Week 10. Yes, it is.

Ten of Twelve!

This is the home stretch.

My Artist's Date (since I'm coming up a little short on those of late) was my fabulous creation of that awesome numeral 10. Here's how I did it:

I chose a font in Word. (Britannica Bold. Not my dream font, but I had to pick one.) Made it size 200. (I could also have changed the percent size of the Word page, but I didn't do it like that.) Colored it red. Took its photo on the screen of the laptop with the iPhone. Emailed the photo to myself in gmail. Saved it to the desktop. Dragged it into iPhoto. Messed with it in the Edit box. And made it so cool. I coulda cropped it better, but really, I'm supposed to be doing other stuff today.

I'm getting questions about what week it is. And having some small trouble responding. I was pretty sure it was 10, but not positive enough to spend time on that big numeral above without checking.

So. Now I'm focusing. Here's my personal life lesson from Chapter 10 and our Julia.


"Fame, the desire to attain it, the desire to hold onto it can produce the 'How am I doing?' syndrome. This question is not,'Is the work going well?' This question is, 'How does it look to them?'"

I don't know that I'm obsessed with fame per se. I would say that I want to be published because I want the pleasure (and no doubt possible pain) of interacting with readers. By being for someone else what writers have been for me: i.e., gatekeepers of imagined experiences that have enriched my life. And do I also want to see myself on the cover of The Rolling Stone? Yeah. Probably. Sue me.

But as Julia also points out, "The point of the work is the work."

Look how freeing that is. You discover your creative voice or medium and you pour yourself, your time and your life -- as much as you can spare from the tasks of survival and the nurturing of assorted key relationships -- into it. And the work is its own reward.

What did you learn from Chapter 10? I figure it's something different for everybody. But the magic of The Artist's Way is that everyone will find something worth considering, something that could be life changing, in every single chapter. I don't know that Julia guarantees that. But I do.

Get yours from 10 and get ready for 11.