Creativity is For Everyone (The Artist’s Way with Elizabeth Kott)

Burnout seems like the biggest thing all of us have in common right now. It’s hard NOT to get burnt out when the world is rife with injustice and horror and you’re expected to carry on as normal. Here’s the thing: you don’t have to carry on as normal. But you do have to reach out and find joy – it’s going to keep you alive. It’s going to keep you going. It’s going to remind you that you won’t always feel like this.

On today’s episode, Nora talks to Elizabeth Kott, who inspired her to pick up The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and “get unstuck.” Elizabeth is a founder of Club Artist’s Way, where she leads people through a 13-week program to rekindle their creative spark, and host of the Too Niche podcast, where Nora first heard about The Artist’s Way.

If you’re burnt out, stuck, and desperately searching for a way to claw your way out of the dark, this episode is for you.

Read my original Substack about my experience with The Artist’s Way here.

Follow Club Artist’s Way on Instagram and Substack Join Elizabeth’s next Artist’s Way Group here (code NORA50 gets you $50 off!). Listen to the Too Niche podcast here.

My Brick code is NORA, and should auto-apply 10% off with this link. 

Get a used copy of The Artist’s Way from your thrift store, or here. You can get a new copy on Bookshop or Amazon.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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Hi. Hi there.

Hi. Hi.

Hey, Nora.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Thanks For Asking, a call-in show about what matters to you. If you’re burned out or stuck right now, welcome to the club.

I feel like everyone is emotionally and creatively congested probably by the smog of horror and anxiety and injustice that is hovering over us at all times.

The world feels heavy, we feel heavy, and even if it feels frivolous or unimportant or unserious, it is actually essential and quite serious that we connect with joy and creativity and each other. We don’t get unstuck by staying put.

We get unstuck by pushing ourselves forward. I tell myself after the kind of morning where I call my best friend, Caroline Moss, and say, are you sure I’m not a loser who doesn’t know what she’s doing?

We didn’t always feel like this and we won’t always feel like this and today’s episode is about how we can get unstuck in the artist’s way.

In 1992, when I was a kid, churning out pages and pages of fanfiction about my grandmother’s cats, poems about homework and my dead grandpa, and songs about my older brother not loving me, Julia Cameron published The Artist’s Way.

This is a book that details a 12-week program that helps people through creative burnout recovery. Julia had been a writer for years, working on articles for The Washington Post, working on screenplays and novels.

And I found this out recently briefly marrying Martin Scorsese after she worked on the script for Taxi Driver. Julia was resilient to the creative process, which includes trying things, failing at things, being rejected and starting over.

And she took the lessons that she learned from her own creative life and put together The Artist’s Way, which she self-published before that was made simpler by the Internet, which means she typed it up, took it to the copy shop, and then sold it at

local bookstores for $20. Now this book has sold millions and millions of copies, and several of those copies were sold to me, a person who would buy The Artist’s Way, hope to do The Artist’s Way, and then end up donating the book before she even got

started, or maybe once or twice after she had done a day or two of it. A few years later, I would buy it again and start the process all over.

It’s hard for me to think of myself as an artist, and I think it’s hard for other people to think of themselves that way, but Julia Cameron has always insisted that the process works for anyone, from artists to lawyers to nurses, anyone who just

feels stuck. I’ve been stuck many, many, many times. I’ve been creatively blocked many times. I felt blank and useless and lost many times, and yes, some of that is depression, and also some of that is just feeling stuck, being stuck.

So in 2024, after I heard an episode of the podcast Too Niche, where Elizabeth Kott and Laura Marie Shane-Halls discussed The Artist’s Way, I picked up the copy of The Artist’s Way that was still on my bookshelf, and I actually did it.

Those 12 weeks really clarified a lot for me. It’s when I decided to shift this podcast from terrible thanks for asking to thanks for asking.

It’s when I realized that it’s going to be okay, couldn’t actually continue as a daily show, and it was okay to put it on pause and rethink it. And both of those might not seem like big things, but they really were.

The Artist’s Way, like many highly anticipated experiences, was nothing like I expected it to be.

And even though I finished it in 2024, there are elements of it that I still utilize in my life, and I know that I will be doing another round of The Artist’s Way again. I often post my daily schedule, my daily to-do list, I would say, on Instagram.

And when I started including morning pages in that post, morning pages being a key component to The Artist’s Way, that is exactly what it sounds like, three pages of automatic writing that you do in the morning, people ask me about The Artist’s Way,

they ask me about morning pages, and I say, go ask Elizabeth Kott. Elizabeth Kott was my introduction to The Artist’s Way, and she’s since become a friend, an inspiration, a creative resource slash coach for me.

Elizabeth is also the founder of Club Artist’s Way, where she facilitates Artist’s Way groups, guiding people through a 13 week program to help get them unblocked and reconnect with their creativity and themselves.

She’s also the host of the podcast Too Niche, that podcast that I first heard about The Artist’s Way on, and she has a lot of experience with changing paths, creative U-turns, reinvention.

She’s worked in PR, she’s worked at CAA, she’s worked at Rachel Zoe’s The Zoe Report. She’s been a fashion reseller for celebrities, a stylist. She was an early podcast star with her first podcast, That’s So Retrograde back in 2013.

She knows what it’s like to start something and then start all over again. So today we’re talking about creativity, connection, and answering your questions about the Artist’s Way.

I made this episode especially for people who don’t think that they’re creative, especially for people who would not call themselves an artist, and especially for people who just feel stuck.

Elizabeth, you are one of my favorite people to talk to and one of the most interesting people and the most interesting people I know have a really varied career path.

Your background is in PR, marketing, you’ve worked in entertainment, you worked at CAA, and you’re also a person who has really cultivated a creative community and prioritizes creativity, and has had a lot of big pivots too.

You were early to celebrity gifting, early to affiliate links, and early to podcasting.

Yeah.

Have you always been a person who liked change?

Because I think a lot of people are really afraid of change, are really afraid of pivoting, changing careers, following their interests to something new, and I count myself among those people for most of my life.

I don’t like sameness. I get really, I think not always to my benefit, I always am like, what’s the next thing?

How do you know when something is run its course? How do you know when it’s time for the next thing?

Well, I think, first of all, I think I’ve had a lot of that decision made for me in my life, and sometimes you just need to pick up and move on and look for always the next right considered action, right? What makes the most sense in this moment?

