It is the easiest tool to explain in the method and the one that most people skip. One or two hours a week, alone, doing something you want. Nothing else. And yet, someone who can write three pages by hand for eighty-four days straight will tell you matter-of-factly that "the quote is harder to fit." It is not: it takes up less time than pages. The difficult thing is something else, and that's what this guide is about.
Alone, without use and with some sensory stimulation. If any of the three are missing, it is a nice plan but it is not a date with the artist.
What exactly it is, and what it is not
| Yes it is a date with the artist | It is not | why |
|---|---|---|
| Walk a neighborhood you don't know | Walk with your partner | Loneliness is the active ingredient |
| Go to a fabric store without buying | Go buy material for your project | As soon as there is a "why", you go back to work mode |
| An early market | The weekly shopping | An errand is not a date |
| A small museum during the week | A talk from your sector | Training is producing |
| Disassemble an old appliance | Watch a series on the couch | New stimulus is missing: it is passive consumption |
| A concert by a group you don't know | A concert with friends | The company again |
| Making bread for the first time | Cook dinner | Routine does not count as new |
Why does it cost so much?
Three reasons, and it is worth identifying which one is yours because each one is resolved differently.
The guilt. Spending two hours on something that produces nothing feels like stealing time from someone: from your family, from work, from home. If this is yours, the arrangement is countable and works surprisingly well: it calculates how much weekly time you spend accidentally spending on screens. It's almost always eight or ten hours. The quote comes from there, not from your family.
The shame. There are people for whom going to the cinema alone, entering a bar alone or eating alone in a restaurant is genuinely violent. If this is yours, scale up little by little: start in places where no one is looking - a large park, a library, a market - and leave the cinema and the restaurant for week six or seven.
The fear of what appears. The least recognized and the most important. When you are left alone with yourself without a screen or conversation, thoughts that you were avoiding return. If this is yours, the date is not the problem: it is exactly the exercise you need, and it is best to keep it short at the beginning.
150 ideas, sorted
Zero cost
| in the city | in nature | at home |
|---|---|---|
| A neighborhood you never set foot in, without a map | A river, following it on foot | A puzzle of a thousand pieces |
| A library, in sections that do not concern you | A mountain with views | Rearrange a shelf by color |
| An early morning food market | A large park without headphones | Listen to an entire album without doing anything else |
| A historic cemetery | A beach out of season | Draw your childhood house from memory |
| An instrument store, playing things | A forest on a rainy day | See old photos of your family |
| An old hardware store | A sunrise, wherever | Handwriting a letter to someone alive |
| A fabric store | A five kilometer country road | Learn ten words of a useless language |
| a nursery | A reservoir or swamp | Look at an old atlas |
| A train station, watching people arrive | Search for animals at sunset | Playlist of your fifteen years |
| A port or a market | Collect stones, leaves or shells | Disassemble an old appliance |
| A viewpoint at sunset | Lie down and look at clouds for twenty minutes | Cook something from a country you don't know |
| A religious building that is not yours | A public botanical garden | A long bath with a useless book |
| A construction site, from outside | Follow a randomly marked trail | Record the sounds of your house |
| A skatepark or a petanque field | One night looking at stars | Sort out an old junk box |
| Record sounds from your neighborhood with your mobile | A walk in the fog | Watch a silent movie without subtitles |
Less than fifteen euros
| idea | idea | idea |
|---|---|---|
| Coffee and notebook on a new terrace | A second-hand market | An expensive ice cream and a long walk |
| Cinema on a Tuesday afternoon | A calmly chosen notebook | a plant |
| school watercolors | A foreign magazine that you can't read | A random commuter train ticket |
| Children's craft material | A tea in a place with music | A random second-hand book |
| Some thick crayons and large paper | A churros stand and a bench | A notebook of staves |
