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The Artist's Way
Der Weg des Künstlers
The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.
350 pages, Paperback
First published March 4, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,593 reviews
September 19, 2011
On the whole, the key to the Artist's Way is selfishness. That is something I fundamentally disagree with. You should not skip your child's soccer game to paint your masterpiece. Your kid is the masterpiece. All of the relationships in your life are masterpieces. I use that as an example but there are other moments in this book where self-indulgence at the expense of others is encouraged. This is loathsome.
So why didn't I just give the book and the program a 1-star rating? Because there are some very good ideas in there. Namely the morning pages. They grow tedious for me but I do find them effective. Also, I highly recommend taking an hour or two out of your week to have an adventure in the world by yourself. This really is a great way to stimulate your creativity, no matter what your craft is.
Overall, if you want to try this program, go for it and recognize which parts do and don't work for you. However, I must warn that there is an ugly side to what Julia Cameron preaches here and I won't endorse that.
So why didn't I just give the book and the program a 1-star rating? Because there are some very good ideas in there. Namely the morning pages. They grow tedious for me but I do find them effective. Also, I highly recommend taking an hour or two out of your week to have an adventure in the world by yourself. This really is a great way to stimulate your creativity, no matter what your craft is.
Overall, if you want to try this program, go for it and recognize which parts do and don't work for you. However, I must warn that there is an ugly side to what Julia Cameron preaches here and I won't endorse that.
February 13, 2009
Julia Cameron works my last nerve. She's always talking about looking out at the sun-dappled mesas of New Mexico, or using some other affected, high-falutin' lingo about her gloriously new age, trendy life. Meanwhile, I look out at the cracked concrete of my driveway in the Chicago drizzle and wonder how us normal people ever survived without people like Julia Cameron telling us about their fantastically charmed lives. However, I like the little mind toys in this book. I did the morning pages, and found them interesting. I strolled the aisles of dollar stores and played a bit because of her book, and it was fun. So, she gets two stars. If she were less Baby-Boomer Annoying, she would have gotten more.
August 5, 2008
This is a really difficult book for me to rate. At the time I first read it fifteen years ago, it did wonders to open me up creatively. I was still struggling to slough off some negative parental programming about being a writer, and this book (along with a good friend) helped give me permission to explore that side of myself.
Since that time, however, my belief system has changed so radically that I no longer agree with a number of the book’s fundamental premises. For this reason, it would be hard for me to recommend it now. I do think it contains some good material in the form of useful exercises and uplifting stories about creative development. But those come with heavy doses of New Age spirituality and recovery beliefs that will likely make the book inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t view the world through that filter.
Since that time, however, my belief system has changed so radically that I no longer agree with a number of the book’s fundamental premises. For this reason, it would be hard for me to recommend it now. I do think it contains some good material in the form of useful exercises and uplifting stories about creative development. But those come with heavy doses of New Age spirituality and recovery beliefs that will likely make the book inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t view the world through that filter.
October 31, 2023
I can't rate this book, since my opinion of it veers wildly between five stars and zero stars. (ETA: two stars is maybe a fair compromise?)
For those not familiar with it, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a book that claims it can reconnect anyone with their "Inner Artist," via a program modeled openly on AA's Twelve Step Program (it is not a coincidence that Cameron is a recovering alcoholic). As such, it conceptualizes creativity as something inherently spiritual and conceptualizes the artist as a channel for God's will.
So.
PROBLEM NUMBER ONE: For me, creativity is not something that comes from outside the self, but something that comes from deep within the self. (And Cameron isn't actually very consistent, since her model of creativity seems to be something like the Puritans' model of the Elect: it's entirely out of your control, but you have to behave properly in order to be one. So her model goes back and forth between "you have to open yourself to God's will" and "you have to find the ideas that are deep within you and nurture them into bloom.") Also, I admit this freely, I have all the spirituality of a brick, so treating creativity as something spiritual means it's something I'm excluded from, and I think I can be forgiven for not liking that model very much.
PROBLEM NUMBER TWO: Cameron has (I hope unconsciously) reinvented one of Freud's more repellent ideas. Where, in talking about Dora, he postulates that "yes" means yes, and "no" also means yes, Cameron explains that if you don't like any of her teachings, or if they make you angry, that just means you're childishly resisting the thing you need in order to heal. So, basically, if you question or argue with her, that's a sign you're Doing It Wrong.
This idea annoys me more than a little.
PROBLEM NUMBER THREE: Cameron is writing from a position of unconscious privilege. She has the freedom to assume that if you are blocked creatively, it is something you can solve by willpower alone, that it's more or less something you have unconsciously done to yourself because you are scared of being creative. She does not allow for health (either physical or mental) to be something out of your control that may be affecting your creativity, and although she acknowledges that there are people who are creative but who cannot create because they are too busy struggling to survive or to care for their children or whatever other actual and genuine impediment may be in their life that they cannot simply will away by rearranging their schedule a little, she has a serene confidence that none of those people are reading her book.
As someone who has been unable to write, to a greater or lesser degree, for seven years (yes, you did read that correctly; I finished the principal draft of The Goblin Emperor in 2009), I would like to state for the record that if the problem could be solved by willpower alone, I WOULD HAVE SOLVED IT ALREADY. And I resent the condescending attitude that the problem is all my fault, if I would just have enough self-insight to see it.
PROBLEM NUMBER FOUR: Cameron is of the same school of thought as Anne Lamott and Natalie Goldberg, that writing (and other forms of creativity) is basically therapy, that creativity comes from the well of psychic injury. Now, writing can be theraputic, and tremendously so, but this model of writing-as-therapy, as direct one-to-one correspondence stream-of-consciousness therapy, does not work for me and never has.
PROBLEM NUMBER FIVE: Cameron believes "The universe will always support affirmative action" (194), that if you open yourself up to the universe, the universe will send you what you need. Always. Now maybe it's just because I've read too much true crime and it's made me cynical, but I can't help pointing out that sometimes, if you open yourself up to the universe, the universe sends you Ted Bundy. The universe is not inherently benevolent. It is inherently indifferent and does not give a fuck whether you succeed or fail.
Some of these problems are merely annoying; some of them are potentially destructive to writers (and other artists) if they take them as gospel (pardon the pun); some of them are irresponsible and dangerous.
But despite all that, and despite the fact that I did not so much follow the Artist's Way as argue vigorously with it, there are a lot of valuable ideas in what Cameron says. Some of them were things I already knew, but needed to be reminded of, like that, just like any other form of creativity, writing requires continual practice. Even if you can't write a story, you can still write something, and you need to.
"Sloth, apathy, and despair are the enemy," she says on page 62, and I agree with that whole-heartedly. And I love her idea of true north, that two people can have the same goal, but their reasons, the thing pulling them like a lodestone, don't have to be the same. And I would follow that with, if you lose your true north, for whatever reason, you're going to have to find it again before you can get very far. She harmonizes with Csikszentmihalyi in emphasizing that the writer is well-served to value process over product, and she points out something I have, in fact, taken to heart; that when your "sensible" self asks, "Do you know how long it's going to take you to do X? Do you know how old you'll be?" the correct answer is, "Just as old as I'll be if I don't do it."
Cameron also provides a lot of quotes from a lot of people, some of which I found wrong, some inane, some simply not applicable. But some I really liked, like Theodore Roethke's "I learn by going where I have to go." (Which, okay, I'm not going to say "The Waking" is the greatest villanelle of all time, but I am gonna say it's pretty damn close.)
Others:
"I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues." --Duke Ellington
"Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven't tried before." --Mae West
"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." --Seneca
"In a dark time, the eye begins to see." --Roethke again.
"Look and you will find it--what is unsought will go undetected." --Sophocles
"Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark." --Agnes de Mille
"Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life." --Linus Pauling
"The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth." --Adrienne Rich
"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery." --Francis Bacon (this one, not that one)
"What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough." --Eugène Delacroix (forgive him his sexism, he's been dead for a hundred and fifty-four years)
"Adventure doesn't begin until you get into the forest." --Mickey Hart
"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." --André Gide
"A painting is never finished--it simply stops in interesting places." --Paul Gardner
For those not familiar with it, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a book that claims it can reconnect anyone with their "Inner Artist," via a program modeled openly on AA's Twelve Step Program (it is not a coincidence that Cameron is a recovering alcoholic). As such, it conceptualizes creativity as something inherently spiritual and conceptualizes the artist as a channel for God's will.
So.
PROBLEM NUMBER ONE: For me, creativity is not something that comes from outside the self, but something that comes from deep within the self. (And Cameron isn't actually very consistent, since her model of creativity seems to be something like the Puritans' model of the Elect: it's entirely out of your control, but you have to behave properly in order to be one. So her model goes back and forth between "you have to open yourself to God's will" and "you have to find the ideas that are deep within you and nurture them into bloom.") Also, I admit this freely, I have all the spirituality of a brick, so treating creativity as something spiritual means it's something I'm excluded from, and I think I can be forgiven for not liking that model very much.
