Diagnosis: Serious lack of fun

My sister Marinetha and I (left) during one of our annual seaside holidays.

Strange forces are at work in the creative process. I often find myself buckling under the heavy hand of a dry spell that settles on the back of my neck and keeps my vision aimed downward. Downhill it rapidly pushes me and soon I find myself in a dark valley where I am convinced that no light ever reaches. No spark of inspiration seems possible as I don't really have the capability of NOTICING things to produce the necessary spark.
      I know rationally that at such times the trick is to simply carry on creating. Even if it feels hollow or nothing much. To just keep going. But it is almost impossible to propel my inner artist to do this when there is simply nothing that excites.
      At other times it is a subtler enemy that sneaks in and knocks me off balance. I get a commission to make a really special gift  for a really special person on a really special occasion. I know it is really, really important because the order is placed six months in advance.
      I feel flattered to be the one chosen to do this. But I'm also scared out of my wits. What if I fail to deliver what is expected?
      So, I procrastinate on it. Telling myself that in endlessly mulling it around in my mind, it allows the idea to settle into something concrete that will simply flow freely from my fingers when I at last start on it. I wait. Until it is too late to be relaxed about it and I frantically count the days left before the due date, calculating drying, firing and cooling time, all the while thinking "Why, oh why, why?"
      Fear is why. In the last instance it is fear of failure, incompetence, judgement, ridicule. So I do it myself: I sabotage the project.
      But during a dry, creative spell it seems not so much the presence of fear as an absence of love, that is the matter. In this case, a lack of motherly love for my inner artist, who, like a small child, needs to be pampered and allowed to play if all its spontaneity is to come to the fore.
      I am well aware of all of this. In working through Julia Cameron's, The Artist's Way, I have witnessed in myself and others the creative surging power of what she calls An Artist's Date. A date made with only yourself and consisting of a couple of hours each week of simple play. Taking yourself to a movie, lying on the grass looking at the clouds/ stars/ leaf patterns, going mushroom/ second hand book/ butterfly hunting, or whatever takes your inner child's fancy.
     Yet, I find it near impossible to allow myself this. It always takes the back seat to serious work, be it art work, writing, housework, marketing, caring for others or simply planning all of the above. I simply may not play unless my work is done. Which it never is. The result: a very dull little ol' me.
      This morning I was let off the hook. I had the due date for the long anticipated commission all wrong and found out that it is only due in a couple of weeks time. Ample time to get the firing of the already finished (and dare I say, good looking?) product done without losing sleep about it!
      This, together with the realization that I don't feel much of a pulse where the creative juices should be pumping colour to my cheeks, sounds the siren. It's time for some serious fun!

Matilda