The Artist’s Way: Week Eleven Reflections

Recovering a Sense of Autonomy

Happy November!

It’s currently very late on Saturday night (really- very early on Sunday morning) and I just witnessed the first World Series loss I’ve ever cared about. I started following baseball for the first time this year, and my home team (the Toronto Blue Jays) performed exceptionally well over the course of the season. Although I’m a little bitter about the Dodgers’ win, I’m happy to have followed something so monumental in Toronto’s sports history. The energy in the city has been electric over the past week- we were all united by the Blue Jays. 

Onward to the topic of this blog post, my reflections on week eleven of The Artist’s Way. This week focused on recovering a sense of autonomy. The text started with a long passage (almost a manifesto?) about accepting oneself as an artist. It felt like a summation of a lot of different concepts and ideas that have been explored throughout the program.

The text went on to discuss achieving success as an artist, and how to choose creative projects for pay. If you work as an artist for a living, you may be hired for projects that pay the bills, but that aren’t creatively fulfilling. Cameron talks about considering the hidden costs of accepting such projects- time and creative energy- and suggests balancing such projects with personal artistic endeavours that do fill your cup. 

There was also a long section in the text called “The Zen of Sports” which talked about the importance of physical activity to artists. This conversation resonated with me, and also brought to mind Haruki Murakami’s memoir, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” (which I love, and have read twice). Artists can benefit from physical activity in a variety of different ways. A lot of artists find that their minds wander freely when they exercise, bringing them inspiration. Others (including a friend I spoke to this week) find that exercising is a great time to puzzle through issues that come up in their projects. Personally, as a long-distance runner and walker, I find that walking frees up my mind for thinking things over, and running gives me perspective. Both activities have been extremely beneficial to my art.

Finally, the text invited readers to build an artist’s altar: a place to keep little things that make them happy. A so-called “altar” can be as big as an entire room or as small as a window ledge. As it turns out, I already sort of have one- it’s my bookshelf. My bookshelf houses my book collection, yes, but also little treasures I’ve collected throughout my life that bring me joy, including origami stars, cute blind box figurines, a set of glass fruits gifted to me by my grandmother, a jar of seaglass and ceramic seal statues that my mom gave me. My bookshelf is, without a doubt, my favourite part of my apartment. 

Morning Pages

I did poorly with the morning pages this week. There were two days I made late entries and two days I skipped the pages altogether. There has been so much resistance with these pages over the last few weeks. Honestly, I just don’t think they’re for me. To get back on track, I had to remind myself that I made a commitment to finishing The Artist’s Way program; and that the morning pages are an integral part of it. I also tried to give myself some perspective: at this point in the program, I only have one more week of pages left to go, and then I never have to write them again.

Tasks

Fitting as The Artist’s Way is coming to a close, a lot of the tasks for this week asked participants to consider their plans, goals and dreams for the future. Personally, I’m worried about not being able to keep the magic of The Artist’s Way alive once I get back to my everyday life. Concrete goals tend to work better for me than abstract ones, so I’ll need to find a way to set a practical goal for myself in relation to creating.1

Artist Date and Other Artistic Endeavours

This week was filled with a lot of late nights watching the World Series. This said, I did manage to get some writing done. I started drafting a new short story (no title yet, but it’s about a man found guilty of a crime who is awaiting his sentencing) and kept working on the short story I drafted in Week 7 (which has the working title “Thanksgiving”). I also made banana chocolate chip muffins again.

My artist date this week was a bit of a bust. It started with the best of intentions- I drove up to Newmarket with plans to walk through Fairy Lake Park and then go to a café and work a bit on “Thanksgiving”. Unfortunately, it was so cold outside I could barely enjoy the walk, and when I got to the café to write, let’s just say my laptop had other plans. If there was any positive takeaway from this week’s artist date, I’d say that at least I had a pretty good iced coffee and bagel with cream cheese at the café. If you’re ever in Newmarket, I highly recommend Metropolis Mercantile + Café. 

In any event- bad artist date aside- all I can do is move forward. Wish me luck for week twelve!

With love, 

Laura Kate

  1. I’m thinking about a goal of creating and sharing one work per week- whether that be a blog post, photoset, watercolour painting or something else. ↩︎

The Artist’s Way: Week Ten Reflections

Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection

Happy Monday!

Because of the half-marathon monopolizing all of my time and mental energy last week, I decided to stretch “Week Ten” of The Artist’s Way into two weeks. 