It’s never been like, I am going to make this decision, and I know it’s going to get to this. I wish I had that type of manifestation foresight. I don’t.

I’m just able to tap into what the next move is based on what I see in front of me. This felt exciting and interesting, and it was also a door that had opened for me, so I’m going to walk through it.

I think it’s really a subconscious promise to myself of showing up and doing the best I can in the moment. That’s the one foot in front of the other mentality.

I struggle when people ask me exactly how I’ve done something because I often don’t know. I don’t know. I sometimes am just like, well, I guess I was just lucky.

But I also think that just being willing to try something can bring you luck. You can’t actually be lucky without attempting something. Luck doesn’t happen to you.

You happen upon luck. You do have to take that first step. You have to get the ball rolling.

Luck doesn’t just strike you. You never just handed something. You have to start assembling it.

Absolutely.

No, it reminds me of this quote that I think about so often that’s in the book, The Artist’s Way, that Julia Cameron says, ideas don’t get opening nights, finished plays do.

Damn.

Right?

So it’s like, OK, if you do have an idea or a goal or something you’re striving for, it’s like you can ruminate on it as much as you want, you really need to take the action towards it in order for it to even be considered as an opportunity or

So if you’ve always been a brave, creative person with great skin and a beautiful bone structure, what brought you to the Artist’s Way?

Do you remember discovering it?

Well, first I have to say I did struggle with adult acne in the thirties that then ruined my skin barrier in healing that, and then I did have dermatitis all over my eyes.

So the skin being good is a new thing from my late thirties into my early forties. A good skin complement really hits it away first and foremost. So the Artist’s Way, how did it come to me?

Well, I interestingly never claimed the fact that I was a creative, even though I was in all of these creative fields, I never owned that as a part of my being until I completed the Artist’s Way, which was so interesting and made me sad to reflect on

that I never owned my creativity in a way that felt empowering or something I could claim. It was always like the business side always had to take over because that felt more practical and that felt safer.

Then when I was doing That’s A Retrograde, which was a wellness trend podcast for seven years, so many people came on the show and had mentioned the Artist’s Way and how it had impacted them. I was familiar with the artist’s dates.

I was familiar with the morning pages. I knew I always had this little tickle in my belly that I should do it. I tried it a few times.

I think I tried it maybe four times, but I never made it past chapter four, which is common because that’s the reading deprivation week, and I want to get into that later. So I never made it all the way through. And then COVID happened 2020.

The book was literally yelling at me on my shelf. And I had been working with a life coach, as one does, and I had just made the decision that I want to kind of close that experience.

And the day that I had closed it out, I got an email from an acquaintance of mine who was starting an Artist’s Way group. And I just knew. Like I had that gut punch of like, you’re supposed to do this.

And it seems so scary and that means you absolutely have to. And it just, the timing was right. It almost felt like a like a baton pass off of self-betterment.

Like, okay, like you put this one thing down, but like you want to continue the journey. And so I did an Artist’s Way group during COVID, and then did another one right after.

And then I got a really clear download that I’m supposed to be leading these groups. So then I started leading the groups myself.

And what had happened in those first two rounds of doing the Artist’s Way, just as a collective group online with a bunch of random people that I didn’t know.

So much clarity came from it, so much confidence, so much new perspective came on what was working and what wasn’t working in my career and in my life.

I got a dog for the first time at 35 years old, which I never even, if you would have met me pre then, I was like, dogs? No, not for me. Not an animal person.

Like I was one of those people, people would be like, what is wrong with her? Why doesn’t she like animals? That’s a red flag.

You know, I got my-

Yeah, now you’re like a mother. You love that dog.

It’s my entire personality. Happily claiming it. You know, so it’s just so much unexpected fruits came from doing this process in a way that was so unexpected and so grounding and so special.

And then I just, as I said, I just was like, I’m supposed to be leading these groups. And then I started leading them and realize, oh, the eight years I’ve been podcasting is what primed me for leading these small groups online through this process.

Because my whole philosophy, and I think that you’re very much in the same boat when I’m doing a podcast, I want to leave people better than when I found them. You know, I just want people to get something out of the hour.

I don’t want people to be like, that was a waste of my time, or I’m just like listening to someone talk for the sake of talking. I want it to be a valuable exchange. And that’s what these hour-long Artist’s Way groups have become.

It’s like, it’s really, it’s a valuable hour. And I’m like, I know how to facilitate that. I know how to like create the space.

Unintentionally had been training for it for so many years.

Forever.

And so that’s my Artist’s Way, how we found one another.

I think the first step of the Artist’s Way, if I’m not mistaken, is you have the book for several years. You open it, you attempt it, you quit, you attempt it, you quit. I have bought and donated likely the same copy of the book for years.

For years. And so I think that’s, if I understand it correctly, that’s the preamble.

Essential step.

To the whole experience. That is the essential step is buy it, quit, try it, quit. You have to dance around it for a while.

You mentioned that before you did the Artist’s Way, you were doing creative things. I think if you was wildly creative, but you wouldn’t be like, oh, I’m a creative or I’m a creative person. I feel the same.

I think an element of that is that it’s scary. It seems like an esteemed title that must be bestowed upon you. I also worked in agencies where there were people who were titled creatives.

You might have a creative idea, but if you were not a creative, a man in cargo shorts would tell you, no, I’m the creative. Don’t ever suggest a headline again.

I might not know how to use Facebook toots, but I’m going to be writing these Facebook ads.

I’m going to be wearing kooky glasses probably.

I got kooky, I just got to, okay, you know what’s my personality is these glasses. I say as a person who just got glasses, same. I cannot stop thinking about my glasses, losing my glasses and then also commenting to everyone who wears glasses.

Are your glasses always dirty? Why are my glasses always greasy? How do you clean your glasses?

Anyone else have in trouble with their glasses? But before the Artist’s Way, let’s get back on track. Before the Artist’s Way, you’re having a hard time claiming that.

What, can you describe how it feels to finish that first one, and what makes you do it a second time? What do you get out of that one? Do you feel like you can own your creativity?

Do you feel just like you have more of a sense of who you are? Who are you? Again, I added this, who are you right before lost in COVID, and who are you after it closes, after those 12 weeks?

One thing, first and foremost, about doing this process is having been so ingrained in the wellness trend industry, and there’s so many people who claim to have the answers.

It’s like this person, this ideology, this way of doing things, this method. I’m the person you need to look to. It’s a lot of deifying people, and definitely around COVID time, I had had enough.

