropriate, use time estimates to containerize your task. (Time estimates can make a daunting project feel more accessible.)
Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post. We use a broad brush in defining creativity, so don’t be shy. We also often include well-being practices that support creativity, such as exercise and journaling.
Putting your intentions on “paper” helps you get clear on what you want to do — and sharing those intentions with this community leverages the motivation of an accountability group. Join us!
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Studio Mothers: Life & Art 
After five difficult months, my mother-in-law “moved out” on Wednesday. The last few weeks were exceptionally trying on the interpersonal level and I am not ashamed to say that her departure is a massive relief. I am only just now beginning to understand how much stress I built up in my body over the past five months. It’s been killer. I am now slowly unkinking, as it were, almost euphoric as I realize that I have my home, my family, and my life back. While the effort to help and care for my mother-in-law was ultimately a complete fail, the experience brought my husband and I closer together. So, a net gain.
As part of the getting-back-on-my-feet theme, we got a lot of things done in the house this weekend — got the patio and the sunroom cleaned up and organized, ready to make the most of the increasingly wonderful weather.
Daily writing practice streak: 145 days in a row of logging a minimum of 500 words daily in my WIP. Spent several hours in editorial mode yesterday, preparing my installment for this week’s writers’ group.
This week: tomorrow is my youngest son’s fifth birthday. More appointments on my calendar for this week than I would normally allow, but my bandwidth is substantially increased now that my mother-in-law is gone and I don’t have to worry about leaving her for more than a couple of hours at a time. Also this week: tons of client work. Need to be focused during desk time.
Last week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages and intention journaling [yes]
* Daily writing practice [yes]
* Work on newsletter [no — scrapped April newsletter]
* Walk x3 [x2]
* Daily reading [yes]
This week’s creative/well-being intentions are a repeat:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages and intention journaling
* Daily writing practice
* Read peer pieces for writers’ group
* Walk x3 [T/Th/Fri]
* Daily reading
This week’s FUN:
* HS baseball game with my little guys and dear friend Betsy Monday
* Watch Game of Thrones with husband Monday night (recorded)
* Lunch with my son Matthew on Thursday
All of my creative time is squeezed into small bits. Since I have multiple interests–photography, writing, singing, and gardening I have to go by “moments”, slices of time. Like right now I’m sitting here on my porch with a beautiful spring view of the front yard, the lighting is just right, grab the camera and take a few shots. Camera is with me on all walks, too! 🙂 For writing, I keep the iPad pages app handy and write down my random thoughts. Choir is set on stone Wednesday nights practice and every Sunday singing. Gardening goes with the weather but there is also lots of planning in advance with adding new plants.
I make myself do household tasks and reward myself with creative time. (Fold all the laundry and put away = a break for some creative time. )After taking a recent advanced photography class, I’m working hard at photography. So I’lll sit down and work on photos. Luvin’ every minute!
So a lot of mine is not planned but it is intentional. I do not watch tv or spend much time on social media, which I love but require discipline or the minutes can dwindle away.
A couple mornings a week I get caught up on blog reading, which is how I ended up here today.
Thank you for all your encouragement. Perhaps my “method” can be of help to someone else. My job hours are very irregular and I have adult kids and grand kid near who drop in at a moments notice, which I love because they will take over the cooking. But then we’ll get caught up in a game or watch a recorded program. So it is hard to plan this, the slivers of time! 🙂 but I manage somehow. Like I said, hope this can help others.
Beautiful, SimplySage! Thank you so much for sharing. Come back and give us updates when you can. xo
With a toddler beneath my feet at almost all times, I have a span of 2-3 hours during the day to get my creative endeavors in. This week I plan to write 500-1000 words on my current work and I plan to take pictures at least twice this week.
Thanks for the reminder about making my creativity intentional!
Terrific, forcefullyexpressive! How did it go last week?