“Adventures don’t begin until you get into the forest. That first step is an act of faith.” Mickey Hart, Grateful Dead Drummer

In week 12, we were recovering faith. Faith to step into the proverbial forest and to have that adventure.

In week 12, we are being encouraged to ‘follow our bliss’ as the mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Reading those words, I feel like I’m coming full circle. Last year, I re-wrote my Big Leap book based on the hero’s journey described by Campbell. My whole business, my whole book Making The Big Leap is all about having the faith to leap into the unknown.

So in theory, I should know what I’m doing then! Ha! One thing knowing it, another thing doing it. But that’s why I love The Artist’s Way because it’s a self-help book that demands you leap – not once but every day. What with the morning pages and a weekly Artist’s Date, you have no choice to not just walk but run naked through that bloody forest.

And I always seem to get lost, fall over a bit stump or two, meet some weird gnome, a wolf dressed as my grandma and never ever get to eat the house made of gingerbread (too busy running away from that woman with the wart on her nose).

But I always get to Week 12, slightly bruised, with a graze on my bum – exhausted, but strangely euphoric. I end up learning something unexpected or discovering a new aspect of creativity that takes me by complete suprise.

This year, I’ve taken up film-making, as you do. I’ve found myself dressed up as darth vader, bouncing on a trampoline dressed as superman and getting buried neck deep in sand on Brighton Beach so I could create and star in a series of films. I’ve loved being completely insane – but creative with it. Working with my brilliant mate Nick, I’ve laughed a lot too. Which is a novelty. Writing can be such a solitary thing. It was a revelation to discover that you can co-create with someone else and it can feel like skiving off versus work.

I’ve been to an inspiring writer’s event that fired me up so much I wanted to give up everything and run away to a shack in that forest and hole up for eternity writing my novel.

I’ve got rid of my telly. Now that was a big leap. But that’s freed up a scary amount of time. I was in complete denial about how much TV I watched.

Thanks for taking this 12 week journey with me. I know that we’re going to be using www.ourbiglife.com to keep our creative community going.(If you’d like to join us, do sign up to www.ourbiglife.com and join the Artist’s Way group.)

And let’s do the Artist’s Way again next year.