I had the chance to take an unexpected Artist’s Date this week. Ahead of a five hour drive to London (to visit Legoland and Harry Potter Studios), I desperately needed the air conditioning fixing. Sitting in the car was about three times the temperature of the outside, blown directly against my skin like stepping out of the plane in the height of a Spanish summer day.

I dropped the car off and took myself to read more of The Daily Artist’s Way* with a coffee. Right next to the garage is an odd coffee shop I’d had recommended that serves a great range of decaf. More interestingly though, it is fully decorated with scarecrows. And I mean fully. The counters, walls and ceilings are bedecked with scarecrow dolls, pictures, posters, album covers - anything that’s ever mentioned a scarecrow in pop culture is there.

With a few hours to spare, I flicked to the back of my book as I ate a flaky apple strudel (warmed to approximately half the temperature of my car). Browsing the suggested Artist Dates, I found one that seemed perfect for the moment - explore a new neighbourhood.

With my heat endurance at its peak, I set off into the sunlight and started walking. I’m a bit of a sucker for railways so I made my way to the metro line and decided to explore both sides of the tracks. A footpath weaved its way over bridges, slipping back and forth over the dual lines as occasional trains clunked by.

The neighbourhood was a mix of the old and the new. The metro line is built here on a route that one took steam trains from the city to the towns around it. Those towns have since been subsumed into the suburbs and new bridges and crossings added to the red brick arches of old.

My own garden backs onto a different railway and there’s something romantic about railway gardens that’s always had my heart. I love to look out at them from the carriage windows and see what people have done to embrace or hide the passing travellers. Some build fences and plant trees to screen the noise from their homes, others make holes in their borders and secret doors onto the trackside.

This neighbourhood had both, as well as beautiful gardens, functional yards, homes, businesses, abandoned social clubs and once grand structures now covered by time and graffitti.

As a free Artist Date, I wholly recommend it. Providing you have somewhere safe to roam in the daytime, give this one a go.

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Writing for Guidance

The final of the four core protocols in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way* is writing for guidance.

This one is in some ways a little different to the first three (morning pages, artist dates and solo walks) as it’s more intentional. While the others take discipline and should be taken as a serious part of your routine, they are designed to let your creativity flow wherever it wants to go.

Writing for guidance starts with a question you define. Something you want to ask yourself. It could be something big (why am I not writing?) or small (what shall I do today?) but it needs to be real.

You then let yourself answer, handwritten like morning pages but organised around your question. Let your inner artist answer - and listen to what they say.

Creative Courage

Before I close today, I wanted to share the next phase of my creative journey.

If you’ve been watching my daily videos on TikTok or Instagram, you’ll have seen that in the last few weeks I’ve been refining my themes.

I’ve begun to hone in on advice for writers and my experiences writing rather than broader creativity (though I think the principles apply to all artforms). I’ve also established my personal theme - moving from fear to creating courage.

When I came up with that line I knew they were the words I should anchor around. So much of my previous failures to write regularly come down to fear of being seen, of being judged.

I’ve decided to bring that theme into this publication too. I’ll be rebranding it from Gentle Essays to Creative Courage, so it’s clearer to new viewers what I’m here for. The change should also remind me why I’m here - to keep my focus on writing.

I look forward to showing you what’s next.

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Make your time…

Luke

* If you buy after clicking a link in this Gentle Essay I may earn a small commission. I only ever link to products I have personally used and recommend. You can also search for the products to skip the link if you like.

Books and movies can anchor us to a place, time and feeling like no other art form. They can absorb the atmosphere of when we first enjoyed them like a sponge soaking up moments of life.

When we return to them, we wring that sponge above our heads to feel the warmth of familiarity drip over us.

I experienced this recently in one of my weekly artist dates (a core practice of The Artist’s Way*). The challenge was to watch a beloved film from childhood.

It took me a few days to settle on the right movie to play for myself.

I thought back to the most worn out VHS tapes stacked next to my tiny bedroom tv. Robin Hood, The Fox and the Hound, The Rescuers, Explorers…

But it was two from another place that I was drawn towards. Films I had watched over and over at my grandparents’ house. The Ladykillers* and Oh! Mr Porter*. Rewatching them takes me back to a place of safety and comfort, the feeling of being a child in the room I felt safest and most loved.

I choose Oh! Mr Porter and laughed more than I ever had before. It felt like a new experience, like I was that child again watching for the first time but noticing every line delivery as an adult.

It was perhaps my first true reconnection to my inner child since starting this journey.