PROBLEM NUMBER TWO: Cameron has (I hope unconsciously) reinvented one of Freud's more repellent ideas. Where, in talking about Dora, he postulates that "yes" means yes, and "no" also means yes, Cameron explains that if you don't like any of her teachings, or if they make you angry, that just means you're childishly resisting the thing you need in order to heal. So, basically, if you question or argue with her, that's a sign you're Doing It Wrong.
This idea annoys me more than a little.
PROBLEM NUMBER THREE: Cameron is writing from a position of unconscious privilege. She has the freedom to assume that if you are blocked creatively, it is something you can solve by willpower alone, that it's more or less something you have unconsciously done to yourself because you are scared of being creative. She does not allow for health (either physical or mental) to be something out of your control that may be affecting your creativity, and although she acknowledges that there are people who are creative but who cannot create because they are too busy struggling to survive or to care for their children or whatever other actual and genuine impediment may be in their life that they cannot simply will away by rearranging their schedule a little, she has a serene confidence that none of those people are reading her book.
As someone who has been unable to write, to a greater or lesser degree, for seven years (yes, you did read that correctly; I finished the principal draft of The Goblin Emperor in 2009), I would like to state for the record that if the problem could be solved by willpower alone, I WOULD HAVE SOLVED IT ALREADY. And I resent the condescending attitude that the problem is all my fault, if I would just have enough self-insight to see it.
PROBLEM NUMBER FOUR: Cameron is of the same school of thought as Anne Lamott and Natalie Goldberg, that writing (and other forms of creativity) is basically therapy, that creativity comes from the well of psychic injury. Now, writing can be theraputic, and tremendously so, but this model of writing-as-therapy, as direct one-to-one correspondence stream-of-consciousness therapy, does not work for me and never has.
PROBLEM NUMBER FIVE: Cameron believes "The universe will always support affirmative action" (194), that if you open yourself up to the universe, the universe will send you what you need. Always. Now maybe it's just because I've read too much true crime and it's made me cynical, but I can't help pointing out that sometimes, if you open yourself up to the universe, the universe sends you Ted Bundy. The universe is not inherently benevolent. It is inherently indifferent and does not give a fuck whether you succeed or fail.
Some of these problems are merely annoying; some of them are potentially destructive to writers (and other artists) if they take them as gospel (pardon the pun); some of them are irresponsible and dangerous.
But despite all that, and despite the fact that I did not so much follow the Artist's Way as argue vigorously with it, there are a lot of valuable ideas in what Cameron says. Some of them were things I already knew, but needed to be reminded of, like that, just like any other form of creativity, writing requires continual practice. Even if you can't write a story, you can still write something, and you need to.
"Sloth, apathy, and despair are the enemy," she says on page 62, and I agree with that whole-heartedly. And I love her idea of true north, that two people can have the same goal, but their reasons, the thing pulling them like a lodestone, don't have to be the same. And I would follow that with, if you lose your true north, for whatever reason, you're going to have to find it again before you can get very far. She harmonizes with Csikszentmihalyi in emphasizing that the writer is well-served to value process over product, and she points out something I have, in fact, taken to heart; that when your "sensible" self asks, "Do you know how long it's going to take you to do X? Do you know how old you'll be?" the correct answer is, "Just as old as I'll be if I don't do it."
Cameron also provides a lot of quotes from a lot of people, some of which I found wrong, some inane, some simply not applicable. But some I really liked, like Theodore Roethke's "I learn by going where I have to go." (Which, okay, I'm not going to say "The Waking" is the greatest villanelle of all time, but I am gonna say it's pretty damn close.)
Others:
"I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues." --Duke Ellington
"Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven't tried before." --Mae West
"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." --Seneca
"In a dark time, the eye begins to see." --Roethke again.
"Look and you will find it--what is unsought will go undetected." --Sophocles
"Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark." --Agnes de Mille
"Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life." --Linus Pauling
"The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth." --Adrienne Rich
"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery." --Francis Bacon (this one, not that one)
"What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough." --Eugène Delacroix (forgive him his sexism, he's been dead for a hundred and fifty-four years)
"Adventure doesn't begin until you get into the forest." --Mickey Hart
"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." --André Gide
"A painting is never finished--it simply stops in interesting places." --Paul Gardner
April 8, 2008
Another book that has changed my life! (See also: The Runner's Handbook!) I have started this book many times and not finished my 12-week (or more) commitment, but this time, when I got to the point where I wanted to give up, I kept on going, and let me tell you where I am now, as a result of this:
I pitched my memoir to agents in February.
I am taking acting lessons.
I have started wearing clothes I like every single day!
I am planting a garden.
I have taken up knitting.
I am taking ballet classes.
I am treating myself to massages, manicures, and trips.
I write every single day.
I have started working on my memoir again after a long withdrawal period, post-graduation.
I am having more fun and playing!
I am discovering myself.
If you are interested in doing this, please feel free to contact me. I am going through the book again, and I would love to work it with other people!
I pitched my memoir to agents in February.
I am taking acting lessons.
I have started wearing clothes I like every single day!
I am planting a garden.
I have taken up knitting.
I am taking ballet classes.
I am treating myself to massages, manicures, and trips.
I write every single day.
I have started working on my memoir again after a long withdrawal period, post-graduation.
I am having more fun and playing!
I am discovering myself.
If you are interested in doing this, please feel free to contact me. I am going through the book again, and I would love to work it with other people!
September 21, 2014
http://mrlshelflife.wordpress.com/201...
The Artist’s Way, while it contains some gems, is an overall disappointment. I’ve started it several times and it took me this fourth time to get all the way through. I had previously blamed my inability to finish it more on myself than on the work in general. The book taken as a whole comes across as pop psychology mixed with a heavy dose of New Age philosophy. There is a lot of talk about nurturing the inner child that is our real artist, the child’s inability to accept raw criticism and how this creates emotional scar tissue. The inner artist child needs to be protected and nurtured and needs to have its hand held and be tenderly led through the miasma of the psyche of the growing artist. She even goes so far as to equate poorly delivered criticism to sexual abuse, and projects that don’t materialize to miscarriages from which the artist suffers as much as the woman who lost a child. That was where she lost me for good.
The book is full of case examples; artists, novelists, poets, script writers, all of who benefited from Cameron’s twelve week recovery. (Should I understand this as Cameron, a recovering alcoholic, devising her own twelve step program?) All of these case characters are given to us on a first name basis. One example is Ted, a blocked novelist who after the program and twelve (that number again) years of working with the Morning Pages, now has three novels to his credit. Okay. Ted, who? I want to see his work. I also want to see Bob’s breakout documentary, the one that a teacher trashed so harshly that Bob hid the reels in his basement which was then flooded. Then, after opening up to Cameron about the lost project, copies of the reels are found and he uses he newfound creativity, found with Cameron’s help, to finish the documentary and do yet another. I want to see these works. I want to connect to the tangible success of people who have travel this path that Cameron is leading us on. But alas Ted and Bob are just two examples of the long list of one-name shadows walking through Cameron’s book. The works these people completed and published could be a source of inspiration but are denied us by this one-name, AA-style, anonymity. After a while I began to question how many of these people were real. The one example she gave that I found truly inspirational worked for me because she used the full name, a name I recognized (Blake Edwards), and a story about him that is well known. It was one I’d heard before and I was glad to be reminded of it. It is a loss to Cameron’s work that there aren’t more examples that the reader can actually wrap his/her hands around.
Cameron also talks long and hardy about her own work, much of which is in the film industry. I checked on IMDB. The list is short, two of the citations are for “Special Thanks” on major works by other people. She talks about writing plays. I can’t find any. She apparently worked as a journalist but a quick (and far from thorough) internet search didn’t turn up any leads. I remember seeing one novel by her in the library. Google her name and the overwhelming return is for The Artist’s Way. This is not to minimize Cameron’s achievements but it would help if she threw up some street signs leading the way to tangible evidence of her own work that shows us her program works.
Her idea for Morning Pages does have an application. It is an effective brain dump. It does clear the pipes, so to speak, but I don’t see the efficacy of a slave-like devotion to the practice. I used it long before I found The Artist’s Way. I called it “writing in my journal.” I use it when my head is cluttered with too much information, which often happens during my job running two departments in a busy hotel, and trying to maintain even the barest minimum of creative pursuits. I can’t see myself, however, locked into every morning spending up to an hour doing Morning Pages. I can put that valuable time to better use writing my novels, stories, poetry and blog posts.
I will admit I did exactly what she said not to do; I read the book through instead of doing the weekly exercises. In fact the last few chapters were scanned rather than thoroughly read. I realized early on that my “blockage” wasn’t about my creativity. My creativity is fine. I have lots of ideas and when I sit my butt down and work I can actually write and what I write is usually pretty good. My blockage is my discipline, my self-sabotage, and my lack of confidence and I didn’t find Cameron’s prescription to be a healing balm for my symptoms.
