Priorities: List for yourself your creative goals for the
year. List for yourself your creative goals for the
month. List for yourself your creative goals for the
week.
Creative U-Turns: All of us have taken creative U-
turns. Name one of yours. Name three more. Name
the one that just kills you.
Forgive yourself Forgive yourself for all failures of
nerve, timing, and initiative. Devise a personalized
list of affirmations to help you do better in the future.
Very gently, very gently, consider whether any
aborted, abandoned, savaged, or sabotaged
brainchildren can be rescued. Remember, you are
not alone. All of us have taken creative U-turns.
Choose one creative U-turn. Retrieve it. Mend it.
Do not take a creative U-turn now. Instead, notice
your resistance. Morning pages seeming difficult?
Stupid? Pointless? Too obvious? Do them anyway.
What creative dreams are lurching toward
possibility? Admit that they frighten you.
Choose an artist totem. It might be a doll, a stuffed
animal, a carved figuring, or a wind-up toy. The
point is to choose something you immediately feel a
protective fondness toward. Give your totem a place
of honor and then honor it by not beating up on your
artist child.
