Beyond Tweets and Texts: The Art of Disconnecting and Embracing Creativity
Exploring Morning Pages, Artist Dates, and the Unexpected Challenges of Reading Deprivation
On October 31st, I committed to taking a two month hiatus from Twitter.
The absence hasn’t been too difficult. Other than missing the informative feeds of some people I follow, it’s been fine.
The reason for this tech sabbatical: to carve out time and devote attention to an upcoming project.
To support this work, I have been reading The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. The author, a screenwriter and a teacher for anyone who desires a more creative life, recommends two actions people take on this journey:
Morning Pages
Artist Dates
Morning Pages are three pages of daily freewriting, “stream-of-consciousness” journaling. The purpose of this practice is to bypass our judgmental and self-critical conscious minds, tapping into our subconscious. It’s a bit like dipping into our personal well of creativity. Conversely, Artist Dates are weekly explorations into our world. It’s the filling of the well with new ideas and perspectives. Yesterday, I took a tour of The House on the Rock, twenty miles from my home.
The larger purpose of these exercises aligns with the belief that our creativity comes from a higher power. Creativity is something we find and follow, not conjure up.
Morning Pages, Artist Dates…these have generally been enjoyable. What has been most difficult so far about this experience was Reading Deprivation Week.
For “Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity”, Cameron calls upon the learner to take a week off from reading.
This felt counterintuitive at first. How will avoiding reading help me be more creative? This resistance coming up for me was a likely product of stopping something so intertwined with my identity. I’m in the middle of a good book. I’ve got two more titles waiting impatiently on my to-read pile. I have a Goodreads Challenge to think about!
Cameron is familiar with this resistance when conducting this course in person.
“In my teaching, the week that I assign reading deprivation is always a tough one. I go to the podium knowing that I will be the enemy. I break the news that we won’t be reading and then brace myself for the waves of antagonism and sarcasm that follow.” (p. 87)
She brings credibility to this call to action, noting that “those who have most resisted it have come back smugly rewarded for having done it”.
But why does a week of no reading work?
“The nasty bottom line is this: sooner or later, if you are not reading, you will run out of work and be forced to play.” (p. 88)
This far into the book/course (which was probably by design), I decided to commit to a week of no reading.
Here are four lessons that I learned.
Lesson #1 - In a connected world, it's challenging not to read.
Taking my paperback off my nightstand was the least challenging part of this experiment. More difficult was avoiding all of the information coming at me online.
Emails
Newsletters
Work-related documents
Messages that pop up on my phone or smartwatch
There were a few times where I broke my reading deprivation, mostly by accident. For example, I read a thoughtful essay in our church bulletin while waiting for mass to begin. Upon realizing that I had read it, I re-engaged with my commitment by refusing to take a copy with me to save and reread later.
This collecting and curating of authors’ texts is part of the problem:
I covet other writers’ work at the expense of my own.
I learned that having the words of others in my head left less space for me to create. As Cameron notes:
“Reading deprivation casts us into our inner silence, a space some of us begin to immediately fill with new words - long, gossipy conversations, television bingeing…We often cannot hear our own inner voice, the voice of our artist’s inspiration, above the static.” (p. 87)
Lesson #2 - An excuse to not read can be rejuvenating.
As much as I adore the work of the writers that I follow, it was freeing to be able to simply delete incoming newsletters. I knew where I could find them later.
This freedom from reading gave me the excuse to not read. It’s headspace that Cameron wants for us to create, and to eventually be creative.
“It is a paradox that by emptying our lives of distractions we are actually filling the well. Without distractions, we are once again thrust into the sensory world. With no newspaper to shield us, a train becomes a viewing gallery. With no novel to sink into (and no television to numb us out) an evening becomes a vast savannah in which furniture - and other assumptions get rearranged.” (p. 87)
This became apparent during my week of reading deprivation. I realized how much time I do spend reading. It’s my default action when I don’t want to engage in the more difficult act of creating something new.