| A municipal museum entrance | Some headphones to listen to in the park | A calligraphy marker |
| A bus ticket to a town | A candle that smells good | Seeds and a pot |
| A tarot deck to look at the images | A sticker notebook | A paint jar and a cardboard wall |
With more budget
| idea | idea | idea |
|---|---|---|
| A small museum during the week | A loose ceramic workshop | A concert by someone unknown |
| A short train to another city | Contemporary dance or circus | A loose dance class |
| An analog reel revealed | A wine, tea or oil tasting | One night in a nearby town |
| Theater in the back row | A one-day intensive course | A guided tour of your own city |
| A large photography book | An auteur film session | A bookbinding workshop |
| A cheap second hand instrument | An opera ticket in a chicken coop | A spa or bath day |
By season of the year
| Spring | Summer | Autumn | winter |
|---|---|---|---|
| a botanical garden | A sunrise on the beach | A forest changing color | A heated library |
| A nursery buying seeds | A dip in a river | A mushroom market | A museum on a rainy Sunday |
| A terrace in the sun with a notebook | A terrace at night listening | An afternoon of chestnuts and a walk | A cinema in the middle of the afternoon |
| A neighborhood fair | An open air concert | an antique dealer | Cook something that takes three hours |
| Draw flowers without knowing how to draw | Listen to the sea with your eyes closed | Collect leaves and press them | Write letters by a window |
depending on who you are
| If you are… | quotes that work | Dates to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| introvert | Library, forest, museum during the week, cemetery, viewpoint | Group workshops, packed concerts |
| extrovert | Markets, fairs, stations, concerts, living neighborhoods | Two hours alone at home: it will take forever |
| Writer | Everything visual and sound: markets, museums, music | Bookstores, recitals, literary festivals |
| visual artist | Sound, textures, movement: music, dance, cooking | Exhibitions of your own medium |
| Music | Image and body: exhibitions, dance, long walks | Analyze other people's music. That's work |
| Photographer | anything without camera | Go out to take photos. It's not a date |
| With little time | Forty-five minutes walking without a destination | Plans that require organization |
| with little money | Everything in the zero cost table | Nothing: the budget does not correlate with the effect |
How to fit it in when your life doesn't let you
| Situation | Proven solution |
|---|---|
| small children | Exchange with another parent: you on Tuesdays, him on Thursdays. Or 7 in the morning on a Saturday. |
| long day | Lunch time, out of the office and without colleagues. Account. |
| Care of a family member | Agreed fixed relief, one hour per week. Treat it like a doctor's appointment. |
| couple getting upset | Explain it before it happens and offer yours. It usually solves it. |
| Reduced mobility | Dates at home with new stimulus: cooking, materials, music, foreign radio. |
| You live in a small place | The same place at another time is another place. And the bus to the next town costs two euros. |
| You don't have a car | Everything on the zero-cost list is within walking distance or by public transportation. |
The six errors that cancel it
- Turn it into a message. The date starts when you leave home and ends when you return. If you buy something along the way, it's another trip.
- Go accompanied. Even if it's "just for a while." It is not negotiable.
- Document it on networks. If you are publishing, you are with your audience.
- Always make it the same. Four weeks in the same cafe no longer brings anything new.
- Make it expensive. The high budget is usually a way to justify the time. It's not necessary.
- Leave it for Sunday night. Put the day and time on the calendar at the beginning of the week.
What happens if you do it for real?
The pattern people report is pretty consistent. The first two or three dates are experienced with discomfort: looking at the clock, with the feeling of wasting time. Around the fourth, something changes: the hour passes quickly and the temptation to extend it appears. Between the sixth and eighth, ideas begin to arrive during the date or right after, almost always about something that has nothing to do with what you were looking at.
And towards the end of the course the effect that Cameron was interested in from the beginning appears: you stop needing the appointment to be on the calendar. You go out because you want to go out. That, and not the ideas, is what the tool came to reconstruct.