I started looking at what some of my favorite and most respected writers have to say about writing, unblocking, and producing work. They don’t talk about twelve step recovery and nurturing our inner child who never grows up. They talk about work. Getting pen in hand, or hands on the keyboard and working. They talk about working until it works. They talk about breaking through blockages with action, not weekly exercises and group therapy sessions. These people talk about writing as people of other professions talk about their careers. They talk about how it takes work, discipline and action, and confidence in your ability. They talk about being able to recognize good criticism vs. poor criticism, and being mature enough to deal with both at face value. They talk about the reality of rejection and putting it in its proper place and not letting it sideswipe your momentum. This is the approach that I believe will work best for me and my writing.
© 2014 M. Romeo LaFlamme
The Artist’s Way, while it contains some gems, is an overall disappointment. I’ve started it several times and it took me this fourth time to get all the way through. I had previously blamed my inability to finish it more on myself than on the work in general. The book taken as a whole comes across as pop psychology mixed with a heavy dose of New Age philosophy. There is a lot of talk about nurturing the inner child that is our real artist, the child’s inability to accept raw criticism and how this creates emotional scar tissue. The inner artist child needs to be protected and nurtured and needs to have its hand held and be tenderly led through the miasma of the psyche of the growing artist. She even goes so far as to equate poorly delivered criticism to sexual abuse, and projects that don’t materialize to miscarriages from which the artist suffers as much as the woman who lost a child. That was where she lost me for good.
The book is full of case examples; artists, novelists, poets, script writers, all of who benefited from Cameron’s twelve week recovery. (Should I understand this as Cameron, a recovering alcoholic, devising her own twelve step program?) All of these case characters are given to us on a first name basis. One example is Ted, a blocked novelist who after the program and twelve (that number again) years of working with the Morning Pages, now has three novels to his credit. Okay. Ted, who? I want to see his work. I also want to see Bob’s breakout documentary, the one that a teacher trashed so harshly that Bob hid the reels in his basement which was then flooded. Then, after opening up to Cameron about the lost project, copies of the reels are found and he uses he newfound creativity, found with Cameron’s help, to finish the documentary and do yet another. I want to see these works. I want to connect to the tangible success of people who have travel this path that Cameron is leading us on. But alas Ted and Bob are just two examples of the long list of one-name shadows walking through Cameron’s book. The works these people completed and published could be a source of inspiration but are denied us by this one-name, AA-style, anonymity. After a while I began to question how many of these people were real. The one example she gave that I found truly inspirational worked for me because she used the full name, a name I recognized (Blake Edwards), and a story about him that is well known. It was one I’d heard before and I was glad to be reminded of it. It is a loss to Cameron’s work that there aren’t more examples that the reader can actually wrap his/her hands around.
Cameron also talks long and hardy about her own work, much of which is in the film industry. I checked on IMDB. The list is short, two of the citations are for “Special Thanks” on major works by other people. She talks about writing plays. I can’t find any. She apparently worked as a journalist but a quick (and far from thorough) internet search didn’t turn up any leads. I remember seeing one novel by her in the library. Google her name and the overwhelming return is for The Artist’s Way. This is not to minimize Cameron’s achievements but it would help if she threw up some street signs leading the way to tangible evidence of her own work that shows us her program works.
Her idea for Morning Pages does have an application. It is an effective brain dump. It does clear the pipes, so to speak, but I don’t see the efficacy of a slave-like devotion to the practice. I used it long before I found The Artist’s Way. I called it “writing in my journal.” I use it when my head is cluttered with too much information, which often happens during my job running two departments in a busy hotel, and trying to maintain even the barest minimum of creative pursuits. I can’t see myself, however, locked into every morning spending up to an hour doing Morning Pages. I can put that valuable time to better use writing my novels, stories, poetry and blog posts.
I will admit I did exactly what she said not to do; I read the book through instead of doing the weekly exercises. In fact the last few chapters were scanned rather than thoroughly read. I realized early on that my “blockage” wasn’t about my creativity. My creativity is fine. I have lots of ideas and when I sit my butt down and work I can actually write and what I write is usually pretty good. My blockage is my discipline, my self-sabotage, and my lack of confidence and I didn’t find Cameron’s prescription to be a healing balm for my symptoms.
I started looking at what some of my favorite and most respected writers have to say about writing, unblocking, and producing work. They don’t talk about twelve step recovery and nurturing our inner child who never grows up. They talk about work. Getting pen in hand, or hands on the keyboard and working. They talk about working until it works. They talk about breaking through blockages with action, not weekly exercises and group therapy sessions. These people talk about writing as people of other professions talk about their careers. They talk about how it takes work, discipline and action, and confidence in your ability. They talk about being able to recognize good criticism vs. poor criticism, and being mature enough to deal with both at face value. They talk about the reality of rejection and putting it in its proper place and not letting it sideswipe your momentum. This is the approach that I believe will work best for me and my writing.
© 2014 M. Romeo LaFlamme
July 18, 2012
I was introduced to The Artist's Way back in 2005 when I took a college class on creativity. If I hadn't signed up for that class, I'm sure I would have never picked up this book. I expected The Artist's Way to be full of fluffy, New-Agey platitudes, and I approached it with cynicism and skepticism. However, I kept an open mind. I read each chapter thoroughly. I did the morning pages every day and an artist's date once a week. I did a handful of the exercises at the end of each chapter. And my life changed.
The morning pages resulted in an award-winning nonfiction book, a series of children's picture book manuscripts, and the willingness to embark upon another, more challenging nonfiction book writing project. The artist's dates renewed my childlike love for the fiber arts, and I began creating beautiful handwork projects. I learned to surf. I joined a writing group. Most importantly, even more important than the concrete examples of creativity that have resulted, I was given a set of tools for life - tools that enable me to challenge that critical voice in my head, and to trust my instincts.
I can't say enough about this book. It came into my life during a difficult time, and it has dovetailed beautifully with recovery in other areas in my life.
The morning pages resulted in an award-winning nonfiction book, a series of children's picture book manuscripts, and the willingness to embark upon another, more challenging nonfiction book writing project. The artist's dates renewed my childlike love for the fiber arts, and I began creating beautiful handwork projects. I learned to surf. I joined a writing group. Most importantly, even more important than the concrete examples of creativity that have resulted, I was given a set of tools for life - tools that enable me to challenge that critical voice in my head, and to trust my instincts.
I can't say enough about this book. It came into my life during a difficult time, and it has dovetailed beautifully with recovery in other areas in my life.
January 8, 2008
Look, for writers and artists whatever inspires you to create is a good thing. However, I found this book (For me) to be too "I am an artist, I am bohemian, I create" attitude. Writing (or any of the arts) has a greater verity for my when it's a little less "GIFT OF THE GODS" and a little more "craft." The most successful creators view their work as a craft in the same manner that a furniture maker or a bricklayer would, in my experience. Also when one focuses more on craftsmanship rather than inspiration it makes for better work as well.
January 20, 2009
My New Year's resolution for 1998 was to finally actually DO the Artists' Way. I had given it to several people close to me for the last three holidays, but I had never actually done the process. This is not a book to read. It is a book to do and it promises major life changes in 13 weeks. I was desperate to find a new way to make a living and decided to give this my best shot. 13 weeks later there was no epiphany. I still didn't know where to go, so I started over from the beginning. Two weeks later, week 15 it dawned on me and I saw a way out and I knew what I had to do to get there. It changed my life.
September 29, 2007
A book to cheer you on when you feel like you can only look longingly at your passion (writing, painting, drawing...) because the dog needs a walk and the kids need a bath, and you've bills to pay so you've just come home from a job that took you from the house and back to it without a glimpse of the sun.
April 19, 2022
In essence, The Artist’s Way is a pop-psychology self-help book for blocked artists. And, like any other pop-psych self-help book, you get a little bit of preaching, a few tips and tricks and a bunch of homework. It’s not specific to any art form or technique—you could even argue that it’s not even about art. The Artist’s Way is a book about creativity in the broadest sense: it applies equally to writing, dressmaking, acrobatics, entrepreneurship, or anything that involves doing or making something new. What Julia Cameron offers in her book is a method to overcome crippling self-doubt, self-sabotage, and apathy.
There are quite a few weaknesses in this book, however. First, the sermonizing part is quite literally an indoctrination attempt about God as the Creator and how God is creative, and why we should be so as well, and then God would help us be creative just as he is because God created man in his own image and if we don’t believe in his creative power, we are resisting our God-given talent and so on and so forth. Ditto regarding the inner child who needs to be mollycoddled and pampered and healed and yadda yadda. Much of it, however, is an interesting slice of outdated hippie, neo-puritan psychobabble.
Furthermore, Julia Cameron never tires of providing anecdotes about herself, her friends, her acquaintances, and her customers who, being stuck in a sterile rut for too long, have become almost like Balzac or Beethoven just by following her incredible “creative recovery” method. Unfortunately, the name-dropping is always relatively unspecific, and we never get to know who these outstanding creative persons were, so we must take Cameron’s word for it.