I found my entry point by outlining all the steps I need to take to successfully complete my project.
No, this wasn’t actually working on the project itself, but it was a step in the right direction.
Lesson #3 - Reading can be an addiction.
This feels like too strong a statement when I write it out. How is reading harmful to myself or others? But Cameron is adamant about this belief.
“Reading deprivation is a very powerful tool - and a very frightening one. Even thinking about it can bring up enormous rage. For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction. We gobble up words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own.” (p. 87)
While I’m not sure I agree with Cameron, I do believe that reading can be an avoidance behavior. We read instead of putting ourselves out there as a creator, subject to criticism or failure. Reading protects our ego from the outside world. We get a taste for what’s possible in books but end up living a creative life vicariously through others.
Lesson #4 - Reading can get in the way of writing.
One of my artist dates during this experience was visiting an independent book store. Dangerous! My purpose was to buy a coffee and find a place to start writing a draft of my project. I ended up walking out with a book in hand, although I had enough willpower to not read the first chapter.
After enough milling around, including buying a storage system to finally organize my garage, I decided to simply sit down and start writing. There were no expectations; just be present in front of my notebook.
I got the introduction down.
It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s a start. My writing began when I prioritized my own words over others.
“As blocked creatives, we can very creative at wriggling out of things. I ask my class to turn their creativity to wriggling into not reading.”
- Julie Cameron, The Artist’s Way (p. 88)
Some questions for you:
Do you harbor any resentment in your reading life? If “Maybe…”, where is it located?
What would you do if you knew you couldn’t read this weekend? (besides this newsletter, of course)
What is your relationship with reading like? Does it mostly serve you, or more the other way around?
Have you experienced any envy when you’ve read something, for example an idea another author had published that you had previously wanted to write about?
What creative ideas are you holding onto right now that could be shared with us?
What I’m Reading
If you are curious about trying The Artist’s Way, I recommend this starter kit. The journal has a quote on each page from Cameron’s book to motivate you along your own creative journey.
The book I reluctantly put down during my reading deprivation week is The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker. An excellent guide for how to hold effective gatherings and meetings in a complex world.
A book I didn’t mind stopping was the science fiction novel The Ninth Metal by Benjamin Percy. The premise is interesting - a comet hits Earth and brings with it a new and powerful mineral - but the main protagonists are hard to root for. I may give it another go.
The book I picked up in the independent book store (Arcadia Books, Spring Green, Wisconsin) is Wintering by Katherine May. A staff member highly recommended it to me. Somewhat in the vein of The Artist’s Way, Wintering “offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat.”
Speaking of independent book stores, we have a new one just open up in my little city of Mineral Point, Wisconsin: The Republic of Letters. I recently purchased from them How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo and Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino (okay, maybe I do have an addiction…).
This Month’s Article Club
For December, subscribers are invited to explore Isobel Stevenson’s newsletter, The Coaching Letter. It is one of my new favorite resources on Substack.
From her bio:
“Isobel is an author, consultant and coach with expertise in educational equity, leadership, organizational change, and coaching. In addition to The Coaching Letter, she has written for several educational publications, and is co-author of two books.”
Full subscribers will be able to engage in conversation around her work, including a live discussion via Zoom with Isobel on Monday, December 18th at 5:30pm CST.
Great post, Matt! Disconnecting has become increasingly more difficult despite its power to put life in perspective, which may be the byproduct of creativity.. Btw--Victor Nell studied readers who burrowed away from life in reading and grew anxious when they were in a bookless environment. I believe he published his study in RRQ and wrote a book. Ludic reading he called it, from ludicrous. These were extreme cases with traits similar to any other addiction--it interferes with your job, it creates problems in your marriage or family, you worry about not having access to books, etc. He used medical grade monitoring of blood pressure heart-rate etc. and documented physiological responses consistent with addiction. No brain imaging:) It would be tough for me not to read, especially at this point. I’ve never been hungrier for books.