This is my Week Twelve check-in for The Artist’s Way, marking the final chapter in the book and the final week of this creative recovery process.
And honestly? It was my least favourite week.
The chapter focused on recovering a sense of faith, but it didn’t land with the same resonance as earlier weeks, or with a level of closure I was hoping for.
Still, I’ve learned so much about myself and how to approach creative pursuits throughout the course, and have taken away plenty of insights that I can apply moving forward.
Morning Pages
This week was my worst effort yet, only completing four sessions. It is clear that my enthusiasm for the pages has waned over the past few weeks, as I often drift off mid-page or simply fill in blank pages with to-do lists and reminders.
None of which I ever revisit, and they are used as a crutch to escape the journal and progress into other activities.
It reminded me that the Morning Pages are supposed to be stream of consciousness — not edited, not clever, just output.
I’ve started slipping away from that, but the truth is, the most interesting stuff often shows up on pages four, five, and six. So my daily mission is to just keep the pen moving at all costs.
Artist Date
I watched Parasite on Netflix after a long Sunday with the family for Mother’s Day. I was hoping to recreate the same spark I got from watching Oldboy in Week Two, but this one didn’t trigger any big creative revelations.
Still, I enjoyed it a lot — the script was creative, the comedic moments were thoughtful, and the chaos in the final act was totally unexpected.
Truth & Resistance
The chapter opened with a hard truth:
“Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquishing control.”
Resistance showed up all week in the form of low-effort presence. A sense of just going through the motions, as the course came to a close. And it made me reflect on how resistance is a form of self-destruction, as Pressfield writes in The War of Art.
The solution? Faith. Not in the spiritual sense, but faith in myself and in the process I have developed. I need to embrace the idea that the work will often guide itself once the ball is rolling, if I let go of control and surrender to the process more.
I've viewed that sentiment ten different ways over the last 12 weeks, but this week it landed deeper. I always want to develop a plan with some sort of a clear outcome. But maybe I don’t need the map, I just need to start walking.
Mystery
“Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness.”
That line helped reframe some doubts I have about everything. I keep waiting for clarity before I begin, for the strategy to click, for the light bulb to go off before I hit the ground running.
But Julia Cameron reminded me that gestation periods are murky and necessary and that working in the dark is still working.
So many of my unfinished projects are just ideas I poked too early and too often before they even had a chance to flourish or see the light of day.
The Imagination At Play
One of the best (and most simple) lines in the chapter — and probably the book — was:
“Life is meant to be an Artist Date.”
I’ve spent so many years optimising, planning, refining, and building systems, trying to position myself as a "professional." But in doing so, I stripped every ounce of play out of my life.
The result? No hobbies. No mess. No silliness.
Over the past few months, I’ve slowly started bringing that energy back into my everyday life, and it has provided me a deep sense of comfort knowing not everything I do needs to be enveloped in purpose or meaning.
Weekly Tasks
Resistance, Anger & Fears
This task aims to uncover any anxieties that may be lurking as I move on post-course.
The main things I am fearful of are being:
Scared I’ll forget how good this has felt.
Scared I’ll lose the momentum I’ve built.
Scared I’ll continue shortcutting the Morning Pages
Scared I’ll fall back into fixed mindsets and old productivity traps.
I’ve spent a decade learning to optimise everything, but I’ve only spent 12 weeks learning how to trust. So those are my main fears moving forward, but I’m proud I’m naming and acknowledging them.
Payoffs of Procrastination
The final task for the week was to identify any lingering elements of procrastination and what the payoff is for holding onto them.
My main creative procrastination was waiting for this course to end before starting any projects. It became a shelter of comfort — an excuse not to begin, disguised as a need to “finish” my recovery, even though I know now that recovery is a lifelong process.
Thank you for following along for these past 12 weeks as I have tried to troubleshoot my creative identity and overcome my blocks. If you are on your own creative journey, I wish you all the best and hope that my experience has helped you in some small way.
You can find video updates for all my weekly check-ins on my YouTube channel.
Thanks for reading! If you've worked through The Artist's Way yourself or are thinking about starting, I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments below.
Keep going gang,
Drew Trott
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Honestly, I bought the book. Never read it. And the "spiritual", nah!! I'll have to figure out how I can use it without the "fluff". But, definitely thanks for sharing!!