What were you doing before the Artists Way. What was your creative/life like?

Before the Artist’s Way (AW) over ten years ago,  I was completely stuck in a rut. I’d been a jobbing actor for about ten years and work was very quiet. In between acting jobs I was nursing, doing agency in various hospitals around Scotland, working in Critical Care (Intensive Care). It was tough. I was working at night and sleeping during the day and it was taking its toll on me. I wanted to be doing my creative work 100% of the time instead of just about 10%. I didn’t know how to make that happen and I felt perhaps that maybe it wasn’t worth it – that my talents maybe couldn’t cut it. I was besieged by self doubt and stuck as stuck could be both professionally and personally. I was not a happy bunny.

How did you come across the Artist's Way?

A friend of mine asked me to be the entertainer at her daughter’s sixth birthday party. I didn’t want paid – my friend had been and remains so supportive of me – and I wanted to do this as a gift for her. We had a great time at the party and at the end my friend gave me a £20 book voucher. I toddled off to Waterstones and browsed the ‘self help’ section. I was desperate to change things. I came across The Artist’s Way on the shelf and picked it out, little knowing that that day was the first day of the rest of my life.

Did it sit on your shelf or did you dive in straight away? 

I got stuck into it right away. I used to look forward to Sunday nights. I’d go to bed early and sit, tucked up, and read the chapter for that week then do the exercises. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I just diligently went about it. I was faithful to the morning pages for the duration and slowly things started to change. In fact, amazing things started to happen.

One experience in particular stands out.

It was the week (can’t remember which one) where Julia Cameron said, ‘Do one thing everyday for your art.’ This was a directive that landed on the most resistant and dispirited of women. I can’t tell you how much I had to overcome the ‘why bother?’ mentality. Through gritted teeth I made myself call ‘The Council for Music In Hospitals’ for an audition. Singing – especially music theatre was one of my passions.

Anyway I begged them for an audition and they accommodated me. I found an accompanist and we worked up a set of songs that the elderly would enjoy and one Sunday, a couple of weeks later, we duly set off to the audition in Edinburgh. Now that week, in the AW, one of the questions asked was; where do you see yourself in ten years time? My answer was:  ‘Singing Sondheim at the Donmar Warehouse or the National’- my wildest dream. For me, Sondheim is the gold standard for any actor/singer. He presents huge challenges for the performer in the exploration of the dynamics of relationships and human experience in words and music. But there is huge satisfaction in pulling it off.

 I wrote this dream down and thought nothing of it.

My accompanist and I duly did our audition in a lovely room in the most prestigious hotel in Edinburgh. I felt good that I had made myself do this and had acquitted myself well. Coming out of the room, which was at the back of the foyer of the hotel, I donned my coat making ready to go. I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes. For there, sitting just yards away from me was none other than Stephen Sondheim himself.

Even now as I write this it seems unbelievable. If I had been a painter it was like seeing Picasso or Leonardo da Vinci in front of me. I walked straight up to him and blurted out, ‘Mr Sondheim. I can’t believe it’s you. My dream is to do one of your shows at the Donmar Warehouse or the National.’

He was a tad taken aback.

I asked him what he was doing in Scotland – he was on holiday – and then I wished him well. He stood and shook my hand – he was so gracious. And then I took my leave – floating on air, ecstatic, converted, full of light – feeling as if God or the abundant universe had given me the greatest gift beyond my wild imaginings. It was a Paul on the road to Damascus moment. Truly. It was as if the universe was saying to me, ‘See. It’s not all up to you. If you correspond with your gifts, things happen that you never dreamed of. You just have to do it.’

A little coda to the story is that I left the building and went hunting for a card and flowers for him – it was a Sunday evening. However I managed it, and I delivered them to the reception of the hotel. Two days later a note landed on my mat, an envelope with the hotel’s logo on it and S. Sondheim, handwritten underneath. He’d written me a thank you note. It’s my most treasured possession.

