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Keeping Busy

pen and ink trees drawing

©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, 9-26-2010 Sketchbook Page. Ink in 9 x 12 sketchbook.

I’ve had a lot of alone time on my hands these days. A lot of time without Internet or TV or movies. Naturally I’ve been feeling a bit closed off from the world. I should be getting “connected” again soon though, which will be nice.

I’ve been really needing a mental break, so I am thankful, but I do have the challenge of keeping myself busy. I have been doing a lot of artwork, both in my sketchbooks and otherwise. I have also been using this opportunity to work on some projects that I have been saving for a time like this.

I read Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way years ago, but the only thing I really took away from it was the morning pages. About two months ago, I started to regularly write my morning pages again. It has been especially helpful for me now that I have plenty of time on my hands to be creative. I feel that I am wasting less time on mental distractions.

When I started writing again, I considered using 750words.com but I decided against it and started using the free program WriteMonkey instead. I didn’t like the idea of my writing being online for some hacker to potentially discover. Now I’m glad that I decided to keep all my writing offline, because I can access it and my routine hasn’t been disrupted at all. I enjoy WriteMonkey because you can choose different colors, and it has a cool typewriter sound that you can turn on. It also displays interesting anonymous quotes when you open up the program. Today’s quote was especially applicable: “The man who has no inner life is a slave to his surroundings.”

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