As for the homework, that is probably the most valuable (although not ground-breaking) part of this book. It is broken down into a 12-week course, almost like an AA support group. The two essential building blocks of Julia Cameron’s set of exercises are straightforward: 1) The “morning pages” are meant to get us into the habit of writing a journal, which, in and of itself, is undoubtedly a beneficial practice: uncritically expressing and recording our thoughts and ideas on paper and getting our creative juices flowing—this is just a first step of course; writing Infinite Jest is a whole different ballgame. 2) The “artist’s dates” are invitations to regularly take some alone time to take care of ourselves and do something we enjoy. Again, a healthy habit: taking care of the goose that lays the golden eggs… The book includes many more exercises that the reader can choose to do or skip.
Overall, Julia Cameron’s programme is an encouragement to get one’s creative mojo back into gear. The most significant aspect of her method is probably honing one’s self-awareness, making things fun and enjoyable, letting go of fear and control, showing up and trusting the process. Easier said than done, but that’s indeed a fundamental part of the job.
There are quite a few weaknesses in this book, however. First, the sermonizing part is quite literally an indoctrination attempt about God as the Creator and how God is creative, and why we should be so as well, and then God would help us be creative just as he is because God created man in his own image and if we don’t believe in his creative power, we are resisting our God-given talent and so on and so forth. Ditto regarding the inner child who needs to be mollycoddled and pampered and healed and yadda yadda. Much of it, however, is an interesting slice of outdated hippie, neo-puritan psychobabble.
Furthermore, Julia Cameron never tires of providing anecdotes about herself, her friends, her acquaintances, and her customers who, being stuck in a sterile rut for too long, have become almost like Balzac or Beethoven just by following her incredible “creative recovery” method. Unfortunately, the name-dropping is always relatively unspecific, and we never get to know who these outstanding creative persons were, so we must take Cameron’s word for it.
As for the homework, that is probably the most valuable (although not ground-breaking) part of this book. It is broken down into a 12-week course, almost like an AA support group. The two essential building blocks of Julia Cameron’s set of exercises are straightforward: 1) The “morning pages” are meant to get us into the habit of writing a journal, which, in and of itself, is undoubtedly a beneficial practice: uncritically expressing and recording our thoughts and ideas on paper and getting our creative juices flowing—this is just a first step of course; writing Infinite Jest is a whole different ballgame. 2) The “artist’s dates” are invitations to regularly take some alone time to take care of ourselves and do something we enjoy. Again, a healthy habit: taking care of the goose that lays the golden eggs… The book includes many more exercises that the reader can choose to do or skip.
Overall, Julia Cameron’s programme is an encouragement to get one’s creative mojo back into gear. The most significant aspect of her method is probably honing one’s self-awareness, making things fun and enjoyable, letting go of fear and control, showing up and trusting the process. Easier said than done, but that’s indeed a fundamental part of the job.
August 21, 2016
So apparently you will become a successfully creative person if you simply place your life in God.
And now that i've summed up the book for you, you don't even have to read it.
And now that i've summed up the book for you, you don't even have to read it.
June 28, 2013
Okay, I read over a half and this is cheating a little bit but I am so DONE with the book! And I do believe that enduring through 150 pages of this entitles me to regard it as absolutely "read". Any book that recommends affirmations is not good for much else but using it as a beer coaster. Then there's this constant babbling about some God the Creator - Whatever. There's more pseudo-psychotherapeutic talk than any actual propositions of inviting creativity... Oh, and the repetition of the "artist's child" phrase was driving me insane. It must be the equivalent of "the inner goddess" from The Fifty Shades of Grey or something.
August 26, 2010
I recently completed the 12-week book on my own, and I think that it was very well put together. I was already on my way to discovering a few of the main drivers in the book, but it would have taken me many years to collect them. I have been inspired by this book, and it has helped me work through things, instead of ignoring big problems with my creative process and trying to push them aside.
A few of the reviews haven't been so kind for this book, which is okay. It is really hard to surrender to anything - it's hard to let go and give in to something. And I don't mean God or Christianity (which is the author's personal belief system which also influences a lot of the book) necessarily - I mean a process - put in place to help. It's hard to just do it, and be open to what this book can do and what can happen. That being said, I didn't agree with everything written in the book. It's not like it's The Creative Process Bible or anything (so don't feel like it's that way or the highway or anything). Sure, for a couple of the exercises I just wrote "eh, that's okay" instead of doing them, and many of the exercise questions were obviously trying to lead you in one direction. But I think that's hardly a reason to throw this book to the birds.
First, if you're considering doing this but aren't sure, read "The Artist's Way Questions and Answers" in the back of the book (page 205 in the 10th Anniversary Edition that I had), and you'll get a really good idea of what you'll be doing every day, every week, and Julia Cameron's philosophical approach to her book.
And finally, if you decide to do it, do it all. If you're like me, you barely finish anything and it takes a hell of a lot of energy to complete something - and sheesh a 12 week long thing? But, at least for me, the 12 weeks went by in a flash and I really looked forward to the readings and exercises, and was so enthusiastic with the kind of creativity this book helped me to find and produce. Enjoy it. When it gets frustrating and you don't have the time, deal with it. Skip a day. Come back and do a morning page and you'll inevitably write until you get to the bottom of why you are frustrated and skipped a day.
It's a process, and it doesn't have to be perfect. Have FUN!
A few of the reviews haven't been so kind for this book, which is okay. It is really hard to surrender to anything - it's hard to let go and give in to something. And I don't mean God or Christianity (which is the author's personal belief system which also influences a lot of the book) necessarily - I mean a process - put in place to help. It's hard to just do it, and be open to what this book can do and what can happen. That being said, I didn't agree with everything written in the book. It's not like it's The Creative Process Bible or anything (so don't feel like it's that way or the highway or anything). Sure, for a couple of the exercises I just wrote "eh, that's okay" instead of doing them, and many of the exercise questions were obviously trying to lead you in one direction. But I think that's hardly a reason to throw this book to the birds.
First, if you're considering doing this but aren't sure, read "The Artist's Way Questions and Answers" in the back of the book (page 205 in the 10th Anniversary Edition that I had), and you'll get a really good idea of what you'll be doing every day, every week, and Julia Cameron's philosophical approach to her book.
And finally, if you decide to do it, do it all. If you're like me, you barely finish anything and it takes a hell of a lot of energy to complete something - and sheesh a 12 week long thing? But, at least for me, the 12 weeks went by in a flash and I really looked forward to the readings and exercises, and was so enthusiastic with the kind of creativity this book helped me to find and produce. Enjoy it. When it gets frustrating and you don't have the time, deal with it. Skip a day. Come back and do a morning page and you'll inevitably write until you get to the bottom of why you are frustrated and skipped a day.
It's a process, and it doesn't have to be perfect. Have FUN!
May 4, 2007
I read and did the exercises in this book during the most intense professional and personal time in my life. It was a life-changer because it allowed me to articulate my life purpose which is fundamentally about using my voice and helping others to find theirs. I recommend this book often.
September 26, 2024
She lost me when we talked about buying a horse again for the first time in a while. #HorsePurchase
December 25, 2020
I love the friend who shared this book with me....
[I had shared about the great fun I had once in a weekly three-month art therapy group]....
“The Artist’s Way”, celebrates its 25th anniversary....
It’s a very popular book —
3,068 people reviewed it on Amazon.
85% - 5 star reviews!
So.... many people got great value.
However, this book wasn’t for me.
I didn’t resonate with the religious aspects - nor am I an alcoholic - nor am I looking for a 12-week exercise program to reclaim my creativity - or change my life.
I’m ok with not unblocking my hidden talents.....
I’m not a “recovering” artist, and I didn’t care for the many assumptions to its reference.
The writing was too flowery - - life is beautiful- for my taste.
I’m okay being a sour-pussy uncreative average-Josie.
[I had shared about the great fun I had once in a weekly three-month art therapy group]....
“The Artist’s Way”, celebrates its 25th anniversary....
It’s a very popular book —
3,068 people reviewed it on Amazon.
85% - 5 star reviews!
So.... many people got great value.
However, this book wasn’t for me.
I didn’t resonate with the religious aspects - nor am I an alcoholic - nor am I looking for a 12-week exercise program to reclaim my creativity - or change my life.
I’m ok with not unblocking my hidden talents.....
I’m not a “recovering” artist, and I didn’t care for the many assumptions to its reference.
The writing was too flowery - - life is beautiful- for my taste.
I’m okay being a sour-pussy uncreative average-Josie.
December 26, 2019
At first glance, this might seem a bit too new-age-y (is that a word?). However, as a working artist, I appreciated this book and found value in her ideas. If you're at the beginning of your creative career, these ideas can give you support and encouragement to do the work and move past obstacles and negative attitudes, especially those expressed by others.
****************************
2019 re-read:
Made it through the intro material and now working the activities for Week One. This is a pretty serious self-analysis/self-help program. I can see why people would do this as a course or with a group. Anyway, I started the daily pages and I'm contemplating what to do for my first Artist Date.
*******
Finishing up the second week "Recovering a Sense of Identity" I have to say, I'm feeling positive results and I'm surprised at how well the morning pages are working...
*********************
Some pretty deep moments working with this book and the daily pages writing. I'll be revisiting part of this during the coming year.
