The Artist's Way

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lately, at a reader's recommendation, I've become hooked (and I mean obsessively) on a YouTube channel called Kris Atomic. Kris and her partner, Andrew, are both professional photographers and she's also an illustrator. At the end of 2022, they left their London flat and bought a narrowboat. The videos are a chronicle of their life aboard their boat, Land's End, with their cat, Matilda.

My fascination with narrowboats and canals goes back a long way, as evidenced in my books. My third book, LEAVE THE GRAVE GREEN, has a body found in a lock. Later on, I had a whole book, WATER LIKE A STONE, set on the Shropshire Union Canal in Cheshire. I read everything I could find on narrowboats as well as visiting the Shropshire Union and even touring a restored working narrowboat at the Canal Museum in London's King's Cross. And of course the upcoming A LONG COLD SLEEP is set partly on the Regent's Canal in London, so you can imagine my delight at this virtual glimpse of life aboard Land's End afforded by Kris Atomic's videos.

Even if you're not particularly interested in narrowboats, I highly recommend Kris and Andrew's videos as a way to lower your blood pressure. Kris and Andrew (and Matilda) are so likeable and charming, the photography is stunning, and the editing is award-worthy. But maybe what's most engaging is the slower pace of life aboard the boat.

Kris draws, paints, and journals, and in recent videos she's been doing the morning pages recommended by Julia Cameron in her book THE ARTIST'S WAY.  This book, a course in unleashing your creativity, was first published in 1992 and is still apparently going strong!! I read it, and did morning pages practice, when I was writing my first novels!! (Writing three pages every morning is one of the two main tenets of the book. The other is what Cameron calls the Artist's Date, two hours set aside every week doing something that nurtures your creative brain.)

I don't know why I stopped, and I have no idea what happened to those journals. Probably just as well as they're not meant to be memorable, rather just a way to get your brain in gear. But watching Kris, and facing the start of a new book, I'm inspired to attempt the old practice. I couldn't find my original copy of Cameron's book, so ordered myself a nice new copy as well as a journal--because we always need more journals, right? (And new pens...) We'll see how I do.

Has anyone else done THE ARTIST'S WAY? If so, what was your experience? And if not, have you found ways to access your creativity?