The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Summary

The 12 chapters of this self-guided path to creative enlightenment are designed as steps that can be completed week by week. The process guides you through a creative philosophy that encourages you to give over trust in God or some sort of creative spirit that is greater than yourself.

Readers are told to show up to morning pages every day without excuses and complete tasks that force you to confront uncomfortable memories and relationships that may have altered the course of your life. If you know anything about the Alcoholics Anonymous framework, it’s clear she took strong inspiration from their program. She believes that if someone is not creating, they must be addicted to something that is inhibiting the creative spirit, and the book is designed to replace that coping mechanism with a creative practice.

"Few ideas are worse than the ones we have about art. We can charge so many things off to our suffering artist identity: drunkenness, promiscuity, fiscal problems, a certain ruthlessness or self-destructiveness in matters of the heart. We all know how broke crazy promiscuous and unreliable artists are. And if they don't have to be, then what's my excuse? The idea that I could be sane, sober, and creative terrified me, implying, as it did, the possibility of personal accountability. You mean if I have these gifts, I'm supposed to use them? Yes."

Julia Cameron

About the Author

Julia Cameron is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in writing, filmmaking, and music. She began her career as a journalist and later worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter and director, but her relationship with alcohol began to threaten her creativity. Cameron’s creative blocks led her to develop the methods she later shaped into a workshop and eventually the book, The Artist’s Way.

Her experience of replacing a destructive addiction with a generative creative practice led her to develop a belief in the connection between creativity and spirituality, which strongly informs the philosophy of the book.

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