****************************
2019 re-read:
Made it through the intro material and now working the activities for Week One. This is a pretty serious self-analysis/self-help program. I can see why people would do this as a course or with a group. Anyway, I started the daily pages and I'm contemplating what to do for my first Artist Date.
*******
Finishing up the second week "Recovering a Sense of Identity" I have to say, I'm feeling positive results and I'm surprised at how well the morning pages are working...
*********************
Some pretty deep moments working with this book and the daily pages writing. I'll be revisiting part of this during the coming year.
April 5, 2015
I gave up on this book in the chapter about money. I had been able to suspend my disbelief about the god thing until then, but in that chapter Julia Cameron asks you to believe that God wants you to be rich, which I'm not sure I would believe even if I did believe in a god. Generally, all the synchronicity and serendipity and whatnot was just too much.
Having said that, the exercises are pretty valuable. I plan to skim the book and flag useful-looking exercises to complete on my timeline -- not Cameron's!
Having said that, the exercises are pretty valuable. I plan to skim the book and flag useful-looking exercises to complete on my timeline -- not Cameron's!
February 19, 2020
A transformative and wise book that speaks to healing and growth that goes far beyond any particular pursuit of an art form.
October 21, 2019
I followed the whole course outlined in this book. All 12 weeks of it. Well, 13 if you count that week I got pissed off and nearly quit. There's a week in there where she requires you to not read at all. No books, newspapers, comics. Back when this was published (1992) there wasn't the issue of mindless social media scrolling. So it was the issue of reading back then. Mindless reading. But I don't do a hell of a lot of social media, and the plasticity of actors in movies and TV gives me the willies so I don't watch much, so it wasn't a problem to hold off on those. But I do read. That was tough and I rebelled. Rebelled against an author in her old age a million miles away telling me what to do. Which was the point she was getting at. We've become blocked creatively because of our habits and we react like a hurt dog when there's the threat of change. Being personally well-steeped in recovery culture this book belongs near the 12 Step books and not the crafts section. She acknowledges her debt to the recovery manuals, and indeed, if one were so hardlined about it, one could claim she was reappropiating much of the teachings in Alcoholics Anonymous. But it's of no great importance. It's about finding a way back to that childlike sense of play. Taking back our sense of wonder that this goddamned digital age has leached from us. There are two main actions in this book.
1. Do your morning pages. 3 pages of verbal diarrhea, the contents of which doesn't matter, simply being at the page is what is important. She's teaching you how to "rest on the page."
2. Go on a weekly artist date. This I didn't really do because I felt foolish. She wanted you to go buy gold stars and penny candy to treat your inner child. So there's that.
Being so familiar with the weird requests of therapists and sponsors, I felt no real enmity with anything in this book. And I came away from it with a habit now 90 days old, the habit of showing up every day at the page come hell or high water. I recommend this for the undisciplined among us, like myself, who've tried and tried to unbury the artist within, the one that became covered up and discarded as the years piled on, as responsibilities bloomed and laughter waned and adulthood came in front and center. Do they even make penny candy anymore?
1. Do your morning pages. 3 pages of verbal diarrhea, the contents of which doesn't matter, simply being at the page is what is important. She's teaching you how to "rest on the page."
2. Go on a weekly artist date. This I didn't really do because I felt foolish. She wanted you to go buy gold stars and penny candy to treat your inner child. So there's that.
Being so familiar with the weird requests of therapists and sponsors, I felt no real enmity with anything in this book. And I came away from it with a habit now 90 days old, the habit of showing up every day at the page come hell or high water. I recommend this for the undisciplined among us, like myself, who've tried and tried to unbury the artist within, the one that became covered up and discarded as the years piled on, as responsibilities bloomed and laughter waned and adulthood came in front and center. Do they even make penny candy anymore?
March 11, 2016
I am a graphic designer by trade. I've been doing it for ten years now, and I have learned many little tricks along the way. I'm going to employ one of them now to let you know if you're going to enjoy this book or not. Ready?
The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
...See what I did there? Mm-hmm. That's why they pay me the big bucks.
I really wanted to like this book. Not only that, I really wanted to benefit from it. I'm in the midst of trying to write a novel (I know, kill me), and I have several friends who spoke of it with great enthusiasm, so I went in with high expectations that it would help me become more regular and fearless while trying to write. I've struggled with perfectionism in writing far more so than I struggle with it in the graphic arts, which was surprising and dismaying. I was expecting creative exercises, suggestions, anecdotes, and perspectives on harnessing daily creativity; I was bummed to find pop-psychology, self-help platitudes, abstract hippie-dippie aphorisms, and impenetrably meaningless one-liners that read like stoner wisdom.
"Remember: green is the color of jealousy, but it is also the color of hope."
That is an actual quote from the book. I read it with my eyeballs, which sent the words up to my brain, and my brain was like "hold up...u sure?" and eyeballs were like "ya i'm sure :\ idk" and brain was like "ok i;ll tell her but shes gonna be pissed." AND MY BODY PARTS WERE RIGHT, they know me very well.
I think there are fantastic kernels of truth in here, and several practical exercises that could really be beneficial to a struggling artist, depending on their own self and their own process. But each of those kernels is shellacked with a thick coating of grandiose new-agey mumbo jumbo that I found nearly impenetrable.
There's a line from my favorite superhero movie, V for Vendetta, where a young woman has been imprisoned and tortured. She believes she is about to die, and it's a death she has chosen to protect principals and ethics she didn't realize she had until she'd been pushed to her absolute limits. When she finds herself suddenly and unexpectedly freed, and standing in a rainstorm overlooking London, she lifts her arms and says: "God is in the rain." It's a line that would read incredibly hokey if you hadn't just earned it enduring real spiritual anguish through her. Every-other sentence in The Artist's Way is "God is in the rain." Each of them is clearly meant with great sincerity and conviction, but the effect (for me) was narmy almost beyond tolerating.
There is a lot--a LOT--of talk that feels like it's straight out of The Secret. Cameron insists that God will provide for you. At one point she even says "leap, and a net will appear." I really think this kind of advice can be damaging. There are lots of people who've leapt and met only jagged rocks, and it can't be framed as their failure because they didn't believe hard enough or trust deeply enough or wait long enough. There are tons of practical considerations that she dismisses as mere negativity that factor into career artistic success. For every J. K. Rowling who used art as a trampoline to success and fulfillment, there are tons of broke, out-of-work, exhausted working artists who find themselves wishing they'd chosen painting/sculpting/acting/poetry/playwriting/photography as their hobby rather than their profession. I'd even go so far as to say this kind of irresponsible "God will provide your materials!" crap is the kind of crap that got a lot of starry-eyed millennials $180,000 in dream-following debt.
YOU ARE NOT A SELL-OUT OR A FAILURE OR A SAD HEAP OF WASTED POTENTIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU REFUSE TO TAKE CRAZY RISKS.
I repeat, there are good ideas in here. The quasi-spiritual mumbo jumbo just made it a lot harder for me to keep an open mind. Coupled with her frequent too-broad statements ("all creatives," "all artists," "all art"), I felt myself irrevocably turned off by the end of the first chapter.
My philosophy at this point is shaped by my own experience, and I'm very wary of one-size-fits-all solutions to blocked creativity. Cameron insisted at many points that I'd been scolded for my artistry at a young age by unsupportive parents, and that I turned to alcohol and drugs to mute my inner anguish, and that my lack of freewriting pages was an expression of self-sabotage rather than conscious choice, that I was jealous of more successful artists, and lots of other bold blanket assessments that just felt incorrect and somewhat insulting.
What I have learned, through much toil, is that I can't write a scene until I know what my goals for that scene are. "In this chapter, I need Character A to start to change her mind about Character D; I need to foreshadow this future event; I need to make sure Character B and Character C end on bad terms; I need lighthearted dialogue because shit's getting heavy in the next chapter; and I need them to move from Point A to Point B, getting waylaid in such a way that the journey takes two and a half days." It sounds a little exhaustive, but I learned that it's exactly the way I design: before I start sketching anything, I have to know what the goal for the design is. "Who is the audience? Who are the competitors? What did you do last year? What about your past campaigns have worked/not worked? Who are the stakeholders?" Once I know those things, I do it once, and it's damn-near perfect. I hate wasting energy and duplicating efforts playing guessing games. Once I have that list of goals, I will sit down and do the whole thing in one sitting, changing very little, because I'm writing the scene the best way I can the first time. Not only do I not enjoy the process of "free writing" or "just writing," it makes me spitting mad when anyone tries to drag me into it.
I think those techniques work for a lot of people. But the reality is that I thought I was making less progress than I truly was because writing self-help books/articles like these told me I was failing as long as I wasn't writing every day. "Just write garbage, it doesn't matter" I have been urged so, so, so many times. I was driving myself further away from my creative goals by giving too much credence to the chosen methodology of self-appointed gurus. What works for me may look like non-progress, and that is okay. I thought it was interesting that by the end of the book, Cameron brought up the fact that art can (and ideally should) be done for its own sake, without an eye on a final product. I actually think here is where a psychological angle could've been extraordinarily useful. There is some art that I make for other people, and there is some art that I make for myself, or for itself, and differentiating those goals seemed like a really crucial component to skim over.