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Still Movement

The third of Julia’s Cameron’s four protocols in The Artist’s Way is a simple one - walking.

If you’re able, take two walks each week on your own. It’s important that you unplug for these moments as they are an opportunity for you to recharge, not to be productive. That means no listening to music, no phone call, no idle scrolling or checking messages as you go.

Be with your thoughts, body in motion but mind completely still.

Use the time to let your mind wander. It may start with worries or a to-do list and that’s fine. Let it happen. It may take a few walks before your mind is quiet.

If you can pair the walking with morning pages, you get a double impact of a clearer mind twice a day!

The best things to look at are a) the sea and b) greenery. I’m lucky to have both very close as well as a wide river when I’m walking on my lunch break. Greenery reconnects you with nature and the sea is a reminder that next to the scale of our world, our problems may not be as big as we first think.

The horizon is a wonderful way to feel both small and at the edge of everything.

21

As I write this essay, I have just completed the first 21 days of my 366 day challenge to complete every day in The Daily Artist’s Way*.

That’s a huge achievement and I want to take a moment to congratulate myself. That’s not something I’m usually very good at but I’m recently be learning through therapy and - as it happens - Couch to 5K. My trainer (Denise Lewis) is often reminding my to pat myself on the back for completing a run and as weird as it may look to passers by, it does put a smile on my face.

With the videos, the biggest achievement so far is just making them. I have got past my embarrassment and ego and given it a go. What surprised me most is I have enjoyed working on them and posting them. I saw it more as a necessary sacrifice to kickstart my creative life, but the act of making them has been joyous.

If you have been thinking about doing something creative but feel scared about what your friends might say, I have good news. I have not had a single person make fun of me or my work, friends have shown up to like my videos, comment on them and even tell me they have helped them.

That might seem obvious (friends are friendly) but it was one of the biggest hurdles to getting started for me. Posting that first video out of nowhere and expecting a tidal wave of mockery. In reality, your friends a) will probably support you and b) are not closely following your every move as much as you imagine.

If I can help in any way it would be to encourage you to make whatever it is you’ve been scared of being judged for.

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Make your time…

Luke

* If you buy after clicking a link in this Gentle Essay I may earn a small commission. I only ever link to products I have personally used and recommend. You can also search for the products to skip the link if you like.

My first artist date under The Artist’s Way* program took me to the shops, where I found something small and mighty.

As well as following the daily prompts in The Daily Artist’s Way*, I am using the suggested artist dates to form my weekly practice. For my first adventure I chose to find something whimsical for under $5/£5 from a thrift/charity/vintage store.

The idea is to spend time wandering around different shops, browsing all manner of odd and unusual items. Perhaps wondering where they came from and who might want to give them a new life.

For my date, I headed out to the coast - Whitley Bay. They have a perfect street for this challenge, lined with charity shops, local producers, antique stores and vintage boutiques. I started at one end and made my way through each and every shelf I could find, looking for something that spoke to me.

It wasn’t until the very last store (after a slight detour into two book shops) that I found the perfect purchase. In the back of an antique shop called The Owl and Pussycat were a small collection of Wade Whimsies - small collectable pottery animals made in the UK. Much like the Funko Pops and figures of today, these were boxed with a series of 10 to collect.

I chose an elephant for £3. It seemed appropriate that just like the practice of the artist date, it was a small thing representing something much bigger.

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The Artist Date

The second of Julia Cameron’s four key protocols in The Artist’s Way is the artist date.

As you’ve read from my first date, these are envisioned as fun and frivolous activities. They are to be taken both seriously and unseriously at the same time.

Serious in your dedication to them.

If you want to make a success of the program and unblock your creativity, the protocols must be respected. Making an hour or two each week to go on your date is essential for your recovery. The act of giving yourself time out of your week is a signal that you want to make it work.

Unserious in what you do.

There’s no hard rule about what counts as an artist date - as long as you’re on your own and not working. Take yourself for a walk, see a film, eat an icecream, draw a cloud - whatever takes your fancy. These are moments where you can unplug from everything - including any pressure to be creative.

It’s all to do with reconnecting with your inner child - having fun for the sake of it. Learn to do that and the creativity will find you.

I’ll be writing about my dates each week, sharing what I’ve been up to and how the practice helps my journey to creative courage.

Next week, walking. How I can write 250 words on that I don’t know. But I’ll give it a shot.

Paper Forts

Last month was the first book fair of the year at Tynemouth Metro Station. I took myself there with a ten pounds and a few ideas of what to buy.