Week Ten focused on recovering a sense of self-protection. It involved identifying potentially toxic patterns of thought. In the Artist’s Way text, Julia Cameron discussed how we each have our own vices (for example, substance use, workaholism, or obsessions with “painful love” or complicated relationships) which block our creative flow. One of the tasks for the week involved reflecting on our vices and how they impact us creatively.  I found the exercise useful- I identified a few things I routinely find myself preoccupied with (dynamic, difficult relationships; food, exercise and body image) which tend to sap the resources (time, mental and creative energies) I could otherwise be channelling into my art. 

The text also had sections dedicated to unpacking the perils of worrying about fame and being hyper-competitive towards other artists. In the case of the former, when we turn our focus from the creative process to achieving and maintaining fame, we invite “a continual feeling of lack”, because fame is a drug one can never get enough of. In the case of the latter, being hyper-competitive and focusing on the achievements of others shifts our focus away from ourselves and our own unique talents. We may stop creating original work if we start worrying that our art should more closely resemble others’. Cameron advises staying true to who we are and creating what we are drawn to create. As she says, “each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit.” Personally, while I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly focused on becoming famous, I am quite susceptible to getting into a competitive mindset. A competitive attitude is helpful in the courtroom when I’m wearing my lawyer hat, but not so helpful in my creative life. I guess it just goes to show that competitiveness, like many traits, can be helpful or harmful, depending on the context.

Finally, Cameron acknowledged creative drought: the painful, inevitable fact that, “in any creative life, there [will be] dry seasons.” Her solution is to “stumble on”- to keep creating, to keep writing morning pages, because we must. Like all things, with time, creative droughts end. 

Artist Date

Surprise, surprise- my artist date this week was another walk through a forest. I wasn’t originally planning for the walk to be my artist date, but once I was on it, I turned it into one. Generally when I go for walks, I tune out the world around me with my inner dialogue or by listening to audiobooks, podcasts or music. This time, I treated the walk as a sensory experience; making an effort to take in the sights, sounds and smells. I was overcome by the beauty of my surroundings, and the experience honestly made me feel like a child again. I waded through red and orange leaves scattered on the forest floor, felt the sun’s rays streaming through the trees and onto my face, smelled the earth. The experience was nothing short of magical. 

Other Artistic Endeavours 

Over the past two weeks, I painted another watercolour picture and baked carrot muffins. I am starting to develop instincts about ingredients and spices that I definitely didn’t have before. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve gotten the hang of baking muffins at this point- over the course of The Artist’s Way, I think I’ve made at least 4 different kinds. Moving forward, I’d like to challenge myself to try out more difficult recipes. My partner has been suggesting pies…

I also started a new class at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies: Writing Short Fiction. As you might recall, in Week Two of The Artist’s Way, I reflected on the fact that I struggle with writing longform fiction, and always get more satisfaction out of writing short stories and nonfiction pieces. Since then, I’ve been producing nonfiction content pretty regularly through these weekly blog posts. I’m hopeful that the class I’m taking at the SCS will allow me to learn more about short story writing as a genre, and give me an excuse to write more short stories. I’m excited to see where the class takes me.

Winter Anxiety

In completely unrelated news, something that’s been on my mind is how I’m going to cope with the coming winter season. I feel the weather already starting to shift- night falls early and the temperature is dropping… there was frost in the grass this morning. With these observations comes a sense of acute dread. I come by my apprehension of winter honestly- my mother would live in 30°C weather all year if she could. This said, I’m determined to avoid seasonal depression this year. I’ve been doing a lot of research online for anecdotal accounts from creators about how not to hate the winter season. 

One of the perspectives I fell upon suggested treating winter as a call for rest: a time to give yourself permission to slow down, prioritize recovery and indulge in little luxuries you otherwise wouldn’t. As a productivity addict who struggles with having any downtime on her schedule, the idea of having a designated time of year for rest sounds both impractical and daunting- but also interesting. I’ve found this autumn season to be unusually busy and difficult to keep up with (between work, social obligations, The Artist’s Way, half-marathon training, and now a creative writing class). Perhaps prioritizing rest for the next few months wouldn’t be so bad.

With love- and until next week, 

Laura Kate

What Running Taught Me About Being a Beginner

Alternative title: “A Love Letter to Running”

On October 19, 2025, after more than 7 months of training, I ran the Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon; my first half-marathon race.1 It was incredible- one of the most difficult things I’ve ever accomplished, and also one of the most rewarding. 

I’ve been a runner now for a little over a year. I started running in the summer of 2024.2 My first 5-kilometre race was the Holly Jolly Fun Run that November. In May of this year, I ran the Sporting Life 10k. From there, I decided to keep my momentum going and train for a half marathon. 