The minimal version, for when there is nothing
If you haven't done it in three weeks, if you don't feel like doing any of the one hundred and fifty ideas on this page, and if the mere idea of organizing a plan makes you lazy—which happens a lot, especially in weeks four and eight of the method—then the correct quote is this: twenty minutes walking, without destination, without cell phone and without headphones.
It's not cheating. The goal of the tool was never the plan: it was the useless hour. And twenty minutes of no use are worth infinitely more than two perfectly planned hours that never happen.
The indicator that says it all
If you have been writing the three pages for weeks without fail and yet your pages are identical every day, you do not have a writing problem: you have an empty well. Nothing new is coming in. The answer is not to write better: it is to get out.
Frequently asked questions
What is the appointment with the artist?
It is one of the two central tools of The Artist's Way: one or two hours a week that you spend alone doing something you want, without a companion and without any use. It doesn't have to be artistic. It could be a market, a hardware store, a park, or a small museum. Its function is to fill what Julia Cameron calls the creative well: the reserve of images and experiences from which the work then emerges.
Why does it have to be alone?
Because loneliness is the active ingredient, not a detail. In company, your attention is divided between what you see and the person next to you, and you end up looking through their criteria. The quote seeks the opposite: to look unfiltered by anyone's gaze. It is the most inflexible rule of the entire tool.
How long should an appointment with the artist last?
Between one and two hours is what the book proposes. In practice, forty-five minutes done well is worth more than two hours that never happen. If your life does not allow two hours, reduce them but maintain the weekly frequency: consistency matters more than duration.
Is any plan worth an appointment with the artist?
No. It has to meet three conditions: that you go alone, that it is of no use - no errands, no research for a project, no networking - and that something enters through the senses. Buying painting material is not worth it; Go to a talk in your sector either. A market, a walk through an unknown neighborhood or disassembling an old device, yes.
Why is it so difficult for me to do it?
For three reasons, in order of frequency. Guilt: Spending two hours on something unproductive feels like taking time away from others. Embarrassment: many people find going to the movies alone or eating alone uncomfortable. And fear of what appears when you are left with yourself without a screen or conversation. If any occur to you, that is exactly why the tool is in the book.
Can I bring my cell phone to the appointment with the artist?
You can carry it for safety, but turned off or silent and without using it. If you document the event online, you are not alone: you are with your audience. Taking photos also breaks part of the effect, especially if your discipline is visual, because looking to capture is not the same as looking.
How do I make the appointment with small children?
Three ways that work. The exchange with another parent: you on Tuesdays, him on Thursdays. The two hours while they are in an activity. And the least obvious and most effective: seven in the morning on a Saturday, when everyone is asleep. If none of that is possible, reduce it to forty-five minutes but do not eliminate it.
What do I do if I can't think of anything?
Ask the eleven-year-old girl you were: what would have fascinated her. It works because at that age you already had judgment and you still had no shame. And if nothing still comes of it, the correct appointment is the smallest possible: twenty minutes walking, without a destination and without a cell phone. It's not cheating; The objective is not the plan, it is the useless hour.
How much should an appointment with the artist cost?
Zero, most of the time. There is no correlation between budget and effect: the best quotes people report are usually free. A new neighborhood, a library, a market, a river, a fabric store. Money is a convenient excuse not to do it.
What happens if I haven't done it for weeks?
That your work has probably dried up and you are noticing it. It is the most common pattern: whoever holds the pages and abandons the quote ends up writing about the same thing over and over again, because no new material enters. The solution is simple: do it today, even if it's Tuesday and even if it's forty minutes. The chain restarts.
Is it the same as self-care?
Not exactly, although they overlap. Self-care seeks rest and repair. The appointment with the artist seeks stimulation and novelty: something new enters the senses. A hot bath is self-care; An afternoon in a market you don't know is a date. Both things are good and they are not the same.
The twelve weeks, guided
The appointment with the artist is one of the two tools of the method. The free course accompanies you with both, week by week, with reminders so you don't miss it.
Start the free course