reading deprivation...

i'm currently reading THE ARTIST'S WAY: A SPIRITUAL PATH TO HIGHER CREATIVITY. well, it's week 4 for me ( it's 12 weeks total), and up to this point i have enjoyed writing 3 pages of longhand each morning, "tasks" that encourage me to remember activities that i used to enjoy years ago and as a child, "tasks" that encourage me to imagine 5 other lives i would like to lead, and choosing an activity to do that this life might participate in, and a once weekly "artist date" alone by myself to get back into the creativity that i once enjoyed. i love that i can take the time to go to the local bookstore and peruse the new releases, paint at the ceramic store, create collages of magazine cutouts that reflect a thought i may be having at the time. it has been an amazing self rediscovery for me. i am in week 4, as i mentioned before, and i have just read that i am to not read for this week. i'm dumbfounded! why not?! of course, julia cameron , the author, explains that by not reading , we are making room to do other things, listen to music, paint, get together with friends, bake, organize, anything other than reading. it is also to force us to see the world around us and become more cresative ourselves. "keepimg the inflow to a minimum", she writes, "...we will be rewarded with a new outflow. our own art, our own thoughts, our own feelings, will begin to nudge aside the sludge of blockage, to loosen it and move it upward and outward until once again our well is running freely."
wow...no reading. the day has been interesting. i wrote in my journal, went to the gym, grocery shopping, then i had to turn on my computer to write this. "don't read, don't read" is all i can think to myself as my homepage headlines pop up. i think of my poor google reader inbox. it will be overflowing by the time i get to it this weekend...but i'm looking to get back to my creative self, so if this is what i have to do, then this is what i have to do. i'll let you know how it's going in a couple of days. :)