I was just not able to get behind that vibe anymore. That was also an interesting aspect of the timing of when the Artist’s Way and I came together, as I’ll say, because the best part of the book is that you’re not looking to anybody else.

Yes, Julia’s words are so impactful and poetic and connected now in 2026 as they were in the 90s when the book was published. There’s so much truth to them, but it’s all about looking within yourself. That’s what it’s empowering you to yourself.

That was such a prolific process to find the answers from no one else but me. And so it brought on a lot of confidence. It brought on a lot of trust in my own creative voice and in my own vision and my own faith in myself, which I had lost.

Oh, yeah.

And just it kind of gave me an opportunity to pick myself up from my bootstraps and go like, I got this.

And it also, and that’s a serious thing, but also what it did and what it does every time I do it, is it allows me to find what delights me. And that is a beautiful thing because right now, where we are, we’re in a really interesting time.

Tech has freed up a lot of our time. We have a lot of space that we didn’t have before. Like, for instance, us recording this podcast, I didn’t have to come to you.

We’re able to hop on. There’s no drive time. We hop on, we hop off.

We’re saving, you know, a day. Days.

Days. Honestly, days.

You know, email, zooming, all of the stuff. Like, we actually, it’s actually kind of cool how quickly things can, tasks can be achieved now. But I don’t think we have a guidebook for how we want to spend our time.

People are just fucking scrolling.

Yeah. I’m scrolling. And it’s also despairing.

I’m despairing. And I’m also saying, well, like, you know, so many other people have it worse. And also, like, what is the point?

And I think I’m just describing depression. But it’s also all of this technology has also kind of taken away the friction and interaction of what it means to be human. And creativity needs that.

Like, it needs that tangible thing.

And every time I crash out over, you know, AI, you know, and people using it to, you know, write books, or there’s an AI podcast company, and I hope those people enjoy their front row seats in HEC, a place that I believe we’re actually in now, if we

really want to get into it. But every time I sort of like let myself go down that despair rabbit hole, I think like, oh, no, like art and creativity comes from life.

And so I think we have to be reconnected with what it means to like live and like be reconnected with ourselves.

So what are the elements of the Artist’s Way? Because I think when people think of the Artist’s Way, and I know this from putting up the question box on Instagram, people think like, writing in a journal, morning pages, end of list.

Right. So I think, listen, the morning pages and the artist dates are two of the main tenets of the 12-week process. And what morning pages are, it’s just three pages of free handwriting, ideally when you first wake up in the morning.

It’s like cleaning the fog off the mirror on a daily basis.

And it is one of those tools that once you get into the groove of, it becomes a non-negotiable for so many people because it’s just like such an, I say it’s like the easiest thing you can do, but it’s also not simple because it requires commitment

and it requires repetition and it requires doing something when maybe you don’t really feel like doing it, which is like all things that we struggle with as humans. But it’s just one, it’s like the best thing I feel like I know for myself that I can

do for myself. Like even if I’m having the hardest day, if I just go, okay, at least I did my morning pages today, I’m good. And it can be, you know, it can be a brain dump.

For me, like oftentimes they turn into a pep talk, they’re an opportunity to process things. It’s just like starting your day, laying your foundation with kind of like getting rid of whatever’s clogging the drain.

And then we have the artist dates, which are just a weekly exploration of delighting the senses. So it’s like truly like anything that you think is cool, or fun, or interesting, just like doing that solo.

And I always tell people, well, first of all, it’s actually like one of the things that’s hardest for people to do and get into the rhythm of because it’s so easy to break plans with ourselves.

The last thing I would want to do is commit to you, Nora, and then be like, bail, you know? But to myself, I’m moving it around the calendar. Like I’m like, I’ll get to it tomorrow, you know?

So that’s just like an interesting practice to experience, like how do you show up for yourself? For something that’s supposed to be nothing but fun and like low stakes. So that’s really interesting.

And people are so challenged by the artist state, which I totally get. But I always recommend that people, if they’re having resistance to it, book it with a friend and like start the buddy system with it.

And then be like, oh, trying new things is fun and cool and I enjoy it. And then you can, you know, go off, ease into the solo of it. But those two-

Go ahead.

Oh, sorry. I was going to say, I think people assume that like an artist state means like you have to go to a museum. No.

You know, like you have to go to a museum.

Yesterday, my artist state was making date bark that I saw on TikTok.

Okay. See?

You know?

Yeah.

It was just like a fun little thing that I wanted to try. I do a lot of kitchen-related artist states.

For me, I really try to find an artist state in my day, either in some mini one, but it can be like going on a walk and taking a new route, listening to an album that you haven’t listened to in 20 years that was like seminal to your existence.

Those types of things, it can really be anything that just expands us out of the current moment, and that can be hard because the ego wants to keep us safe.

So looking down at our phone and scrolling feels a lot safer than getting ourselves outside and going on a new route of a walk. As insane as that sounds, I know from experience that that is the truth.

So there’s those two things that are consistent throughout the 12 weeks, and then each week there’s reading. And then at the end of reading the chapter, there are a handful of tasks.

And it’s suggested in the book, and how I lead my groups as well, is you pick like two to four of the tasks that speak to you. Maybe one of them that sounds scary, is I always offer it up to people.

And so the commitment is the Artist’s Day morning pages that you strive to get seven days out of seven, but it’s something that you’re working towards. There’s no wrong way of doing it.

I always say, for me, the experience of doing the Artist’s Way is like a big buffet. You could fill your plate with just morning pages. Let’s say you just get into a morning pages habit.

That is a beautiful thing to now have in your toolbox.

You could also have a little bit of the tasks, the readings, a little bit of the morning pages, figuring out, you know, getting in the groove with an artist day, a little bit of each, and you will be so satiated.

You know, it’s like you can fill your plate with the process however you want, but showing up for yourself on a weekly basis and like doing what you can in the moment, that’s the name of the game.

Yeah, I think that’s really good for people like myself who would quit because they couldn’t do it perfectly or quit because like, oh, I forgot to do morning pages, you know, two days in a row. So I guess now what’s the point?

I guess we’re done, right? Totally. No, that’s…

I guess we’re done.

And I so often, because I experienced this myself, but I realized that this was just like old school mentality, not doing it right energy, stern parent type stuff.

But like everybody, when they do the Artist’s Way, feels like they’re doing it wrong, no matter what. But I am here to tell you that you’re not.

Is the Artist’s Way just for artists? What if you don’t do any kind of art at all?

It’s for… I actually prefer people who don’t relate to being a creative or artist. I have people from so many different professions, people in med school, as I said, social workers, lawyers, HR people.

It runs the gamut. Yes, people who are solopreneurs in a creative field, all of that.

It shows up for you in your life however you need it, whether you’ve related to a creative existence prior or if it’s just the first time bopping in and you’re like, oh, wow, this thing. We all have it.

The problem is, is our society and our school system has knocked it out of us. There is a stigma around the artists, as you said, like in your marketing teams, right? The creative is always this kooky.

There’s a lot of fear around connecting with our creativity, which the book gets into. But I know I experienced it myself and it’s really for anyone.

One of my favorite things is I had one group member who works in HR, and she just was doing it just to do something about it. One of her artists, she’s like, I want to try tennis.

Now, she’s like a full-blown tennis head, does tournaments, is like a full-blown tennis hobbyist now, just from her one artist state, dipping in and trying something out.

That’s one of my favorite things to see happen, is people just trying something on a whim and then becoming obsessed with it. It’s so cool to see.

But you really only get those moments when someone says, you gotta show up for yourself in this new way.

Yeah. I love that definition of what it means to be creative, because it doesn’t mean that the outcome of the Artist’s Way is that you have created a piece of art.

It is that you have connected with something inside of you that lights you up, and that could be tennis. It won’t be for me. I tried it.

I do not understand it. My body does not compute with tennis. My coach tried, okay?

He was an older man. He was like, okay.

No, that feels wrong.

I’m like, no.

That’s a big part of it.

I just like the outfits so much. The outfits are great outfits.

They have the best outfits of all the sports without question.

I’m like, what are you talking about? That’s not for my body specifically, but it’s for her body and I love that. She found something she loved.

She’s at the point, we get to find something that lights us up and just brings the color back to our world, back to ourselves. I love that.

It also gives us a route for those moments where we’ve lost it, because the color’s not always shining bright, right?

But you can go, okay, I have these tools and I know that it exists and I can tap back into it because it’s not a straight and narrow line. It’s like always, you know, it’s a journey. And it gives us a roadmap.

Gives us a roadmap and then we just got to do it.

We got to walk it. So now we’re going to talk about walking it. We’re going to get into some audience questions.

So when you’re working with people doing the Artist’s Way, what are their biggest challenges? Or what is the part of it that they dread the most or have the most resistance to?

I think you touched on it when you might have had an off week with your morning pages and you just feel like, well, I didn’t show up for myself this week, so I’m done.

Or I didn’t do the reading, so I don’t want to show up because I don’t want to look stupid. Because we talk about, we have a robust conversation around each chapter.

But I encourage people, so we do, the book asks you to do check-ins with yourself each week of how many morning pages you did and what your artist state was.

I have a private group chat where everybody checks in and I always encourage people, if you did zero, I will so celebrate you to put that in the chat because something happens.

First of all, you feel like shit about yourself when you share that you did zero, most likely that will pivot you into showing up for yourself in a different way the following week. Also, you’re not going to be in trouble. So it doesn’t matter.

Yeah.

It’s okay.

It’s okay. If you notice, as I said, that it didn’t feel great to not do your morning pages, you’re going to do it next week. The only way to do it and do it again is just pick up your pen and paper the next day.

This is something that I learned so much. I took three months off of my podcast. You and I talked about this, and I was starting to feel like I can’t just start again.

That’s so weird, but I want to be doing my show again. I’m like the only way to do it is to just hop back on the mic.

That was a lesson I got directly from doing my morning pages practice, of I’ve been off a week, I’ve been off two weeks, I’ve been off a month.

Well, the only way to get back on into something that I know is so supportive for my day and my life is to just pick up the pen and three days in, you’re back in the groove.

We’re going to take a quick break here and when we get back, we’ll get into your questions about The Artist’s Way with Elizabeth Kott. 

And we’re back.

I don’t do morning pages every single day. Once I finished the Artist’s Way, I think I kept going every single day for a few months, but I’ll do them a few times a week. Like I keep the notebook right by my bed, and I’ll wake up and just go.

And we actually have a lot of questions about morning pages, so I think that’s where we are going to start, because morning pages are, I think they were very intimidating for me. I thought that it was going to be a stroke of genius every day.

I thought that I would be in awe of myself, and everything I wrote would be just like amazing. So there’s a few questions that I’m going to combine.

Okay.

And one is, what if I have nothing to write when I sit down to do my morning pages, and how long does it normally take everyone else to fill three pages? I think I’m a slow handwriting. Is one plus hours normal or not with a crying face?

Okay.

I think for me, it’s like 45 minutes. So I think an hour is perfectly normal. I think a big thing is to not have your phone by you.

I’ve been trapped with that and like truly picked up my phone subconsciously and found myself completely techmatized mid-morning pages. So I wonder if there’s any distractions around, perhaps.

If you don’t have anything to write, my favorite way to segue in is just taking stock of what’s around me. What are the sounds I’m hearing? What am I looking at?

What does it smell like? Really just a full reflection of the space I’m in. Then I find that I tend to move through a threshold from there and get into writing, and that’s what I do that really helps me.

I like that.

On various days, it does take me about an hour, many days, and that’s because I don’t have my phone near me, but I’ll zone out. It’s hard for me to wake up in the mornings. I’ll just be zoned out, looking out the window, pop back in.

I have a notebook in front of me. The kids are around, the dogs are around. Sometimes I truly have no thoughts and I will write.

I don’t have anything to write. I start with the date, like I’m still in school.

Me too.

Date at the top.

Is there an option to not do that? I didn’t realize.

You have to. You have to do the date at the top. You have to do the date and I’m tempted too to say like first period, Mrs.

Nesvig, Nora McInerny and the date all at the top. But I start with that. I will literally write, I have nothing to say.

There’s nothing in my brain. I don’t have any thoughts and then a thought will come to me. I have also done, I think on your advice, describing what is happening around me.

Some days, because this is what is in my brain and I do have to wipe the fog from the mirror, sometimes the first thing on my brain is like a to-do list from days ago, weeks ago, right? Like any sort of little thought.

And so it will look like the ravings of a mad woman. It will be like a little note in a corner here, maybe a line, a diagram to something else, because I am just sort of letting my brain do its thing.

Yeah.

