I’m currently “doing” The Artist’s Way.  I say doing because it’s not a book that you just read.  There are exercises.  It’s kind of like a course.  A course in creativity.  You have to do it.  I’ve tried to do it before.  Probably about 8 times since around 1998.  I always get stuck around week seven.  Stuff starts to happen, I start becoming prolific and (gasp) believing in myself and my creativity, and then I get confronted and some task will seem too daunting and I throw in the towel.
Yeah, well, that was then. Â The last time I started was in 2010. Â I had just lost a son at 21 weeks pregnant. Â I was in a dark place. Â It was also winter, so the world was in a dark space with me. Â But since then, I’ve had a gorgeous baby girl, I’ve been diagnosed bipolar, and I’m figuring out how to do all of this with aplomb and grace.
So I’m figuring out what I want to be when I grow up (I’m 38 now) and I thought it was an appropriate time to do The Artist’s Way again. Â I pulled out my tattered copy and was instantly moved back to all the other times I’ve started the course. Â The time when I was living in London, and used to sit in Soho Square doing the assignments, for example. Â This book has been with me through many lives. Â
The way it works is that there is reading for each week, and then assignments and things to think about. Â One of the assignments this week was to think about five other lives you would have lived if you could have, and then take an action on one of them. Â So if you wanted to be a cowgirl, for example, maybe you could go horseback riding.
My five were:
– Nun
– Writer
– Choral Composer
– Museum Curator
– Shop Owner
The thing that draws me to either the museum curator or the shop owner is that I love the idea of having my own personal space filled with my favorite things, a curated collection of things I find interesting or love, and then having people come in to look at that stuff, and in the case of a shop, buy some of it.
There are so many things I find interesting, and want to learn more about. Â I figure one thing I can do that crosses off a couple of birds with one stone is to start a blog where I shall curate my favorite and most interesting things. Â It will kind of be like the Virtual Museum of Heather. Â This way I get to write AND curate information, a la a museum curator. Â Bam, two for one.
I bought the domain name kuratory.com because it combined curate, curiosity, and story; and the version spelled correctly wasn’t available. Â And I think it looks funky.
So that’s the why and the what.
When: as often as I can, within in the confines of having a year old toddler and a full time job. Â Hopefully several times a day.
Where: Everywhere!
How: The WordPress app, my curiosity,Â
There we go. Â Rather, here we go.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.