Free Up Your Writing & Creative Juices by Getting Yourself Good and Word-Drunk

 

This is the face of a woman who is drunk on words. Word high. Blissed out by words.

 

Artist’s Dates, Writer’s Dates, special times you devote to freeing up your creative juices in a sort of “without a product purpose sort of way.

I believe in them.  Ever since I was first introduced to the concept of the Artist’s Date by Julia Cameron I wanted to celebrate. This is something I do naturally and now, someone had given me permission.

My favorite writer’s date is to go to the library for a couple hours and surround myself with books and then… read them, take notes, and allow them to do their thing with my mind and soul.

I call it word drunk. I know, this might not be politically correct, but I don’t know of another woozy, slightly out-of-body bliss way to describe it. Before you say anything or click away, please realize there is a history of alcoholism in my family, so people who are drunk on alcohol frighten me. Seriously.

But being high on the written word? There is absolutely nothing like it.

 

Last week on my library date with myself I also bought six books for sixty CENTS. Yes, you are reading those numbers right.

Sixty CENTS.

I also brought some word-love flowers to grace my table as I read and wrote.

It was almost like being at my desk at home except there was no computer and I don’t have quite this many books surrounding me as in the library. It may seem strange to you, but I love having books that have a history of being read by other people. I especially love having books other people have inscribed.

Word-love, after all, is something to share. Bliss is something to share. Which is why I am here, talking to you today.  I have even been known to encourage my friends to imbibe in word bliss with me. This is my friend, who joined me at the library. I heard when he lamented, "I don't even know where the library is in this town."

He read about the subject that makes his heart go a flutter.

He was also impressed by the art he saw on display and treated me to a bit of an art tour of the place. See what happens when you allow yourself a couple hours of indulgently browsing and hanging out at the library?

Do you see those two books on top of my library stack pile?

They are Margaret Atwood’s The Door and the Letters of Louise Bogan? I bought them both on Amazon when I got home. The Atwood poetry book included a CD of her reading her poems and cost me a mere ten dollars and the Louise Bogan book was less than five dollars altogether AND it is inscribed, a pleasant bonus I discovered when I tore it open two days after I ordered it.

I wrote this page and became delighted all over again.

Word-love. Word-blissed-out and yes, Word-drunk... that comes with a creative hangover which is almost as fun as the primary experience.

When will you visit your library again?

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott