Product Description

This work provides a 12-week course that guides the reader through the process of recovering their creative self. It aims to dispel the "I'm not talented enough" conditioning that tends to hamper the creativity of many people.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4240 in Books
• Published on: 1997-06-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan lead you through a comprehensive 12-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity.

This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe, and has, in the four years since its publication, spawned a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated to practising the exercises it contains. --Amazon.com

About the Author
Julia Cameron is the author of fifteen books, fiction and non fiction, many plays and movies. She lives in the high desert of New Mexico where she busies herself with movies, musicals, poetry, horses and dogs. She has taught extensively for two decades from London to Los Angeles, from Esalen to the New York Times. Her work on Creativity features the bestselling books The Artist's Way, The Vein of Gold, The Right to Write, Transitions, Blessings and Heartsteps.

Excerpted from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Copyright © 1995. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Many of us wish we were more creative. Many of us sense we are more creative, but are unable to effectively tap that creativity. Our lives feel somehow flat. Often, we have great ideas, wonderful dreams, but are unable to actualize them for ourselves. Sometimes we have specific creative longings we would love to be able to fulfill - learning to play the piano, painting, taking an acting class, or writing. Sometimes our goal is more diffuse. We hunger for what might be called creative living - an expanded sense of creativity in our business lives, in sharing with our children, our spouse, our friends. While there is no quick fix for instant, pain-free creativity, creative recovery (or discovery) is a teachable, trackable spiritual process. Each of us is complex and highly individual, yet there are common recognizable denominators to the creative recovery process.

Working with the process, I see a certain amount of defiance and giddiness in the first few weeks. This entry stage is followed closely by explosive anger in the course's midsection. The anger is followed by grief, then alternating waves of resitance and hope. This peaks-and-valleys phase of growth becomes a series of expansions and contractions, a birthing process in which students experience intense elation and defensive skepticism.

This choppy growth phase is followed by a strong urge to abandon the process and return to life as we know it. In other words, a bargaining period. People are often tempted to abandon the course at this point. I call this a creative U-turn. Recommitment to the process next triggers the free-fall of major ego surrender. Following this, the final phase of the course is characterized by a new sense of self marked by increased autonomy, resilience, expectancy, and excitement - as well as by the capacity to make and execute concrete creative plans.

Customer Reviews

Practising The Artist's Way
On the flyleaf to this book, Julia Cameron is described as "an active artist". This is very apt because in The Artist's Way we have a very active book with a powerful practical application. Do not expect to read this book and be unaffected by it. I have been personally been amazed by the effect it has already had on my life within under a month of having purchased it. In fact, the impact was almost immediate.

I originally approached this book in a spirit of curiosity, merely to find out what it was about. The structure of the book is a twelve-week course on getting in touch with and unblocking your creativity based upon many years' successful delivery of the course by the author. Significantly, the term "recovering" your creative self is used so the process is likened to that of someone recovering from say alcohol or drug addiction but in this instance you are restoring the connection with a positive energy rather than abstaining from a harmful practice. If any harmful practice is indeed being renounced, it is the denial or suppression of your creativity. Rather than sign up, as it were, for the course right away, I skimmed through the whole book just to discover its main points. However, the two basic tools for creative recovery I adopted straight away. These are the morning ages and the artist date. The first is a commitment to write three pages, long hand, about anything that comes to mind when you awaken. The purpose of this exercise is to stifle your inner critic and clear out any blockages you might have that are holding you back. The second is to keep a date, on your own, every week for a couple of hours with your inner artist, your "artist child" as Julia Cameron refers to it. The purpose of the artist date is to be receptive so as to "fill the well" of your creativity. Both actions together can be likened to breathing, a rhythm of in (artist date) and out (morning pages).

My initial aim in putting these tools into practice was not specifically to realise my potential as an artist. I wanted to see if they would have a general effect on the way I approached my job and the way I lived my life. What I hadn't anticipated was that I would actually start writing creatively again after a block which has lasted 15 years. I am now engaged in writing a novel, which I manage to work on every day despite a busy and demanding job and my head is buzzing with other writing projects too. It is for this reason that I can so enthusiastically endorse this book.

Do not think, however, that you necessarily have to have the desire to write, as in my case, to find this book of value. The Artist's Way is designed to stimulate every type of artistic endeavour. It can also be applied to bring creativity to bear upon all aspects of your life, from major considerations like career and relationship issues to humble activities like cooking or mending clothes. It doesn't matter, too, how seemingly non-creative and left-brained the profession you are engaged in. Cameron cites the example of stockbrokers maintaining Morning Pages and becoming better stockbrokers as a result. The ultimate benefit of the book, though, if you are willing to put its principles into practice, is to feel that one is leading a more positive, purposeful life.

The Artists' Way PA Tenth Anniversary Edition
The Artist's Way is truly a fantastic book. I started working with it over two years a go and although i tend to dip in and out of it, i do my morning pages every day and for this fact alone, i would like to highly recommend the book. It has helped me focus on my creativity and is encouraging, challenging, but also helps you to relax.

However, my main purpose for writing this review, is to warn people that this tenth anniversary edition is no different from the original Artist's Way except for the introduction. I bought this edition thinking that it may have many more insights and new excersises, but it doesn't - so just be warned! The new introduction basically gives and explanation of what Julia Cameron has been up to since she wrote the Artist's Way, which is interesting, but ultimately all that is different about this edition.

I would not say a word against the Artist's Way as it has totally changed my life and i would encourage anyone who is exploring their creativity to buy it!! Just don't expect anything new in the PA Tenth Anniversary Ed . .that's all - i'll be returning mine! But as a true testament to Julia Cameron, i will be returning mine to swap for her Right to Write!!! Sally Gross

Brilliantly inspiring for anyone wishing to be creative
The Artist's Way takes you through a 12 week journey to creativity, it is aimed not just at artists, but for anyone wishing to be creative. It is a work-book, with weekly tasks which helped me to unblock as a writer, have fun and also relax and enjoy life.

Since reading it my wife has become a full-time freelance designer and artist, her confidence has shifted amazingly, she is willing to believe it when people compliment her work (which happens a lot) and she pushes through set-backs and persists when the going's tough.

I've reawakaned my dream to be a writer and am currently working on a fantasy novel and a puzzle book. I met Julia Cameron at a seminar and she is very down-to-earth and practical, as well as being spiritual and kind. This book is an absolute must!