Reflections on a Busy Month

Its time for my month article focusing on creativity.  This is also posted in my newsletter.You get these if you subscribe to my newsletter but I like to include them here for any new visitors to my blog. 

Reflections On A Busy Month

This past November I had a lot of activities going on. Usually in November I participate in The National Novel Writing Month.  Now that activity is enough for a normal person but for me I had several other things going.

When I signed up for Connie Hozvicka’s Workshops, Creative Circles & Retreats it was going to be a handbook.  So I didn’t expect it to impact November at all.  Well she changed it and it turned into 4 conference calls. So there went that plan.

Then a couple months ago I signed up for Pauline Agnew’s course Draw and Paint What You Love.  It started in October and I knew it would impact November but I knew the course would be up there awhile so I had some leeway.

Then at the last minute I decided to sign up for Art Every Day Month.  I knew I would not be able to give up working in my art journal all month, so I thought I would do what I could do. I gave myself permission to participate fully or as little as I wanted to with no pressure.

So how did I manage it all?

The Creative circles course was all recorded so I downloaded the content to listen to later.  I printed off all the PDF’s and created a file for them and put them all away.  I plan to listen later.

The Art class worked in conjunction with Art Every Day Month. Often my art for the day was what I had made for my class assignments.  Its great when you can do double duty.  We had a Facebook group for our class assignments and first I would post there and then I would do a short blog post, uploaded it to Creative Every Day and I was finished.  It made it easy. I even threw in different creative days like weaving or knitting.  It really was an easy process for me.

Most of my writing was done at night.  We had scheduled Google+ Hangouts with my writing group so that was easily accomplished.

I think my success this month was structure.  I had a structure in place that made it easy to accomplish all the tasks I needed to do. As a creative person I usually resist schedules and structure.  I think this time my structure was fluid so it worked for me. So if you are a person who doesn't like structure you might give it try one more time.