Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ August 19, 2013
Commit to a regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if possible — is key to staying 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, which 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 
My goal is to finish my Starry Night Cross Stitch before I start school on Monday.. so any free time is being squirreled away to help the cause 😉
Awesome, Ninja! Be sure to share a photo with us when you’re done…..
what is the life of intention retreat about? when? where? I tried to get more info but it said I needed a password? not sure how to view it. Please let me know. thanks
Thanks for asking, Charlene! The retreat is a self-paced solo “workshop” — designed to fit into a weekend — for taking stock of your life, reconnecting to what matters, and creating a concrete plan that works for you. The program is nearly finished and I’ll be releasing it soon. Please stay tuned!
Thanks will look forward to your update.
I’ve been thinking — and talking, with a friend — about the significance of rituals, of practices that ground us. So today as I set my intentions, I’m thinking not only about what I want to do this week but what I want to do _each_ week, how I can use the rhythms already present in my life to establish a more regular creative practice, and a more artful life in general.
I so agree, K–rituals and rhythms are vital–and we’re often unaware of the *unwanted* rituals we maintain. Would love to hear more about what you come up with! Guest blog post?
I would love that. I’ll be writing a bit about it on my blog tonight and putting a few things into practice. Let me know when I can send something your way!
Highlight of last week: Major catch-up marathon for Project Life — feels SO good to make progress with my backlog (and my art room looks a lot better for it, too). My goal for this week is to get *completely* caught up and move my art room from the dining room back into its actual space, now that my mother-in-law is no longer living with us.
Other highlights: My third-grader’s first football game, after two full weeks of practice (SO much fun, and he’s so happy). Also lots of family fun with friends.
In general, made progress with lots of lingering to-do items, both personally and for editorial clients. Also been working on my time budget and schedule for the fall — the kids will all be back in school as of next Thursday, and I plan to hit the ground running. It’s also time to get the kids back on an earlier bedtime/wakeup and for me to start moving back to a 5:00 morning wakeup time so that I can restore my morning meditation, journaling, and writing time.
Last week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages & intention journaling [only 2-3x last week]
* Daily writing practice — at least writing ABOUT my project if not actually logging word count [no]
* Daily reading [mostly]
This week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages & intention journaling
* Writing practice — at least writing ABOUT my project if not actually logging word count
* Daily reading
* Project Life mania
* Art room move
Well, I’ve never posted here before…how exciting. With a newborn and other kids from 5 to 14 finding a window to create is kind of tricky…..BUT I must…..for me…So, Friday, Ishall persuade my partner to take my middle ones out and I plan to write the first draft of an article about my Blessingway ceremony.
Which I will plan in little ten minute snatches whilst nursing…hopefully alone, at bedtime….
Journalling…at least three mornings if I wake before everyone piles in.
Good for you, Henrietta — with a newborn to boot! Go you! 😀
Last week: plugging away at pics, a bit of writing and family management of the extraordinary summer variety daily. summer of uber necessary travels, furniture replacement, physical therapy, wisdom teeth extractions for teens and spouse, kindergarten, college and sped high school entrance preps, all while keeping a piece of my mind. 😉
writing is small, but happening, still researching best modes for kickstarter and self-publishing, slight backburner to all of above.
goals, beyond met, have a fundraising site and self-pub option line up, wrote end caps (dedication, acknowledgements), working with artist on cover and possible internal illustrations, just printed out my last edit (from 6mos ago) that languished til i could look at it again, giving it the last once over before i load it into the self-pub thingie for formating, for tiny edits and the moments of overwork i think lie within.
book likely to result by october.
this week’s goals: prod along through final read, appreciate final week with son leaving for college, and rest of family, and enjoy myself!!
Last week, didn’t get the writing done on the weekend I planned. My interviewee didn’t respond for my blog post. Ah well, life.
This week:
– Write *every day* a minimum of 500 words per day on my WIP.
– create a very rough outline of my work for the 3 day novel contest.
– write the poetic asides poem, and write 1 other blog post.