questions and answers

In the chapter 5 of The Artist's Way Cameron suggests asking questions.  Ask in the evening, dream it, and then write through to the answers in your morning pages.  In general, I am a see it to believe it kind of person.  So the synchronicity aspect, the god quality of this Artist's Way process has not been all too powerful for me.  But I thought that asking the questions, and being open to the answers within myself would be a good exercise.

So I did it.

Sunday night I asked myself what help am I getting, to allow me to balance all the things of my life--- home care-paid work-writing dreams- family life, that I am not seeing?  What help is there that maybe I have failed to pay attention to?

Monday I picked my son up from his school bus in the afternoon, and he and the new neighbor kid wanted to play together, as they have most days after school since the little girl moved in last month. The kids ended up across the street at her house... and I got dinner made, bathrooms cleaned, laundry done, and even had a few moments to graze Facebook and Pinterest.  It dawned on me that this new friendship (while challenging in some regards) may be something that I am not fully paying attention to or appreciating for what it is allowing me to do.  Plain and simple- my kid is occupied, and thus I can get more stuff done.  This is helpful.

Tuesday I asked myself if I should be on this writing path?  Am I doing the right thing?  Is creating a writing career for myself really worthwhile and possible?

Wednesday I suffered a pretty solid depression. Feeling discouraged, no answers came.  So Wednesday I asked the question again.  Am I supposed to be on this writing path?

Thursday, today, I got an answer to both my questions in one brief email.  

I blog.  I blog a lot.  And perhaps something I have been seeing that I have not fully paid attention to is that blogging for businesses is a way to be on the path, to be creative, and to earn money.  Blogging is something I do well.  Blogging is something I love, yet I discount as not "real" writing.

But today I got an email from a local business I had previously contacted for a bit of Funky Junk work. The shop owner unexpectedly asked me if I was interested in doing some social media work for her.  

This is not a direct answer to my question of whether the writing career life is really the "right" path for me.  Nor am I even slightly sure that working with this business would be a good fit more me. But I decided to take it as a sign that I am perhaps doing something right.  An unsolicited request to do paid work that I am quite capable of dong is not at all a bad thing.

It's not a book deal, nor a response from the editor I so want to hear from.  But perhaps Julia Cameron has something.  Maybe believing in oneself first and being open to the abundance of the universe, then brings on the seeing, the reality of abundance.  Maybe.  In any case, I am going to keep on asking the questions, and writing my way, blog by blog, through to the answers.