So they’re not all, for me, they’re not all brilliant insights. And sometimes there’s almost no insights.

There’s very, very brilliance coming from my morning pages.

But I will say, to your point of the to-do list, that is something that’s very common for me and so many people who I talk to, which is great, because for me, it helps me like wrap my head around the day, which sometimes I wake up in like full panic

about my day ahead. So it’s very helpful for me to kind of have a lay of the land for the day ahead of me. But what I do is I have a bigger notebook. So this is what my morning pages notebooks are.

I have a bigger version of it where I then keep it next to me. So the to-do list stuff, I don’t have to go back into my morning pages, which are barely legible and also recommended to not go back and read them.

So I have like a side notebook of like any strokes of genius or-

Yeah.

To-do’s-

Transfer them out.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s basically you’re physically forwarding it out of that notebook and into another notebook for you to carry out with the rest of your day. Exactly. Why is it that three morning pages is the magic number?

I think that the first page can be sort of like waking up.

The second page can kind of like you start getting into like the kernels that might need to be expressed. And then I think the third page like works everything out. So you’re healed by page three.

Does that sound right?

Yeah, that sounds right. And also I think one’s not enough. You know, one is too few.

Two is like, I don’t know, it’s like two pages. Three just feels like the magic number period for kind of anything, right? Like with, aren’t you always supposed to pick three, like in interior design, balancing things?

It’s like the rule of threes, rule of thirds. Okay. Three is just a good number.

I also want to say that on different occasions, you know, I started with a very specific notebook. I filled it halfway. That notebook was giant.

It was eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper. It was giant. And that was too much.

I did a legal pad once. Too much. A small spiral-bound notebook ended up being like the best thing for me.

It made it feel like manageable. It made it feel doable. And it was satisfying because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that buying a new notebook is the key to everything, right?

I always say the best way to reset into a morning pages practice, it’s like, screw the old notebook, get yourself a new notebook.

It is the best way to reset the energy and recommit to the practice. But I also want to say that if you could just have a paragraph in you, one paragraph is better than no paragraphs.

Better than nothing.

It’s better than nothing. So I just, and if it’s the afternoon or if it’s the evening, that’s cool too. It is there to serve you however you need it to.

And I think that’s another thing that people get really tripped up on. Well, I have my kids in the morning or I have to get everyone to school. It’s like, okay.

Okay.

Do it later.

Do it later. It’s all good.

Do it later. It’s all good. I have days where I can’t, just like this morning I did, I woke up, the notebook was there, no one else was awake.

So I just did them. Then I got on with my day. But mornings where I’m behind the eight ball, there’s no way that I can sit down for 45 minutes without making everybody late to school.

I just do them as soon as I get to work. And that becomes like my entrance ramp into the workday.

And even if I don’t write anything valuable, even if I don’t feel like, wow, I really just like cracked the code to something, I’ve got a clean slate, right?

Like I have sort of like cleared out those cobwebs and now I’m ready to sit down and make a podcast. Now I’m ready to sit down and like actually write. So we have two questions, more questions about Morning Pages.

And one is, I don’t want to throw away my Morning Pages. And the other is, I did the book and I’m currently on week 50 of Morning Pages, how to keep it going alive and going after. And I just want to say, you already did it, babe.

That second one, you already did it. You tell us how you did that. Exactly.

Week 50? Week 50, that’s amazing.

That’s amazing. It sounds like it’s firmly in your toolbox and you’ve got it. That’s amazing.

If you don’t want to throw out your pages, then don’t.

Yeah. I loved throwing them away. But if you don’t want to, I needed to hear that from you too, then just don’t throw them away.

There’s no Morning Pages Board of Directors. There is no Morning Pages Cops. There are no Morning Pages Professors.

Elizabeth’s not going to come to your home, flip up your mattress and be like, what’s this?

What is this?

Because you’re supposed to throw them away. Did you keep them? I heard you kept the Morning Pages and we’re here.

Lock her up. Get her out of here.

Yeah. Listen, all of this is with anything in life. It’s a suggestion.

There is a protocol that Julia Cameron lays out for us. It’s all well and good. It’s perfect as is, but it just might not work for you.

It doesn’t mean you should throw it all away because you’re not connecting with something. It’s like, well, what a cool opportunity to look at something and go, actually, I’m more of this camp and so I’m going to do it this way.

That’s the name of the game with the book. It’s figuring out what you like, what delights you, what gets your motor going, what is going to make life more delicious to live. That’s really what it’s all about.

If you’re having a reaction to something like, that’s not my vibe, perfect. That’s the point.

Great. I also think it’s, I love the way that you described it as a buffet because at a buffet, you don’t take every single thing typically. I’ve got some food restrictions.

I’m celiac. I’m not taking the rolls. I’m not eating a Caesar salad.

It’s got croutons on it. But you can take what you like. You can leave the rest.

I think it’s the commitment to keep going to the buffet every day. You are at an all-inclusive. You’ve got to get your money’s worth for these 12 weeks or however long afterwards.

Keep going back to the buffet every day.

So well said. Yeah.

The Artist’s Way is a all-inclusive resort.

It’s an all-inclusive resort, exactly.

Oh, God. These are both related as well. I’m 37 and I feel like I have nothing to say that hasn’t been said 9,000 times so I keep quiet.

Help.

Oh, I just got chills.

Yeah. Me every day when I sit down. Right.

Oh, my God.

Me every day.

Me every day. The most oppressive part of my brain is like, I don’t know, girl, what are you even doing?

Which, Nora, I think of you as such an expert communicator, and I just want to hear you speak on anything.

I think you always have the right words, so to hear you say that should just give us all permission to feel that way and clock it and move past it.

Yeah, because also whenever I hear somebody say that or DM me, I say, but I haven’t heard you say it. I haven’t heard you say it.

Right.

I haven’t heard you say it, and I really don’t think that I’ve ever said anything terribly original. I think every thought has been thought at this point, and it hasn’t been thought by me.

We are all seeing everything through our own lenses and our own experiences, and that is what I love about the world.

So I do want this person to know that there might not be anything new under the sun, but you are new to somebody, and your thoughts are new to somebody.

So perfectly said, yeah.

And do you know the poet Kate Bear at all?

At every reading that I’ve been to with her, and I’ve been to two, somebody says, I really want to write, but I just, I want to write poetry, I want to write, I want to do this, I want to do that, but I don’t know.

And she goes, no one cares if you write or not, except you. So do it or don’t, right? You’re the one who cares.