The best advice that Cameron had was embracing selfishness by defending your free time and creative energy. It's impossible for me to do, because ultimately I love my chosen family and I will always put my stuff on hold to make wedding invitations and resumes and portfolios and business cards and websites and videos and paintings and crafts. That is just who I am, I am...like, 85% at-peace with that. I also "mm-hmmed" along with her description of the people in your life who are jealous creative saboteurs; I've got one of those, that is a real thing, don't you ever fucking breathe a word to them about your creative dreams. Don't you ever let anyone keep you around as a yardstick by which to measure their own success--they will attack you and your work the moment you grow too tall for their egos to tolerate.
I ultimately am glad I read it, more because it challenged me to think about my own creative process as I found myself disagreeing with her. And although "morning pages," the bedrock of her program, are not for me, there were a handful of interesting thought exercises that I did find intriguing. If introspective isn't something that comes easily and comfortably to you, this book might be a good stepping stone. I'd also recommend it if, in general, you respond to inspiring self-help messaging. But if you're looking for practical advice on writing better, or drawing better, or managing time better, I think there are much more valuable books out there. (Thanks, But This Isn't For Us is my baby bible.) If you're already pretty introspective, like me, and you are sensitive to condescension, like me, I wouldn't suggest it. And if fuzzy statements like "God is in the rain" make your eyes roll: avoid, avoid, avoid.
The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
...See what I did there? Mm-hmm. That's why they pay me the big bucks.
I really wanted to like this book. Not only that, I really wanted to benefit from it. I'm in the midst of trying to write a novel (I know, kill me), and I have several friends who spoke of it with great enthusiasm, so I went in with high expectations that it would help me become more regular and fearless while trying to write. I've struggled with perfectionism in writing far more so than I struggle with it in the graphic arts, which was surprising and dismaying. I was expecting creative exercises, suggestions, anecdotes, and perspectives on harnessing daily creativity; I was bummed to find pop-psychology, self-help platitudes, abstract hippie-dippie aphorisms, and impenetrably meaningless one-liners that read like stoner wisdom.
"Remember: green is the color of jealousy, but it is also the color of hope."
That is an actual quote from the book. I read it with my eyeballs, which sent the words up to my brain, and my brain was like "hold up...u sure?" and eyeballs were like "ya i'm sure :\ idk" and brain was like "ok i;ll tell her but shes gonna be pissed." AND MY BODY PARTS WERE RIGHT, they know me very well.
I think there are fantastic kernels of truth in here, and several practical exercises that could really be beneficial to a struggling artist, depending on their own self and their own process. But each of those kernels is shellacked with a thick coating of grandiose new-agey mumbo jumbo that I found nearly impenetrable.
There's a line from my favorite superhero movie, V for Vendetta, where a young woman has been imprisoned and tortured. She believes she is about to die, and it's a death she has chosen to protect principals and ethics she didn't realize she had until she'd been pushed to her absolute limits. When she finds herself suddenly and unexpectedly freed, and standing in a rainstorm overlooking London, she lifts her arms and says: "God is in the rain." It's a line that would read incredibly hokey if you hadn't just earned it enduring real spiritual anguish through her. Every-other sentence in The Artist's Way is "God is in the rain." Each of them is clearly meant with great sincerity and conviction, but the effect (for me) was narmy almost beyond tolerating.
There is a lot--a LOT--of talk that feels like it's straight out of The Secret. Cameron insists that God will provide for you. At one point she even says "leap, and a net will appear." I really think this kind of advice can be damaging. There are lots of people who've leapt and met only jagged rocks, and it can't be framed as their failure because they didn't believe hard enough or trust deeply enough or wait long enough. There are tons of practical considerations that she dismisses as mere negativity that factor into career artistic success. For every J. K. Rowling who used art as a trampoline to success and fulfillment, there are tons of broke, out-of-work, exhausted working artists who find themselves wishing they'd chosen painting/sculpting/acting/poetry/playwriting/photography as their hobby rather than their profession. I'd even go so far as to say this kind of irresponsible "God will provide your materials!" crap is the kind of crap that got a lot of starry-eyed millennials $180,000 in dream-following debt.
YOU ARE NOT A SELL-OUT OR A FAILURE OR A SAD HEAP OF WASTED POTENTIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU REFUSE TO TAKE CRAZY RISKS.
I repeat, there are good ideas in here. The quasi-spiritual mumbo jumbo just made it a lot harder for me to keep an open mind. Coupled with her frequent too-broad statements ("all creatives," "all artists," "all art"), I felt myself irrevocably turned off by the end of the first chapter.
My philosophy at this point is shaped by my own experience, and I'm very wary of one-size-fits-all solutions to blocked creativity. Cameron insisted at many points that I'd been scolded for my artistry at a young age by unsupportive parents, and that I turned to alcohol and drugs to mute my inner anguish, and that my lack of freewriting pages was an expression of self-sabotage rather than conscious choice, that I was jealous of more successful artists, and lots of other bold blanket assessments that just felt incorrect and somewhat insulting.
What I have learned, through much toil, is that I can't write a scene until I know what my goals for that scene are. "In this chapter, I need Character A to start to change her mind about Character D; I need to foreshadow this future event; I need to make sure Character B and Character C end on bad terms; I need lighthearted dialogue because shit's getting heavy in the next chapter; and I need them to move from Point A to Point B, getting waylaid in such a way that the journey takes two and a half days." It sounds a little exhaustive, but I learned that it's exactly the way I design: before I start sketching anything, I have to know what the goal for the design is. "Who is the audience? Who are the competitors? What did you do last year? What about your past campaigns have worked/not worked? Who are the stakeholders?" Once I know those things, I do it once, and it's damn-near perfect. I hate wasting energy and duplicating efforts playing guessing games. Once I have that list of goals, I will sit down and do the whole thing in one sitting, changing very little, because I'm writing the scene the best way I can the first time. Not only do I not enjoy the process of "free writing" or "just writing," it makes me spitting mad when anyone tries to drag me into it.
I think those techniques work for a lot of people. But the reality is that I thought I was making less progress than I truly was because writing self-help books/articles like these told me I was failing as long as I wasn't writing every day. "Just write garbage, it doesn't matter" I have been urged so, so, so many times. I was driving myself further away from my creative goals by giving too much credence to the chosen methodology of self-appointed gurus. What works for me may look like non-progress, and that is okay. I thought it was interesting that by the end of the book, Cameron brought up the fact that art can (and ideally should) be done for its own sake, without an eye on a final product. I actually think here is where a psychological angle could've been extraordinarily useful. There is some art that I make for other people, and there is some art that I make for myself, or for itself, and differentiating those goals seemed like a really crucial component to skim over.
The best advice that Cameron had was embracing selfishness by defending your free time and creative energy. It's impossible for me to do, because ultimately I love my chosen family and I will always put my stuff on hold to make wedding invitations and resumes and portfolios and business cards and websites and videos and paintings and crafts. That is just who I am, I am...like, 85% at-peace with that. I also "mm-hmmed" along with her description of the people in your life who are jealous creative saboteurs; I've got one of those, that is a real thing, don't you ever fucking breathe a word to them about your creative dreams. Don't you ever let anyone keep you around as a yardstick by which to measure their own success--they will attack you and your work the moment you grow too tall for their egos to tolerate.
I ultimately am glad I read it, more because it challenged me to think about my own creative process as I found myself disagreeing with her. And although "morning pages," the bedrock of her program, are not for me, there were a handful of interesting thought exercises that I did find intriguing. If introspective isn't something that comes easily and comfortably to you, this book might be a good stepping stone. I'd also recommend it if, in general, you respond to inspiring self-help messaging. But if you're looking for practical advice on writing better, or drawing better, or managing time better, I think there are much more valuable books out there. (Thanks, But This Isn't For Us is my baby bible.) If you're already pretty introspective, like me, and you are sensitive to condescension, like me, I wouldn't suggest it. And if fuzzy statements like "God is in the rain" make your eyes roll: avoid, avoid, avoid.
September 1, 2020
I'd like to begin this review by acknowledging the fact that this book seems to have helped a lot of people connect to their creative selves, and for that reason I am glad of its existence. My experience with this book was multifaceted, but ultimately very unpleasant. I did take the program very seriously: up until Week 9 I completed the exercises and morning pages as prescribed (although it took me a year-and-a-half to do so).
I've read on here many people describing this book as pseudo-psychological, self-centered, spiritual bullshit. Let me just say that I can definitely see why these claims were made. Cameron is very prescriptive and preachy, writing often in the collective "we." For example, from page 165 in Week 10, "Blocked, we know who and what we are: unhappy people. Unblocked, we may be something much more threatening--happy." Don't even get me started on the atrocious black-and-white sentiment here. What bothers me so much about this approach is her assumption that everyone is simply on the same page as her, with the same privileges, experiences, and emotional backgrounds. I don't care that it was written in the early '90s; not once does she mention how class, race, or even gender may affect one's access to creative modes and spaces.
