Ladies Who Lunch

Yesterday I met my good friend Tiffany at Mother's Bistro in downtown Portland. I love going out to lunch. The conversation, the food, just getting out of the house for an hour or two. We celebrated her birthday and caught up on life, family and writing. We discovered both of us had signed up for NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) which means we must write 50K words this month. We talked about meeting at a coffee shop to pound out words together. I even found out Tiffany would love to try out to be on The Amazing Race! As I left the restaurant and walked through the pouring rain to my car, I realized I need to come out of the cave more often.


Julia Cameron talked about "filling the well" in her book The Artist's Way. We need to have a full well to draw upon as we create. If we don't have that full reservoir, we can find ourselves feeling worn out, empty or blocked. I haven't cracked open the book in years, but yesterday I thought about it and how little "well filling" I make time for in my life. I used to do weekly "artist dates" (another Cameron idea) with myself. I remember one day I spent two hours walking around downtown Half Moon Bay when I lived in California. Another I tried to learn to waterpaint. Another I went to a movie that no one else wanted to see. Those were the days when I started writing full-time. I was a total newbie and nurturing my creativity in as many ways that I could. Of course, that was easy to do with a hubby who back then spent six weeks at a time in Japan and no kidlets or cats to worry.

Granted lack of babysitting is a huge deterrent these days (the nanny days have been over for months now), but that shouldn't stop me from getting together with friends or simply "filling the well." With a proposal to finish and 50K words to write this month, I'm going to need every ounce of creativity I can muster.

Do you have a special "me" time set aside? How do you fill your well?