No one else cares if you do or don’t, and that should free you. Right? That should free you from the prison of your mind to say, like, oh, yeah, no one cares.

And if you have this Greek chorus in your head that’s all haters, like, you got to get a new chorus, right? Like, just imagine. And that kills me, though, that, like, everybody feels that way.

It’s fine for me to feel that way. It’s fine for me to feel bad about myself, but someone else feeling bad about themselves? I can’t handle it.

That shouldn’t happen.

Should not happen. I think if I weren’t gonna approach this through an Artist’s Way lens, what I think of is there’s a bit, I think it’s in Chapter 2 or 3, and there’s a, these rules of the road. And the last one stands out so much.

And spoiler alert, there’s a lot of God talk in the Artist’s Way. I don’t so much subscribe to that. I offer that people think of it, like reframe it as creative source.

And the line is, I, me, will take care of the quantity, God will take care of the quality. So it’s really not up to us to figure out, like, who’s going to read it, who’s going to listen to it, you know? It’s like, I’m just supposed to do my thing.

And like wherever it’s supposed to end up, however it’s supposed to be received, whatever that is supposed to be, it’s like really not in our control.

I love that. I still have the note. This is, I can’t remember what week this is.

I’m going to show it to you.

It’s like one of the first assignments, right?

From the Artist’s Way and says, treating myself like a precious object makes me stronger. There’s no way it’s going to focus on that.

Oh, there we go.

Come on.

It’s beautiful. Okay, so this is so interesting. This is something that I talk about.

And that’s on my pin board.

So a precious object, what does that mean to you?

Because this is always interpreted differently, and I always open it up to the groups of, how do you perceive that? Because I think when I first read that, I thought kid gloves. Whereas other people are like, oh no, it’s VIP.

Ooh, ooh, I love that.

Mine is that I am so mean to myself, and I would never let anybody talk to themselves, another person, or my children, a child, literally anyone on earth, the way that I speak about myself.

I would never hold somebody to the standards that I hold myself to. I would never, I would say, like, let somebody else treat themselves the way that I treat myself.

And this was like a reminder to be like, look away from your computer, stand up, go into the other room, make yourself lunch, sit outside on the patio and eat and watch hummingbirds, leave work early, go home, like, see your kids, get enough sleep,

go to the gym. You know, like, just like, truly, like, treat yourself like you are this precious, not like even like kid gloves, but like, treat yourself like you would treat your child.

Yeah.

You know, like, or your dog, you know? Like, I’m cutting up, you know, meat into tiny pieces and feeding from the table, which I know is a horrible habit, my dog’s a rescue and she’s 100 years old, okay? She had like 50 litters of shih tzus.

If she wants a hot dog, she’s getting a hot dog, okay?

Absolutely. Amen.

So, so if I want a hot dog, I’m getting a hot dog spiritually.

Spiritually tiny pieces of hot dog at the table, no question asked. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, who am I precious to? Like, I should be precious to myself, you know?

And I want that for everybody.

Beautifully said.

So, okay.

These are also, this is also connected. This is the next one that’s connected too. How to tap into the creativity and fun with a burned out brain?

Well, I’m going to say week four, which is traditionally, as I mentioned, where people tend to go, okay, this is getting a little too real, I’m going to stop.

And that brings us to what Julia Cameron calls the reading deprivation, which is that you take a week off of reading, which in the 90s when this was published, was our main distraction du jour, I would imagine, right?

And now, unfortunately, for society and humanity, the distractions are aplenty and they are all in the tiny computers that we are carrying with us most of the time.

So what I’ve found, and I’m just fresh off of one myself because I needed it so badly, actually to get my podcast out, to get Too Niche out, I was like, I need to sign offline because this is draining my creativity, it’s draining my attention span,

and I just need to realign. So I always invite people to pick one thing, like what’s your favorite creative block at the moment? For some people, it’s podcasts, they can’t sit alone with their thoughts.

Mine is always television, some people it’s weed, some people it’s of course the apps, TikTok, Instagram. Pick one and just put it down for a week, and what happens is you’re going to go to open the app, let’s say you put TikTok down, right?

And then all of a sudden you’re going to be like, no, no, no, I got to get rid of that innate sense of trying to open it up. We’re not doing that this week.

Okay, I’m a little bored, I don’t really know what to do with myself, I’m sitting on my hands, I’m a little anxious. Okay.

Then you move through a threshold and then you’re like, bam, I’m organizing that drawer that’s been yelling at me, I’m picking up this book that I have been wanting to read, I’m picking up, let’s say, a paintbrush, I’m writing down this idea.

It moves you through in a way that without fail, you end up on the other side of it better than before, and also it tends to rehabilitate your relationship to that thing, at least temporarily. You’re not going to go back to it in the same way.

A hundred percent. I actually loved the reading deprivation week. I didn’t deprive myself of reading because I think reading has, like you said, it’s shifted since the 90s, right?

Like we’re not, you know, reading the newspaper, like reading magazines, reading books, and like now that’s considered like deep work. Now that’s considered really focused attention. So I didn’t deprive myself of reading physical material.

I couldn’t read anything on my phone. I used my brick. I bricked all of the apps because I am one of those people who I love to have.

And this is perhaps an ADHD thing, but also perhaps just a brain that has been flooded with dopamine in so many ways where like, I’m going to have sup podcast on in the background, playing from a speaker.

I’ve got headphones playing, you know, let’s say like a binaural beats or something. I don’t know if I’m saying that right. Right.

So I’ve got my stories on, I’ve got the drone in my ears, I’ve got my work in front of me. And then maybe I’ll also just like give myself a little scroll here and there. What?

And then I’m driving, I’m listening to something, I’m showering, I’m listening to something. I turned all of that off for seven days and now I, like I am addicted to not doing that, if that makes sense.

Now, I’m like I love my brick, now I’m addicted to my brick, now I’m addicted to just less of those inputs and that has helped me creatively.

And I know why that would be so scary for somebody and that is why I love your recommendation, which is like make it less scary, make it accessible. Like if that’s too high a threshold, lower the bar for yourself.

Again, Elizabeth is not going to come to your house with the sirens going.

You’re under arrest.

Mirrored sunglasses. Maybe.

Maybe. Maybe.

You would look really good in a cop uniform, I have to say. I think you’d like roll up the sleeves.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it would be like tailored.

No bra, unbuttoned to like your sternum.

