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Blasting Through Blocks: An Artist's Way Guide to Unleashing Your Inner Creativity
Not yet published
Expected 3 Nov 26A guide to getting (and staying) unblocked
Every artist—or aspiring creator—knows the sting of being stuck. Blasting Through Blocks is a “good news” yes, you will find yourself in its pages. You’ll recognize the resistance, the internal critic, the fear of failure, the perfectionism, the inertia. But the promise here is you can always unblock. You don’t need grand methods or deep dives into theory—just the willingness to work with small, powerful tools.
Across 52 essays, you’ll encounter one creative block and one practical practice each week. Some tools will feel familiar—rooted in The Artist’s Way heritage—but many will surprise you with their straightforwardness, their clarity, their freshness. Over time, these practices build into a living, flexible toolkit you can revisit whenever you feel stuck again.
This is a book for personal pilgrimage and communal practice alike. Use it as a companion through a year of your creative life. Bring it to your writing group or your classroom. Gift it to any artist in your life. As these pages light up one shadow at a time, you’ll begin to see the spiritual and psychological pathways through your creative difficulties—and rediscover why your work matters.
Every artist—or aspiring creator—knows the sting of being stuck. Blasting Through Blocks is a “good news” yes, you will find yourself in its pages. You’ll recognize the resistance, the internal critic, the fear of failure, the perfectionism, the inertia. But the promise here is you can always unblock. You don’t need grand methods or deep dives into theory—just the willingness to work with small, powerful tools.
Across 52 essays, you’ll encounter one creative block and one practical practice each week. Some tools will feel familiar—rooted in The Artist’s Way heritage—but many will surprise you with their straightforwardness, their clarity, their freshness. Over time, these practices build into a living, flexible toolkit you can revisit whenever you feel stuck again.
This is a book for personal pilgrimage and communal practice alike. Use it as a companion through a year of your creative life. Bring it to your writing group or your classroom. Gift it to any artist in your life. As these pages light up one shadow at a time, you’ll begin to see the spiritual and psychological pathways through your creative difficulties—and rediscover why your work matters.
192 pages, Paperback
Expected publication November 3, 2026
About the author
Julia Cameron
92 books2,361 followersJulia Cameron has been an active artist for more than thirty years, with fifteen books (including bestsellers The Artist's Way, Walking in This World, and The Right to Write) and countless television, film, and theatre scripts to her credit. Writing since the age of 18, Cameron has a long list of screenplay and teleplay credits to her name, including an episode of Miami Vice, and Elvis and the Beauty Queen, which starred Don Johnson. She was a writer on such movies as Taxi Driver, New York, New York, and The Last Waltz. She wrote, produced, and directed the award-winning independent feature film, God's Will, which premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, and was selected by the London Film Festival, the Munich International Film Festival, and Women in Film Festival, among others. In addition to making film, Cameron has taught film at such diverse places as Chicago Filmmakers, Northwestern University, and Columbia College. Her profound teachings on unlocking creativity and living from the creative center have inspired countless artists to unleash their full potential.
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Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Even though the concept of ‘radical honesty’ has been floating around for three decades now, I keep hearing it even more lately. ‘Blasting Through Blocks,’ although touted as a workbook to help you address creative blocks, is an invitation to be nakedly candid with yourself.
The exercises are deceptively simple. Most of the time, you are making a list of three or five things you could do to get through a challenge. You are giving yourself options—bite-sized ones at that. Cameron accompanies each of these exercises with a real-life vignette, but I found myself mostly skimming these in favor of the exercises. Quite a few involve writing (Cameron is the author of the classic book ‘The Artist’s Way’), but don’t let that put you off—most of the exercises can apply to projects as mundane as cleaning the bathroom and as heavy and life changing as addressing grief and obsession.
This is not a book simply full of platitudes and cheering. Throughout this book, I could not forget Cameron’s brief marriage to Martin Scorsese, marked by self-destructive influences on both sides. Clearly that part of her life has left mark on her; she addresses such blocks as addiction and nihilism. (She even quotes the serenity prayer.) But if this book is any indication, Cameron has learned from her colorful life lessons and is willing to help us tackle our own slings and arrows.
Is ‘Blasting Through Blocks’ therapy? Perhaps, if you want it to be. It does not have a plot per se, so you can dip in and out of it as the season demands. (Rebuttal to doubt #48, It’s Too Late.) All you have to do is give yourself permission.
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press Group for the ARC.
The exercises are deceptively simple. Most of the time, you are making a list of three or five things you could do to get through a challenge. You are giving yourself options—bite-sized ones at that. Cameron accompanies each of these exercises with a real-life vignette, but I found myself mostly skimming these in favor of the exercises. Quite a few involve writing (Cameron is the author of the classic book ‘The Artist’s Way’), but don’t let that put you off—most of the exercises can apply to projects as mundane as cleaning the bathroom and as heavy and life changing as addressing grief and obsession.
This is not a book simply full of platitudes and cheering. Throughout this book, I could not forget Cameron’s brief marriage to Martin Scorsese, marked by self-destructive influences on both sides. Clearly that part of her life has left mark on her; she addresses such blocks as addiction and nihilism. (She even quotes the serenity prayer.) But if this book is any indication, Cameron has learned from her colorful life lessons and is willing to help us tackle our own slings and arrows.
Is ‘Blasting Through Blocks’ therapy? Perhaps, if you want it to be. It does not have a plot per se, so you can dip in and out of it as the season demands. (Rebuttal to doubt #48, It’s Too Late.) All you have to do is give yourself permission.
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press Group for the ARC.
Displaying 1 of 1 review