For the last year or so I’ve been keeping my eye out for two books from my childhood that I remember spending hours reading and re-reading. The Man with the Scar by Colin Milne (which I originally bought based on the title and cover) and The Magnet Detective Box (a set of three books with mysteries for readers to solve).

I regret giving both to charity in a clear out many years ago. It’s unlike me to give away books, even ones I’m not planning to read again, and doubly so for ones so sentimental to me.

Both meant safety to me. I remember the feeling of absolute comfort when I read those books. Especially on the third and fourth times through. Half knowing what was coming was like sitting in a den that no-one else could ever find, filled with everything I loved and safer than anything I could imagine. I would escape with those books, using the pages to surround myself - walls build from soft, yellowed paper that nothing could tear.

Of course, I’ve found them online but it seems too cold to regain them in such a transactional way.

I prefer the hunt of fairs and second hand bookshops. I look forward to the swell of achievement, nostalgia and warmth when the stars align and I find a copy stacked between the upright spines of someone else’s once-cherished memories.

Make your time…

Luke

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Thank you for joining me, I know it has been a short while since I posted but I promise it will be worth the wait.

Over the last month I have been continuing to look at my life and challenge myself to better align with my goal of becoming a full time writer. Key to this has been trying to find a way to connect with the artist in me that has become lost over time.

With that in mind, I have committed to a dramatic recovery plan. 366 days of artistic rehabilitation, all in public.

This is inspired by Julia Cameron’s brilliant book The Artist’s Way* which has helped thousands of people to become more creative. I’ve read the book a few times but never stepped into action before - I’m a great procrastinator when it comes to my writing.

So this year I also got a copy of the companion book, The Daily Artist’s Way*. Which gives 366 short one-page meditations and writing prompts to reconnect with my inner artist. This format instantly chimed with the way I work - organised, manageable and planned out for me (so no excuse to need time to plan before I start!).

For the next year, I am writing and posting a video on my social channels every single day. I hope this sustained work begins to inspire, awaken and even heal my wounded inner artist.

If you’d like to follow the series, I post on my TikTok and Instagram every evening.

Good Morning Pages

There are four core principles to following The Artist’s Way:

1. Morning Pages

2. Artist Dates

3. Walks

4. Writing for Guidance

I’ll cover each in turn over the next few weeks. First up is Morning Pages. Of all the advice in The Artist’s Way this is probably the most valuable and what Julia Cameron is most known for.

Morning Pages are three A4 pages of handwritten writing done first thing after you wake up each day. They are completely unstructured and should never be shown to anyone - including yourself.

The idea is to clear your mind in the morning, before you start your day - whether you plan to be creative that day or not. This empties the mind of anything that’s nagging at it, spilling any messy thought that comes along onto the page.

The act of doing this longhand with a pen or pencil is part of the therapy, there’s a different reaction when you use your hands to turn thoughts to words.

The are no rules at all about what your writing should be - just that you get three pages down before you stop. On various days I have written about my dreams from the night before, my plans for the day, my plans for projects I’m working on, thoughts about my health, family, relationship, children. Even shopping lists. If I get really stuck, I write “I don’t know what to write” over and over until a thought pops in.

The most difficult part of this practice is not the work itself but making sure I am consistent with it. I find it takes me half an hour to scribble in my Blackwing 602 pencil*. If you want to give it a go, I’d recommend getting up 30 minutes earlier than usual and writing in peace before the day begins.

The Enduring Case of the Locked Room

I recently finished The Honjin Murders* by Seishi Yokomizo (and translated by Louise Heal Kawai). First published in 1946, Pushkin Press have brought it to the English-speaking market in a beautifully designed paperback edition.

The story follows the investigation of a classic “locked room” murder. This is a crime where (seemingly) no-one could have entered or exited the location it took place in. The solution is one of the most ingenious in the genre and one I will not spoil here.

Reading the novel got me thinking about how this type of mystery has lasted so long, from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe in 1841 all the way to 2025’s Wake Up Dead Man, the third in the Knives Out film series.

We love detective stories because we love the suspense, the moment before the reveal that builds anticipation. Then the release of finding out who it was, that it wasn’t us! Locked rooms take this even further. Humans don’t like open endings, we crave closure and a locked room mystery makes it tantalisingly possible there will be no answer, so we must read on - just in case.

Long may the locked room go on, I have no doubt in it.

Perhaps I’ll write my own one day.

Make your time…

Luke

* If you buy after clicking a link in this Gentle Essay I may earn a small commission. I only ever link to products I have personally used and recommend. You can also search for the products to skip the link if you like.