Yes.

It’s taped though. No one’s getting a free nip slip.

Of course not. But that hat, I’ll look like Luann.

Oh, you’ll have the hat. Wide leg jeans or wide leg pants, right? They’re wide.

What shoe are you wearing with your cop? A boot.

A platform boot. But you can’t see it because the pant is like perfectly tailored over it.

Yeah. Never in my life have I had the luxury of a pant that long, so enjoy it. Enjoy it in this fantasy.

I love it. That version of Elizabeth is not going to come to your house. Okay, she’s not going to come to your house and say like, I heard you’re reading Deprivation.

You didn’t give up everything. You’re not living like a monk. What do you think that’s about?

Do you think you’re really committed to being an artist? Do you think you can follow the artist’s way? I don’t think so, buddy.

Turn in the book. Turn it in. All right.

It’s time for another quick break. I hope you’re not frustrated. This is like how podcasts make money.

We’ll be right back. 

Okay, we’re back and you cannot do the Artist’s Way wrong. And even if you do, nobody is going to arrest you. It’s not going to happen.

But I understand, right? Because guess what? All these questions are from women.

And what do women like to do? The right thing.

That’s right.

How do we like to do it? The right way. And so I think you would say the same thing to the person who said, How do I stick to it when I’m burnt the F out?

What do you do?

Well, I would give yourself a break.

Yeah.

Just say, how about today we’re not going to do a thing?

Yeah. How about today we don’t do anything? How about today if I wake up and I want to write just a morning date on this page, that’s okay.

A sentence?

You know?

Great.

That’s okay.

Maybe if your artist date is a nap, that’s great too.

Ooh. Ooh.

I love that. You did send out a list of artist dates once that I screen shot and then I lost the screen shot, but you had a bunch of ideas for artist dates that weren’t going to a museum, which I really appreciated.

I just did another one where I tracked all of the artist dates that people in my current groups were doing, because they were just such great ideas, so I wrote them all out.

Okay. I love that. We’ll get that.

I’m going to steal that from you. That’s great. I got to say, you know what I did a few times is I drove across town to different thrift shops, resale shops, stopped at random stores that I’ve always wondered about.

I just stopped at places that looked interesting to me, that I was like, oh, I’ve always meant to go there and I haven’t gone there. Because we are little rats in a maze. I just go to the same place.

I go on the same route. I know where the walls are. And then boop, I got my cheese, got to go home and bring my kid here and do the exact same thing.

Is scary.

Even if it sounds fun, it sounds scary.

Yeah.

Innately, we don’t want to go out of our comfort zone.

Yeah.

And it’s a subconscious feeling.

So it’s really about, but like once we’re, remember that I think about in girls, when she was in her job and somebody had written on the whiteboard, it was like your comfort zone and then outside of it is where the magic happens.

Do you remember that scene? That’s what I’m talking about, you know? It’s like we, in order to expand as individuals, we have to do the work of expansion and that’s merely the act of like trying stuff we’ve never tried before.

And that could be just like walking down a street we’ve never walked down before.

It could be walking down a street you’ve never walked down before. It could also be, and this is something that I had fun with too, is like trying a game. I have kids who love video games.

I really, you know, I’m not like, I don’t know, it just doesn’t do it for me. But I got my own Nintendo Switch, and then I started finding like other games that I might like, and like playing a game by myself.

Oh, yeah.

Like in a very immersive game. And then I did get addicted to video games, and that’s where the deprivation came in. That also had to be on the list.

I had to actually hand my Nintendo Switch to Matthew and say, do not give this to me under any circumstances.

I can’t stop playing this game called Bolatro. Have you played it?

No.

I think you can get played on the Switch.

What kind of game is this? It’s on the Switch?

It’s a card game, and it is like sort of like poker-solitaire hybrid. It’s, I’m obsessed.

Okay, I’m into this. You’re gonna have to text me about that.

I will.

How did you find your medium? I’ve dabbled in so many varieties of art, but I’ve yet to find the one that is my thing, from pencil drawings to photography to gel printing to lithography and even beadwork on a loom.

That sounds amazing. The more you are a merrier. How is that a problem?

I say.

Annie. Annie, enjoy the wealth of your creativity. I am myself a medabler.

I love to dabble. Why would I want to focus on one medium? I want to do it all.

I’m going to try everything. And I’m impressed that you would even try this many things. A lot of these things are on my list.

I want to know how to do a lithograph. I want to know how to do a gel print. I went to a bead store the other week, Elizabeth.

I walked in and was like, can I help you? And I go, I don’t know. I don’t know.

I don’t know. I feel like I’m on the cusp of starting an expensive new hobby. That’s what I feel like stepping in here.

I don’t know what any of these things are. I would like to start with a class, so I don’t just buy a bunch of things and leave. And she said, that sounds really wise.

So is there a bead class happening?

There’s a bead class.

They start this summer and they’re during the day. And to go back to treating myself like a precious object, Wednesdays are just a really difficult day. My kids have half days on Wednesday, 49th in education, baby.

So I can’t really get anything done between 8 and 1 is just not enough time. I typically go to therapy on Wednesdays. So therapy is now at like noon.

And then the rest of a Wednesday is a Nora day. So it’s a day during the week where I can like do an errand, do something that sounds fun to me.

Just like I take all expectations off of a Wednesday because I do have a job where I’ll work on a Saturday, I’ll work on a Sunday. And I’ll find things to do. My time will always find ways to be stolen from me.

So Wednesday is now a day where I can try things. And bead classes, this is all to say, bead classes are on Wednesdays. And so I’m excited about that.

I love that.

And I also think giving yourself one of the things, again, with technology that’s freed things up, it’s shifted the workday. And I have this Midwest worker beat in me that thinks I need to be at my computer from 8.30 until 5.

And otherwise, it’s not right.

Yeah.

And I’m using air quotes. And so I think to give yourself freedom to find a schedule that makes sense for you, that allows you space and an opportunity to recharge so you can show up for everything else in your life, like that is the right idea.

That’s the right idea. So I’m excited about this dabbler. I would say, just let yourself dabble, baby.

It sounds incredible.

And I’m so in celebration of trying all of these things. Who says we need to have like one thing? I will, if I find the one thing, I will let you know, but I have yet to.

I say dabble.

I say dabble, enjoy your dabbling, and honestly brag about your dabbling. I’m envious now of this level of dabbling. I love it.