Training didn’t come easily. I started with little to no base level of running ability. Although I regularly walked and hiked long distances, the last time I’d tried to run was in high school gym class. In deciding to become a runner, I knew I would be starting from “zero”: being able to run continuously for maybe one minute maximum (and no, I don’t even mean in one minute intervals) and after a lifetime of telling myself that I was bad at sports and could never be an athlete. This being said, starting from zero ended up being a good thing for me- it prevented me from setting my expectations too high and letting perfectionism get in the way of the process. 

While running has brought so many great things into my life, the biggest benefit I’ve gained has been learning how to be a beginner. In this blog post, I wanted to talk about my experience becoming a runner, and share some of the lessons it has taught me- lessons which are applicable to so many other areas of life.

Lesson One: Set Small, Incremental Goals.

When I started running in June 2024, my initial “end goal” was to run a half-marathon by that October. At first, I thought a half-marathon was something I could reasonably train up to in 4 months. I found some “couch to half marathon” training plans online and tried to follow them; but quickly found that running was a lot more difficult than I expected. I wasn’t able to hit the targets in the plans, became quickly discouraged, and eventually gave up training.  

Things changed in the fall when I made an offhand comment to my now-boyfriend that I wanted to be a runner. A runner and cyclist himself, instead of suggesting that I sign up for a big race, he encouraged me to start with a 5k. Compared to a half-marathon, I found training with a 5k goal in mind much less daunting. Instead of worrying about the prospect of running for more than 2 hours straight, I only had to worry about running for 35 minutes. I signed up for the Holly Jolly Fun Run, and, after a few weeks of training, I was able to finish the race with a 33-minute time.

My friend Stephanie and I in November 2024
training for the Holly Jolly Fun Run 5k

Something I would recommend to all new runners is to set small, incremental goals instead of big ones. Things “clicked” for me when my targets became more achievable. My first few running goals were so small that they weren’t related to distance at all, they focused on time: run 3 minutes without stopping. 5 minutes. 10. 15. When I was able to run in 15-minute intervals, my focus shifted to distances: run a 5k. A 10k. A half-marathon.

When the path to a goal seems more achievable, you’re more likely to work towards it. You can build towards your big goals by setting small ones. This approach keeps you focused on the present instead of worrying about a distant, more-intimidating future.

Lesson Two: Embrace Novelty. 

As a beginner, it’s important to periodically check in with yourself and evaluate what methods are working for you and which are not. It’s also important to experiment with new tools and strategies. 

My running strategy has evolved dramatically from when I started out. Some modifications were borne out of necessity from having to solve problems that arose over the course of training. For instance, something that came up early on was experiencing calf pain for days following runs. I was able to resolve this issue by implementing a pre-run stretching routine, buying better shoes and changing my footstrike. I also started experimenting with a shoe rotation when I started experiencing blistering from wearing the same pair of shoes on every run. 

Other modifications to my running strategy came from experimentation for fun. I tried running with both running belts and hydration vests, and found out that I vastly preferred running with vests (despite how dorky I thought they looked). I also experimented with different ways of carrying water (smaller flasks vs. water bladders) and different ways of fueling (I first tried dates, then moved onto running gels and chews).

Trying new things isn’t just a tip for beginners- I think it’s something we should all challenge ourselves to do. Failing to embrace novelty can hinder your personal growth and development. 

Lesson Three: Understand that Progress is Not Linear.

I’ve heard a saying that for every one good run, there will be one mediocre run and one bad run. Not every run will be great. Some runs will be awful. You will not notice improvement after every run. Some days you won’t want to run at all. But, even in the face of roadblocks,  you need to persist.

I’ve experienced my fair share of “bad” runs. I had a number of runs where I had to stop after 2 or 3km because of excruciating side stitches, runs I had to take breaks in the middle of, and a meant-to-be-12km run that I ended early because I ran out of water.

My biggest failure was on what should have been a 20km peak long run in September. I’d been building up to 20km for months, and had just done a 19km run the week before. Despite this, when out for my 20km run, I hit a total mental roadblock very early on and had to stop. I tried taking a half hour break, walking, trying to re-motivate myself- but nothing worked. I didn’t complete the run. Nonetheless, I didn’t let one shitty run get to me. The next week, I tried again, and ended up running my first 21.1km distance.

Progress is not linear; there will be highs and lows in everything we do. The most we can do is learn to trust and embrace the journey.

Photos from September 28, 2025, when I ran my first 21.1km distance after failing my
20km run the week before

Lesson Four: Surround yourself with people who make you feel supported.

Something I struggle with is comparing myself to other runners in terms of pace. I’m definitely not the fastest runner out there. I’m still working on accepting that everyone is different, everyone’s bodies are different, everyone has different abilities, and the only person I should be comparing myself to is myself.