I tell this story because it really was the beginning of my trusting in my creative drive. The AW was utterly instrumental in me finding this within myself. I did one thing and was given the gift of meeting the one artist on this earth who had given me the most inspiration and challenge.

What is your life like post Artist's Way?

My life now has completely changed. Following my meeting with Sondheim, and before the 12 weeks of the AW  was finished I landed an acting job in London, understudying a famous actor in the West End. I then lived in London for three years, took some time out in New Zealand and then at last started to write.

In New Zealand, I had given myself permission to not force myself to do anything – I was there for a much needed rest. All my old enthusiasms bubbled back up to the surface with the addition of a strong desire to write. When I returned to London that’s what I did. I wrote initially about my nursing experiences and sold them to a leading nursing magazine. Then I started the research for what was to become ‘Burns Night’ and subsequently ‘Loving Burns’ – two pieces of work that have wrought many changes for me. ‘Burns Night’ was a play about the women in Robert Burns’s life which I did at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2003. We did well, sold out and got good reviews. Then a few years later, I adapted this play, making it a more reflective piece for two actors, and renamed it ‘Loving Burns’. I took it to the festival again, for the whole four weeks – a huge risk – but I had great help and support from friends to do it. I also gave up nursing then. I realised that I had to take a huge leap of faith in order to really live the life I wanted as an artist. The festival that year was another amazing experience. Throughout the run, every single person who had been important to me in my journey as an artist over many years, showed up and saw the show- even my old music teacher from high school who’d set me on my way.  Then in the last week I met someone who heralded another change in my life and who has been instrumental in leading me to where I am right now.

I had just done the show. I had popped my head out the door to tell a friend I wouldn’t be long – I had to get out of the period costume. A young woman, with an American accent was waiting for me. She asked me who had written the show and I said that I’d had.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘My boyfriend writes.’

I thought to myself, ‘Well join the club.’

She was gracious about the show and then she left. That evening I got an email – from her. Turns out she was going out with a writer and director whose star was on the rise in Hollywood. I realised it was the proverbial knock on the door – and all because we’d taken a risk for the whole run. Within days I had an option agreement on a screenplay.

I’d never written for the screen before so I read a couple of books and then got started. I wrote it and as I did so, I realised that writing for the screen was what I really wanted to do. It felt like telling a story to people gathered round my feet – I totally loved the form. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the film isn’t yet produced, but following the experience of writing it, I won a scholarship to study for an MA TV Fiction writing at the Caledonian University, which I finished last year. Now I’m writing and performing when work comes my way. I haven’t nursed in three years, and although I am financially not as well off as before, I am a much happier person.

Since doing the Artists Way all those years ago, my life has changed immeasurably. There are still challenges and there’s still battles to be fought with the old self doubting person I can sometimes revert to being when things are tough. But I never give up hope.

What AW philosophy or techique do you still use?

To be honest, I’m not sure. I don’t do morning pages, but I do like the occasional artists date. What I do hold on to is the faith in the process even when life is challenging. Doing the AW taught me how to risk for my creative life. And that’s one thing I do do on a daily basis.

What is the one thing you would really like to tell my readers about being creative?

We all can be creative. It’s just a matter of not judging ourselves too harshly and not letting what Julia Cameron calls ‘THE BLURTS’ get in the way.  Following the creative energy inside, whether as a visual artist, dancer, actor, writer, singer or whatever or as a business person, mother, father, teacher, or carer – we are all called to be fully human and fully alive, and our creativity helps us become that. Creativity and the arts are not an ‘extra’ to be tagged on for entertainment purposes alone. The best art confronts us with all the nuances of our humanity and reflects back the good and the bad and challenges our perceptions of ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to express what is inside us for as Gloria Steinman said to Martha Graham:

 ‘There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.  If you block it, it will never exist in any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.’

We just have to do it.

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