In the second section of her book, Julia has "moved" from green New York to arid
Taos. She begins comparing aspect of the dry heat and scortched earth to the stalemat,or blocked creativity, or perfectionist inner cencor that a writer encounters.
With each vinette she gives either a creative writing prompt or a prompt to identify life-style areas that might help push through the "dry" time of a writer.
I found that this was practical for me. She mentioned things like write a list of 5 things that are being put off. Do one. Make a list of 5 things that are indirectly related to your work. Make a list of 10 things that you hope will happen. Put your fiath in God (a great Someone who cares for you)to believe you are being guided and are uniquely special. Husband yourself. List 3 things in 10 areas that you can make small changes to husband yourself. Do one.
What I have appreciated about Julia is that her prompts are both practical (transactional) and poetic. The implementing of the transactional writing, gives energy for the poetic writing.
At this time or during this season, I find her both firmly planted in my reality but also encouraging to expand it to include more writing.
I never thought about this before, but you are so right. Julia does blend transactional with poetic. I like that idea also that transactional writing gives energy for poetic writing.I hope you will have time to do some pieces of writing using her ideas.
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