Something that has helped me immensely in this particular struggle is following influencers from the “slow running” community online. There’s not a specific pace that defines a slow runner, but in general, slow runners prioritize enjoying running and getting longer distances under their belts instead of worrying about how fast they’re going. This running community reminds me that I can still be a runner, even if I’m not going to win any races anytime soon. I’m also very lucky to have other wonderful runners in my offline life (like my partner who slows his pace to match mine when we run together, and my friend Stephanie, a natural cheerleader) who provide support and encouragement every step of the way.

Photos from a 17km long run at Tommy Thompson Park on August 23, 2025

Future Running Goals

In just one year, running has brought so many good things into my life, and I’m so excited to see what my future in the sport will look like. Now that I’ve finished a half-marathon and fallen in love with long-distance running, you’d think that I’d want to immediately start training for a full marathon- but I don’t. Not yet, anyway. My goal over the coming late fall and winter seasons is to maintain my running fitness. I would like to continue regularly running 10km. I’m considering training for another half-marathon in the spring, but I haven’t signed up for any races yet.  Even though I’m excited to continue making progress, I’m also excited to move into a period of maintenance, where I can give myself permission to slow down, just for a while. 

Perhaps ironically- there’s no rush.

With love,

Laura Kate

  1. For anyone counting, I finished the race in 2 hours and 11 minutes. ↩︎
  2. I started running for a number of reasons, some more ridiculous than others. These included: (1) being bitter about one of my exes, who is a runner; (2) wanting to strengthen my fitness routine with an exercise more intensive than walking; and, (3) wanting to play into the joke about people in their late twenties either getting married or training for a marathon (I wasn’t getting married anytime soon…). ↩︎

The Artist’s Way: Week Nine Reflections

Recovering a Sense of Compassion

Happy Sunday and happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving long weekend! If you celebrate, I hope the food is delicious and the festivities are stress-free. This week was another busy one for me- I almost thought I wouldn’t be able to get to The Artist’s Way. But, against all odds, I was able to fit my reading, artist date, and tasks into the weekend.

This week of The Artist’s Way focused on recovering a sense of compassion. In the text, Julia Cameron talked about how, oftentimes, blocked artists unfairly call themselves “lazy” when they’re having issues creating. In reality, they might be struggling with fear: fear of success, fear of failure, fear of abandonment, etc. She warned about blocked artists falling into patterns of “creative U-turns”: self-sabotaging behaviours they employ when they start to achieve creative momentum. Cameron proposed that the cure for fear and self-sabotaging behaviours preventing artists from creating is self-compassion. 

There was also a section in the text where Cameon talked about how enthusiasm, rather than discipline, is the key to an artistic life. To this end, she suggested finding ways to treat creative work as play to foster a sense of joy.

Morning Pages

This week, Cameron invited participants to read through all of the morning pages they’d written over the first eight weeks of the program. This task took me about two days- there was a lot to get through.  I found that, predictably, most of my morning pages were made up of boring, repetitive drivel. This said, there were also some important insights in the pages-most of which I have written about already in previous reflection posts. Re-reading my morning pages also gave me ideas for “next steps’ in my artistic journey. 

Throughout the pages, something I said over and over again in many different ways was that I want to go back to school. This isn’t news to me- I’ve always viewed school (undergraduate studies and law school- NOT high school) as one of the best times in my life. I loved the independence and freedom and the focus on learning and self-development. It’s one of my biggest aspirations to go back to school for a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature, art history or philosophy (a host of subjects I’ve always been interested in, but didn’t study while I was getting my BSc). While I still don’t think going back to university for a BA is in the cards for me (yet?), I’d like to take more courses through the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, where I’ve taken a handful of classes already. 

Reading through my morning pages also made me appreciate just how far I’ve come with The Artist’s Way in general. In the first few weeks of writing morning pages, I verbalized doubts about whether the program would “work for me”. But, as the weeks went by, I undeniably gained creative momentum. Since starting The Artist’s Way, I’ve started a blog and post on it regularly, fixed my DSLR camera and brought it outside to take photos for the first time in years, tried out watercolour painting, drafted a short story, and baked a bunch of new recipes. 

All of this said, when it came down to actually writing my morning pages for this week, I really struggled. There were two days with late entries (where I wrote the pages on my lunch break as opposed to first thing in the morning) and one day where I genuinely forgot to do the pages altogether. As much as I’ve benefited from doing the morning pages, and how interesting it was to read them over, I’m really looking forward to being finished with writing them. 

