Have I mentioned Julia Cameron yet? She defines her book, The Artist's Way in a sub-title: "A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity". Because it's a project in twelve stages, people have mistaken it for the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not. And I think it is intended for civilians, that is, for people who are not necessarily writers or artists. But the people I know who have read it are not lay-people. McLuhan predicted that some day everyone would be an artist. That's happening, has happened, and the problem as he also predicted is, who will there be left to read and admire the artist when everyone is an artist? Case in point, the blog.
Everyone writes blogs now. Who wants to read them? Except I guess celebrity blogs - but they limit themselves to tweets, don't they? Or maybe a blog with a narrow focus, like a cooking blog, several of those, none, I suspect, as wildly successful as Julie Powell's riding on Julia Child's apron strings. The best-selling Book of Awesome began as a blog when Canadian writer Neil Pasricha was at a very low point in his life and set himself an assignment to think of something good that happened each day.
I'm no sure about my blog yet. It's a pump-primer, that I know. It's good discipline and useful preparation for my big trip. And I think it's beginning to serve as footnotes to the book I'm working on, about age. I mean, what else could my blog be? I am old and I am writing about what happens to me and what I'm thinking in my twilight years. I've actually quoted from one of my blogs - once - in my book, though I'm not sure whether it will stick.
Back to Julia Cameron. I read it and worked on it when I was still living up north (in Muskoka). There are some exercises she assigns that I don't think I could do now, living in a city as I do, with too many calls on me and too many distractions. But if it appeals to you, check out her assignment for Week 4. "Reading Deprivation" is a doozy. I actually did it twice, about a year apart. Giving up reading is harder than giving up booze, I think. I mean, books are an addiction. Readers used to share what was called a Gutenberg Complex. I'm not sure what you'd call it now since print is going the way of the dodo bird.
Think about it.