To Cameron, the only things standing in the way of reaching your True Creative Self are your friends and family members--at one point she urges you to label them as "Wet Blankets"--and your lack of faith in god. For someone whose creative "success" seems to be almost exclusively tied to The Artist's Way franchise, she has an awful lot of rules and self-assurance that her ideas about creative living are inarguably True. It's been said that she modeled this program after the AA 12-step program. I do not deny that 12-step programs are effective and life-saving for many people--just that they're not for everyone. Cameron's adaptation of 12-step philosophies to creativity is a little extreme, in my opinion. She treats creative expression as a life-or-death matter, and unfortunately I internalized her opinions as facts for some time. And again, she never mentions structural issues like systemic racism, capitalism, or differing values that may impede one's ability to be a flourishing creative angel.
The morning pages were helpful for me for awhile until I realized I began to ruminate more than I was clearing my head. I do love the idea of the "artist's dates," though, and will definitely try to incorporate these into my life more frequently. In short, I do not recommend this book. If you are interested, I suggest reading it with a healthy dose of skepticism. Don't let her bully you into believing your life isn't full and beautiful unless you're creating masterpieces on the daily.
I've read on here many people describing this book as pseudo-psychological, self-centered, spiritual bullshit. Let me just say that I can definitely see why these claims were made. Cameron is very prescriptive and preachy, writing often in the collective "we." For example, from page 165 in Week 10, "Blocked, we know who and what we are: unhappy people. Unblocked, we may be something much more threatening--happy." Don't even get me started on the atrocious black-and-white sentiment here. What bothers me so much about this approach is her assumption that everyone is simply on the same page as her, with the same privileges, experiences, and emotional backgrounds. I don't care that it was written in the early '90s; not once does she mention how class, race, or even gender may affect one's access to creative modes and spaces.
To Cameron, the only things standing in the way of reaching your True Creative Self are your friends and family members--at one point she urges you to label them as "Wet Blankets"--and your lack of faith in god. For someone whose creative "success" seems to be almost exclusively tied to The Artist's Way franchise, she has an awful lot of rules and self-assurance that her ideas about creative living are inarguably True. It's been said that she modeled this program after the AA 12-step program. I do not deny that 12-step programs are effective and life-saving for many people--just that they're not for everyone. Cameron's adaptation of 12-step philosophies to creativity is a little extreme, in my opinion. She treats creative expression as a life-or-death matter, and unfortunately I internalized her opinions as facts for some time. And again, she never mentions structural issues like systemic racism, capitalism, or differing values that may impede one's ability to be a flourishing creative angel.
The morning pages were helpful for me for awhile until I realized I began to ruminate more than I was clearing my head. I do love the idea of the "artist's dates," though, and will definitely try to incorporate these into my life more frequently. In short, I do not recommend this book. If you are interested, I suggest reading it with a healthy dose of skepticism. Don't let her bully you into believing your life isn't full and beautiful unless you're creating masterpieces on the daily.
April 17, 2016
قبلا این کتاب رو جاهای دیگه دیده بودم و خیلی سرسری ازش رد شدم.کتاب های روانشناسی مرتبط به رشته ام زیاد خوندم ولی این با بقیه فرق داشت،خیلی به صورت عملی کمکت میکرد و ناخودآگاه روت تاثیر میذاشت که دونه دونه تمرین های گفته شده رو به خواست خودت انجام بدی(پیشنهاد داده هر روز صبح سه صفحه بنویسی هرچی به ذهنت میاد). این کتاب به درک بالایی از خودشناسی میرسونت که لااقل تو کتابای قبلی که من دیدم و خوندم چنین چیزی ندیدم.خیلی واضح بهت یاد میده که با خودت رک و روراست باشی و کنار بیای البته با هنرمند درونت،انزوا که نمیشه گفت ولی یه تنها بودن خوشایند و عالی با خودت رو بهت یاد میده،اینکه چجوری ازش استفاده کنی و یاد بگیری باهاش چیکار کنی در روند رشد خودت و خلاقیتت.چیزی که برام جالب بود تابحال بهش برنخورده بودم نحوه برخورد این کتاب با افسردگی و اضطراب بود، معمولا همه جا به ما گفته شده که یه راه حلی شبیه به فرار رو پیش بگیریم حتی فرار به سمت عادت های خوب مثلا تا افسرده شدی برو سمت کتاب برو سمت بیرون موسیقی دوستات و غیره...ولی این کتاب میگه از خودت فرار نکن و مسئله رو درون خودت کند و کاو کن بزار انقدر اذیتت کنه تا به جایی برسونت، بجای پناه بردن به چیزای دیگه و این واقعا برای من جالب بود و بدرد بخور چون در فرایند فرار ممکنه مدتی کوتاهی خوب بشی ولی دوباره برمیگرده وقتی با خودت جرات روبرو شدن رو نداشته باشی و همه و همه اینا نه به صورت کلام روانشناسی و تخصصی بلکه خیلی عامیانه راه حلی برای خلاقیت و چیزایی که مارو به سوی خلاق بودن میکشونه گفته شده. احساس کردم نظرم رو جای دیگه بغیر از گودریدز نمیتونم بگم اینجوری شد که طولانی شدم.
December 30, 2023
Given the praise by so many artists I like and admire I expected so much more from this book. However, once you go past the useful ideas of morning pages and artist dates, you just end up with a white privileged woman’s interpretation of monotheistic religion in a Judaeo-Christian vein with a thin veneer of 90s New Age and pop-psychology.
Even though she insists the book can be used by atheists as successfully (as long as they accept the existence of higher power which lol) I honestly don’t see how. The whole thing is modelled after the 12 step program which is problematic in itself but that’s a story for another time.
This was not for me because it felt like more than half the book talked about getting rid of the doubters and toxic people in your life. I genuinely don’t have such people in my life. All my friends and family are extremely supportive and believe in me more than I believe in myself and push me to put myself out there.
I am my own worst enemy and Cameron gets to that (around chapter 8 I believe) but by that point I’d read a chapter about how you won’t be a starving artist because god will give you money as god loves artists and also likes to reward people with money, so I’m pretty much done with this book at that point.
There is also a ton of bullshit about how universe will provide if you just want something and show up. This is all in vein of The Alchemist and The Secret and all other absurd nonsense, including Jung’s synchronicity.
In general this was so violently at odds with my whole worldview it was difficult to weed out the useful tidbits from it.
But I guess my worthwhile takeaway would be: show up, put yourself out there, make time and space to be creative and don’t marry that with “productivity”, because creativity needs rest and playtime to flourish. So in the end I gave this book merciful 2 stars.
Even though she insists the book can be used by atheists as successfully (as long as they accept the existence of higher power which lol) I honestly don’t see how. The whole thing is modelled after the 12 step program which is problematic in itself but that’s a story for another time.
This was not for me because it felt like more than half the book talked about getting rid of the doubters and toxic people in your life. I genuinely don’t have such people in my life. All my friends and family are extremely supportive and believe in me more than I believe in myself and push me to put myself out there.
I am my own worst enemy and Cameron gets to that (around chapter 8 I believe) but by that point I’d read a chapter about how you won’t be a starving artist because god will give you money as god loves artists and also likes to reward people with money, so I’m pretty much done with this book at that point.
There is also a ton of bullshit about how universe will provide if you just want something and show up. This is all in vein of The Alchemist and The Secret and all other absurd nonsense, including Jung’s synchronicity.
In general this was so violently at odds with my whole worldview it was difficult to weed out the useful tidbits from it.
But I guess my worthwhile takeaway would be: show up, put yourself out there, make time and space to be creative and don’t marry that with “productivity”, because creativity needs rest and playtime to flourish. So in the end I gave this book merciful 2 stars.
June 16, 2012
If you were an adult in the late 1990s and don't know this book, you were either living under a rock or never set foot inside a bookstore or library or community center for that matter. I was living in Reno and then in Charlotte, NC when the book's popularity hit its zenith and there were Artist Way groups that got together at bookstores, libraries, community centers, and coffee shops.
The biggest takeaway for me was morning pages--writing, by longhand, three pages of stream of consciousness stuff going on in your head to get it out of the way. Cleanse your pallet. It also made me aware of crazy makers in my life, which, at the time, I wasn't ready to let go of. But I think this book was part of a movement in my life that changed me in ways that eventually let me let go of people who subtly and not so subtly sabotaged my life.
I've yet to meet a person who claims to have completed every exercise in the book, but I have met many people who have benefited either personally or artistically from having read it. Read it and then re-read parts of it and work the exercises.
The biggest takeaway for me was morning pages--writing, by longhand, three pages of stream of consciousness stuff going on in your head to get it out of the way. Cleanse your pallet. It also made me aware of crazy makers in my life, which, at the time, I wasn't ready to let go of. But I think this book was part of a movement in my life that changed me in ways that eventually let me let go of people who subtly and not so subtly sabotaged my life.
