Same Unleash | Next Chapter | New Rules
UNLEASH started as a small, slightly strange idea: what would happen if we took Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and looked at it through an erotic lens?
Not because creativity is sexy (it is).
Not because I wanted to put a bit of kink around the edges of a familiar creative programme (but why not).
But because, for me, the two things turned out to be much more intimately connected than I’d realised.
I started taking my creativity seriously.
I started listening to body and my needs
I started paying attention to what I wanted.
And then, somewhat inevitably, I started asking rather more interesting questions about desire too. And the Year of the Cat was born.
I picked up The Artist’s Way about twelve years ago and managed the first 6 weeks before I put it down again. It gathered dust on my shelf until we hit lockdown in March 2020, when I needed a structure, a routine to help manage all the anxiety and chaos of that time.
The Morning Pages become an anchor that is now a non-negotiable ritual, and I have consistently dedicated more time to my creativity with Artist Dates.
I’ve landed paid pieces for my writing, committed to exploring my photography more seriously by taking on commissions, built up a bestselling Substack and more importantly made space for myself to turn up for myself every day.
And crucially, I started exploring kink.
The two things are not unrelated. I opened up to listening to myself and taking my needs seriously.
Turns out my needs wanted me bent over a spanking bench on a Thursday night, tits out and biting on a leather strap while the House Dom made pretty marks all over my bare ass with a misery stick. A revelation
I came home and wrote about it. And that, really, is where UNLEASH began. No big show stopping idea, but with with curiosity. With desire. With making something because I couldn’t quite help myself.
This is where Power, Play & Practice comes in.
If you’ve read any of my work you know I am a huge advocate for asking for what you want. Now pay attention…. are you listening? Not what you should want.
Not what would make you look successful, or impressive or competent.
What do you really want?
This is where we give ourselves enough freedom to explore that question. How do figure out what we want? We give ourselves permission.
To experiment, push a couple of boundaries, make an unholy mess, follow the unhinged idea. To be very bad at something, anything! To change our minds.
To fuck around. And find out
Because inspiration is heavenly, but it is unreliable as fuck. So we have to do the work. Consistently, and with intention. We turn up. We pay attention. We write shit down. We make something, we notice small miracles. We make a mistake, we try again
Not perfectly. But regularly.
And this is where The Artist’s Way comes in. Julia Cameron got something profoundly right; creativity isn’t a talent reserved for a lucky few. It’s something we can recover, practise and build a relationship with. The course provides a familiar framework and scaffold to work with, and adjust.
But I am going to disagree with it, and add my own take on what’s worked for me, and what I hope is that over our weeks together this becomes a wider conversation, where you share how it works for you.
We will share how it changes not just our creative work, but the way we move in the world. The way we interact with our day to day routines. How we can begin to see the erotic everywhere, and how to turn that into something tangible.
That’s Permission to Play.
And this time, I want the community to be much more than somewhere we discuss the homework. I want it to be the place where we actually play.
Show us the terrible first draft.
Tell us what you’re curious about.
Share the thing you made.
Ask the stupid question. Ask them a LOT
Follow someone else’s rabbit hole.
Cheer each other on.
And occasionally say:
Fuck it. I’m going to try this.
Are you ready? I hope so.
Permission to Play is completely free as part of your paid subscription, but you do need to raise your hand. I won’t automatically add you to UNLEASH.
Want twelve weeks of creative mischief, Julia Cameron, Power, Play & Practice and considerably less behaving yourself? Message me below to opt in
Full Paid Subscribers Also Get :
Full access to every piece in the archive (70+ and counting)
My behind the scenes notes, scenes from the cutting room floor and what inspired me
Priority answers in Ask Kate Anything (jump the queue!)
Membership to UNLEASH - Permission to Play (opt in)
Audio - Read by me (Coming soon!)
Discreet billing, always.
KATEVALEN is what appears on your statement.
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