Artist Date

For my artist date this week, I took myself to the McMichael Art Gallery in Kleinberg. According to the gallery, one third of the McMichael collection comes from First Nations, Metis and Inuit artists. A lot of the pieces that drew my attention were from Indigenous creators. Some notable works included Loon Family (1969) by Norval Morrisseau, Indian Residential School, Leaving the Shallow Graves and Going Home (2022) by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, and Study for the Sparrow (2021) by Kent Monkman. The latter two pieces spoke to the tragedy of the Indian residential school system in Canada, and they were very powerful. 

I also saw a viewing of Kent Monkman’s short film, Group of Seven Inches (2005) which was actually filmed at the McMichael in 2004. The short film subverts the authority of the white gaze throughout history. It depicts Monkman’s alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, as an Indigenous, two-spirit artist and ethnographer observing and studying white men.

Another notable exhibition was “FISH” by Sandra Brewster. Brewster was born in Toronto, but her parents are from Guyana. Her subjects are dozens of species of fish native to the Essequibo River in Guyana. 

Other Artistic Pursuits

In terms of my artistic endeavours this week, I painted a few more watercolour pictures (but was unable to keep up the INKtober drawing-every-day momentum) and baked a new recipe that I plan to bring to my own family Thanksgiving dinner- banana chocolate chip muffins (even though nothing about this dessert particularly screams “Thanksgiving”).

All in all, despite a slow start, I thought this week went really well! I’m officially into the final quarter of The Artist’s Way, and I’m excited to see what the next three weeks bring. 

Until next week, 

Laura Kate

The Artist’s Way: Week Eight Reflections

Recovering a Sense of Strength

I hope this post finds you well! Here in Toronto, the first week of October has been marked by the last vestiges of summer: despite the changing leaves and cool nights, the days have been sunny and hot. I’m currently writing this from my living room couch; a scented candle and electrolyte drink on the ottoman beside me. I’m trying to wind down (and not fall asleep) following a 15km run this morning.

This week, The Artist’s Way focused on recovering a sense of strength. A lot of the lessons in the text were geared towards professional artists or art students. Julia Cameron talked about how to survive criticism (in good or bad faith) from mentors, academics and audiences more generally. Because I have always considered myself a hobbyist artist and have rarely put my art out into the world for public consumption and critique, a lot of the chapter did not resonate with me. 

There were, however, a few parts of the text that I found interesting. In one section, Cameron pointed out that many people tend to tell themselves that they’re either “too old” or “too young” to make art. On the one hand, we might tell ourselves some variation of: “It’s too late for me to learn how to direct! If I go to film school now, I’ll be forty by the time I graduate!”. On the other hand, we might also say, “I’m too young to learn how to paint! I have to focus on my career- I can take art classes when I retire.” Cameron dismissed these thoughts as excuses we tell ourselves which keep us creatively blocked. As someone who is particularly susceptible to this way of thinking, I’ll try to keep an eye out for it in the future. 

Cameron also discussed pursuing our creative dreams one step at a time. She calls this “filling the form”, or, “taking the next small step instead of skipping ahead to a large one”. An aspiring writer, for example, may dream of publishing a novel. But before she worries about marketing a finished manuscript to an agent, she needs to focus on writing her first draft- one word at a time. This way of thinking prevents us from being daunted by big dreams and focuses our attention instead on smaller, more achievable goals. One of the exercises for this week involved making a concrete plan to achieve our creative goals: thinking about what we can do to work toward them in the next year, in the next month, in the next week, and today.

Artistic Endeavours

I completed my morning pages and tasks for the week, but don’t really have any notable insights or comments to share about them. This week, I focused less on The Artist’s Way program itself, and more on actually creating art. I baked again (though, two recipes I’ve already made before), and painted a handful of watercolour paintings for INKtober. 

INKtober is a month-long art challenge which takes place every October. The challenge invites artists to create and post (primarily on Instagram) art pieces every single day for the entire month. I’ve participated in INKtober a few times in the past- always using the “Peachtober” prompt list created by Sha’an d’Anthes of FurryLittle Peach (as opposed to the official INKtober prompt list). This year, given how busy I’ve been with half-marathon training and The Artist’s Way, I don’t realistically think I’ll be able to paint a picture a day for the entire month. This said, I’d like to get at least a few paintings done. I think it will be a great way to continue experimenting with watercolours and sharing my process online.

For my artist date this week, I spent a quiet afternoon at Mill Pond Park. I brought my journal and some pencil crayons, and ended up spending time walking, drawing and writing. Going outside and spending time in nature seems to be a recurring theme in my artist dates. Perhaps it makes sense that nature features so heavily in my drawings and photographs.  

With love- until next week,

Laura Kate