I've yet to meet a person who claims to have completed every exercise in the book, but I have met many people who have benefited either personally or artistically from having read it. Read it and then re-read parts of it and work the exercises.
January 19, 2011
I read The Artist's Way a few years ago and could see the benefits of actually doing the work in it. But, of course, I never did it. So I thought I would listen to the book and refresh my memory, and again I feel it would do me good. But will I do it this time?
I have many other artists friends who have read it and also planned on doing it, but I don't know if they have either...
The Artist Way is a book written to unblock artist of a kinds, writers, painters, actors ect. I can't say that I'm blocked, but it is hard to carve out time and feel creative in this crazy world we live in today. It is even harder to work on something of your own when you are actually working in the art field daily. The last thing you want to do when you get home from work is more work.
The book is full of exercises to get you on that creative path, week by week, 12 in all (I think). The main exercise, one you do the whole time, is the one that is holding me back from starting. It's called Morning Pages. This exercise is doing a stream of consciousness journal first thing in the morning every morning. I am not a morning person, and I don't know many artists that are so writing anything, even spewing crazy off the wall and top of your head stuff is asking a lot. I don't think I could hold a pen at that moment, let alone actually write with it. Before coffee?
I do recommend this book to all my creative friends reading this. As I said, I can see how it would work.....if you did it. You can't win, if you don't play.
I have many other artists friends who have read it and also planned on doing it, but I don't know if they have either...
The Artist Way is a book written to unblock artist of a kinds, writers, painters, actors ect. I can't say that I'm blocked, but it is hard to carve out time and feel creative in this crazy world we live in today. It is even harder to work on something of your own when you are actually working in the art field daily. The last thing you want to do when you get home from work is more work.
The book is full of exercises to get you on that creative path, week by week, 12 in all (I think). The main exercise, one you do the whole time, is the one that is holding me back from starting. It's called Morning Pages. This exercise is doing a stream of consciousness journal first thing in the morning every morning. I am not a morning person, and I don't know many artists that are so writing anything, even spewing crazy off the wall and top of your head stuff is asking a lot. I don't think I could hold a pen at that moment, let alone actually write with it. Before coffee?
I do recommend this book to all my creative friends reading this. As I said, I can see how it would work.....if you did it. You can't win, if you don't play.
December 4, 2019
I finished this book out of stubbornness. While there are some really magical sentences in here, it just isn't worth the slog. This book was written for a very specific person: someone who has spent their life in a corporate atmosphere, who has a lot of extra cash, and thinks they maybe want to try being creative. I was willing to look over this, but other things kept getting in my way from taking anything the author wrote to heart:
• Name dropping. So much name dropping. I honestly do not care. This is not why I am reading the book.
• She suggests you buy your way to creativity. In the sense of: go on vacation! buy some watercolors! take a day off! There is so much privilege assumed by this author that it is unnerving.
• Advice that contradicts itself. This doesn't really happen until week 10, but still. Annoying.
• The thought that if you don't like or spark with any of the tasks she demands, then that means you just aren't pushing through and/or doing it right. Nah, eff that. Different people learn different ways.
• That everyone wants to be creative in order to make money from their art. What about the folks who just want to play an instrument as a hobby for themselves or paint on the weekends as an excuse to get out in nature? Not everything has to be commodified.
In the end, I'm glad I read this book so that no one can ever recommend it to me again. I am sure that this content was very helpful to many people and kudos to you. For me, the values seem a bit dated and it just makes me angry and tired.
• Name dropping. So much name dropping. I honestly do not care. This is not why I am reading the book.
• She suggests you buy your way to creativity. In the sense of: go on vacation! buy some watercolors! take a day off! There is so much privilege assumed by this author that it is unnerving.
• Advice that contradicts itself. This doesn't really happen until week 10, but still. Annoying.
• The thought that if you don't like or spark with any of the tasks she demands, then that means you just aren't pushing through and/or doing it right. Nah, eff that. Different people learn different ways.
• That everyone wants to be creative in order to make money from their art. What about the folks who just want to play an instrument as a hobby for themselves or paint on the weekends as an excuse to get out in nature? Not everything has to be commodified.
In the end, I'm glad I read this book so that no one can ever recommend it to me again. I am sure that this content was very helpful to many people and kudos to you. For me, the values seem a bit dated and it just makes me angry and tired.
September 15, 2019
"جولیا کامرون"، فیلمنامه نویس و کارگردان مشهور امریکایی در این کتاب از طریق تمرین هایی که توضیح می دهد کمک می کند که آدمی بتواند نقبی به درونش بزند و گنج های درونش را بشناسد تا با شناخت آن ها بتواند اثری هنری خلق کند. از نظر کامرون "هدف از زندگی این است که قرار ملاقاتی با هنرمند درون باشد، برای همین آفریده شده ایم".
رویکرد و زبان کتاب"هنرمند درون" شهودی است و به نوعی کشف معنوی است. کتاب اگرچه 275 صفحه است اما چون تمرینی است طبیعتا خواندنش اندکی زمان بر است.
اما تجربه من از خوانش اثر این است که برای شخص من موثر بود و مطالعه اش را پیشنهاد می کنم. از جمله راهکارهای مفیدش نوشتن صفحات صبحگاهی است که به نظرم یک راه خوب برای شناخت خودمان، ترس هایمان و خشم های فروخورده یمان است.
نکته جالب دیگر آن ساختار کتاب است که به شکل درس و آزمون و تمرین است و شبیه بازی و سرگرمی است و به نظر می رسد برای هر رشته ای می تواند موثر باشد. این کتاب پر از حرف هایی است برای کسانی که می ترسند کاری را شروع کنند و دیری و دوری را بهانه می آورند.
"ایجاد هنر از صبح شروع می شود، با طلوع آفتاب، با حضور در لحظه حال، کامجویی از سراسر روزی که در پیش دارید.
اگر نوشتن بیش از ننوش��ن، نقاشی کردن بیش از نقاشی نکردن، آواز خواندن بیش از آواز نخواندن و بازیگری بیش از عدم بازیگری خوشحالتان می کند، محض رضای خدا به خودتان اجازه انجامش را بدهید.
کشتن رویاها به این دلیل که محالند یعنی غیر مسول بودن در برابر خویشتن"
رویکرد و زبان کتاب"هنرمند درون" شهودی است و به نوعی کشف معنوی است. کتاب اگرچه 275 صفحه است اما چون تمرینی است طبیعتا خواندنش اندکی زمان بر است.
اما تجربه من از خوانش اثر این است که برای شخص من موثر بود و مطالعه اش را پیشنهاد می کنم. از جمله راهکارهای مفیدش نوشتن صفحات صبحگاهی است که به نظرم یک راه خوب برای شناخت خودمان، ترس هایمان و خشم های فروخورده یمان است.
نکته جالب دیگر آن ساختار کتاب است که به شکل درس و آزمون و تمرین است و شبیه بازی و سرگرمی است و به نظر می رسد برای هر رشته ای می تواند موثر باشد. این کتاب پر از حرف هایی است برای کسانی که می ترسند کاری را شروع کنند و دیری و دوری را بهانه می آورند.
"ایجاد هنر از صبح شروع می شود، با طلوع آفتاب، با حضور در لحظه حال، کامجویی از سراسر روزی که در پیش دارید.
اگر نوشتن بیش از ننوش��ن، نقاشی کردن بیش از نقاشی نکردن، آواز خواندن بیش از آواز نخواندن و بازیگری بیش از عدم بازیگری خوشحالتان می کند، محض رضای خدا به خودتان اجازه انجامش را بدهید.
کشتن رویاها به این دلیل که محالند یعنی غیر مسول بودن در برابر خویشتن"
Read
March 28, 2008i'm just randomly pulling these off my shelf, literally, i didn't even know i had this still but it's what helped me get back to writing when i did my first book eight thousand years ago, the one everyone says WHY CAN'T YOU WRITE ANOTHER BOOK LIKE THAT??? book.
i always give "the morning pages" exercise to my students. (that makes it sound like i have students hanging around me and in my life at all times instead of twice a year.)
but here it is, a teaser for this fine book:
1. first thing in the a.m.--before you even get out of bed--grab your handy notebook and pen and write three pages WITHOUT STOPPING OR THINKING. you are not doing writing writing. you are not to read it back (well months from now, ok.)
just get it out and forget it.
you might come up with a new screenplay idea.
you might trash your cousin indigo because she ruined your marriage or spileld that starbucks on your dress. whatever. LET IT OUT.
great book for anyone who wants to remember their real self.
i always give "the morning pages" exercise to my students. (that makes it sound like i have students hanging around me and in my life at all times instead of twice a year.)
but here it is, a teaser for this fine book:
1. first thing in the a.m.--before you even get out of bed--grab your handy notebook and pen and write three pages WITHOUT STOPPING OR THINKING. you are not doing writing writing. you are not to read it back (well months from now, ok.)
just get it out and forget it.
you might come up with a new screenplay idea.
you might trash your cousin indigo because she ruined your marriage or spileld that starbucks on your dress. whatever. LET IT OUT.
great book for anyone who wants to remember their real self.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,593 reviews