I'm on week three of The Artists Way, it was given to me for Christmas and I didn't start it until, well, three weeks ago.

The Artists Way is like a twelve step, with twelve weeks of activities and things that encourage you to get past any blocks, hesitations or whatnot that may keep you from doing whatever art (or anything it is) that you do.

My biggest problems are that I let what people say ("that's great...but", "that's almost perfect", ect) get in the way of creating things or showing my creations to other people because I start to doubt my abilities. I also guilt myself when I work on anything at all that is purely for myself, because I feel like (once again thanks to people around me who think I should be more 'adult') I'm not being responsible enough to my life when I'm doing art, even though I know better.

You can't be a happy, healthy productive person to yourself or others if you're entirely selfless, you have to take care of yourself and do things that improve, empower and inspire you and make you happy in order to be a complete person, and doing so does not make you selfish or irresponsible.

The course requires you to take a once a week artists date with yourself, where you spend time with yourself doing things your inner artist (mine being a total gooby kid) likes to do. I used to do these types of things naturally, it was just part of my personality, and although I still do at times, it's rare that I do it without a slight nagging guilt for doing so. Just complete and total abandonment of responsibilities to act immature and do things on impulse for fun. Not because I have to, but for absolutely no reason at all.

The dates are what I have the hardest time with, partly because I have no time (and you've got to make it) and because I'm broke, also, because I feel extremely guilty over taking time for myself and not allowing anyone else to intrude on this time. (Which causes angry people, because I am not talking to them, doing things for them, ect)

I used to spend time every day fiddling with whatever projects I may have had, my MUD, my graphic design, Mister Sticky (a web movie/comic guy I draw), webpages, writing, just stuff that totally made me happy. There was no reason behind making layouts, I just made them to make them, but I was constantly getting 'why are you making that, if it's not being used for anything?' and sooner or later it wore me down. What exactly was the point of putting time into any project if it wasn't for something productive?

It also requires you to write three pages of anything every morning, aside from any writing projects, ect that you may have. This part is easy, it was just getting past the feeling that if I was writing it should be something productive (there it is again, the whole 'You must be adult' thing) but once I told myself I could write three pages of 'I'm writing three pages of crappy crap crap' over and over and it was ok to do that, that I was fine with it. Slowly I find stuff emerging from the brain drain, odd poetry, bits of stories, and it's fun.

It's definitely helping me get over the feeling like I have to spend sixteen hours a day working, and then take a ten minute break and go right back to work. This is not me, and this is not how I want to live my life, so why am I doing it to myself? Art is not synonymous with childish or irresponsible, and I'm not going to let anyone make me think otherwise.