I love it. One more morning pages question, Elizabeth, because I’m going to read every morning pages question because they’re all basically saying the same thing, which gives you the opportunity to hammer this point home.

Is there any other way to do morning pages except first thing in the morning? I work full-time outside the home and I have a kid. I’m usually choosing to work out in the morning instead of morning pages.

When I worked from home, I did morning pages religiously for two years. I’m sorry, but I refused to wake up at 5.30. Six is already pushing it for me.

What do we say?

Do them whenever.

Whenever, baby. We say.

Doing it is better than not doing it. Point blank.

Whenever you find the time, I’m going to say this again, if it’s a paragraph, if it’s a page, if it’s three pages, if it’s a sentence, sitting down and giving yourself the space to write and to express whatever needs to come out, that is a gift to

yourself and that is the medicine. Whenever you can do it and show up for yourself in that capacity, I think that’s wonderful.

Exactly.

This is our last question. I think it is probably, it’s a very fruitful one, which is, can it be done solo or should it really only be done in a group?

I think it definitely can be done solo. I think that there is so much benefit in doing it in a group.

I think, and listen, I of course would love to have anybody who’s interested to join my groups, but I think finding a friend, starting your own group with friends, there’s so many different ways to do it.

Here’s why I think just the group opportunity is the way to go, is A, it’s the accountability piece because showing up for yourself on this consistent basis for these 12 weeks is challenging.

So when you have somebody to be accountable with for that, it’s going to help hold your hand through it.

But also, I think about the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and in that book, they say you should be reading things like you’re about to present on the topic, and that’s how it helps you process the information better.

So I find that reading and then talking about what came up, what stood out to you, how it made you feel, this, that, and the other, really helps solidify the process of the book.

So I want to say I did it alone. I did it alone inspired by your podcast episode about The Artist’s Way. It was sitting on my bookshelf calling to me the way that yours was calling to you in 2020.

And I did it alone. The accountability piece for me would have been really, really helpful. And I also did want somebody to process these things with.

I texted my friend Pete, shout out Pete Forrester. I texted him while I was doing it. I also, you know, I do a daily thing on Instagram, where I post kind of like my to-do list for the day.

Like what I’ve done, what I’m about to do. And that is, that’s an accountability thing, honest for me. And it’s also, I don’t know, I just like find it soothing.

And I’m fascinated by what other people do all day. That’s why I do it. But I started putting, you know, my morning pages in there.

I started putting, you know, my artist dates in there. And it was, that gave me, I think, a level of accountability. But the next time I do it, I’m doing it in a group.

The next time I do it, I really do, I want that connection with people. And I think that’s also because, you know, my work is so solitary. I’m alone in this room for most of the day, and therefore most of the week I spend alone.

And it’s taken me a long time to realize, like, could it be that that’s why you’re lonely? Could it be? Could it be that spending all this time alone makes you lonely?

I don’t know. We haven’t quite figured it out. The data is being analyzed right now.

We’re looking at the data right now, and so I’ll report back. But I do see that’s the next time I do it, I will not be doing it alone.

Yeah. I think anyway it’s done. Again, I’m going back, but there’s no right or wrong way.

But I do think there is something really beautiful about all these people coming together, connecting over personal growth that’s in the name of creativity.

It’s such a cool thing to connect on, because I have people who come like grandmas, people who are still in college, people who are in a serious crossroads in their life, unemployment, dealing with loss, dealing with healing from sickness, all these

different things. We can all come together to talk about this beautiful part of life, this beautiful part of the human experience, and that is expressing yourself. The group is so much more, has become so much more than the book.

It’s not just the art of humanity, but also the art of connection in a way that has been the biggest gift to experience and something that I certainly didn’t go in expecting to have achieved, but it blows me away.

Elizabeth Kott, thank you so much for being here. You’re such a delight and I adore you, and I always feel more creative and more alive every time we speak. Oh my gosh.

What a pleasure.

It’s such an honor to get to be on Thanks For Asking and get to hang out with you. I’m your biggest fan.

Likewise, baby. Likewise. Sorry to your husband, but he’s number two.

He’s number two. Whether or not you consider yourself an artist or a creative, life itself is a creative exercise. I hope this episode helped you find a little creative spark.

If you think it would be helpful to someone else, send it their way. I’ll put links to Elizabeth’s work and her groups in the episode description. If you have any follow-up questions or comments, call, text, or email us.

That’s thanks at feelingsand.co or 612-568-4441. We also put that in the episode description. You don’t have to memorize it.

This is Thanks For Asking. I’m Nora McInerny. I’m a podcaster.

I’m a remarried widow. I’m a tall left-handed woman. I’m a speaker.

I’m the author of several funny books about sad things, including It’s Okay to Laugh, Crying is Cool 2, No Happy Endings, and the essay collection Bad Vibes Only. This is an independent podcast by Feelings & Co.

We couldn’t do it without your support. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening.

Independent podcasting is rare, but we are here and every listen, share, rating, review, it all helps us. Both Apple and our Substack have a lot for free, but Substack has all of my writing on it as well.

You can join monthly, annually, or as a supporting producer and supporting producers get their name in the credits. Speaking of credits, this episode is produced by Marcel Malekibu and Grace Berry and myself, Nora McInerny.

Our opening theme music is by Geoffrey Lamar Wilson and our closing theme music is by my youngest son, Q. And big thanks to our supporting producers who help make this work possible.

Rachel, Annalise Chaney, Augie Book, Joy Heising, No Name, Nancy Duff, Jenny Medain, Kathleen Langerman, Jordan Jones, Ben, Jess, Beth Thery, Sarah Garifo, Cathy Sigmund, Sarah David, Mary Beth Berry, my high school gym teacher, Sheila, Crystal,

Kaylee Sakai, Virginia Labassi, Lizzie DeFries, Rachel Walton, David Finckley, Lisa Piven, Michelle Toms, Nicole Petey, Melody Swinford, Caroline Moss, Michelle Oh, Ann DeBrasinski, Amanda, Jess Blackwell, Abia Rose, Crystal Mann, Bonnie Robinson,

Lauren Hanna, Jacqueline Ryder, Patrick Irvine, Shannon Dominguez-Stevens, Kathy Hamm, Penny Pesta, Erin John, Mad, Christina, Emily Ferriso, Elizabeth Berkley, Kiara, Monica, Alyssa Robison, Kaylee, Kate Byerjohn, Courtney McCown, Jeremy Essin,

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