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 practicing the exercises it contains.

Product Description
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.

Thank you Julia Cameron!


This book turned a practical person into a creative one   June 26, 1998
 186 out of 203 found this review helpful

This book has completely changed my perspective about my creative ability. At first my practical side felt very silly doing some of the exercises. But after a while a began to realize how much better I felt about myself and my ability to be creative... not do everything by the book. I began oil painting, which I've even entered into contests. I went to Professional Culinary School, in spite of everyone telling me I was crazy. Now those same people are envious of my ability and attitude to discover something that makes me happy and actually pursue it. So many people dream, but never act on those dreams. As practical as I am and probably always will be, thanks to this book, I'm happy that I'm taking these steps toward self fullfillment, and I've established a balance in my life I have never previously experienced. My only criticism is all of the references to God. I'm not athiest, however I feel strongly that the motivation comes from a higher power within yourself and is in your control, and should not be limited to an association with a particular religious figure. Not everyone believes in God, like another individual has written in this review section. I could see how the constant references could turn someone off. But if you look past that element of the book there are some real powerful tools that can help anyone become a more creative individual. The religious connotations are not really necessary. If you can keep that in perspective, then I highly recommend this book!


It is not perfect, but it is a very good book   February 2, 2002
 101 out of 107 found this review helpful

Having read previous reviews on this book and having dabbled with creativity on and off most of my life, finally, I decided to take the plunge and see if this book could change my life.

WELL? DOES IT WORK, DOES IT CHANGE YOUR LIFE?
Has it? Well Yes and no.
I'm not putting out massive works of art or prose, nor am I comfortable with even the pencil sketches I do. However, I am doing them again. I've had fits and starts of drawing, but this book does help you put that into perspective. You are a beginner and it is okay for your work to look like a beginners. Simple concept. Hard to internalize.

INTERESTING OUTCOME.
What I did find and others who use this program can probably confirm is that it helps get situations out in the open. Family stuff. When you do the morning pages, you ramble. You put down all that trash you are thinking and then you find you work to clean it up. You know all the stuff your kids, your spouse, your co-workers do, that really tick you off. You find you start to address that. Kind of a neat by-product.

MORNING PAGES ARE NOT SO BAD:
My first take on this, is dedicate a half an hour of my precious and sparse sleeping time.....? What are you nuts? Then I tried it. You have a clarity (and a drowsiness) in the AM, that is unmatchable any other time. Also, if you are like me get a whole lot less interruptions. I did the morning pages from 5:15 till 6:00 AM weekdays and after I got up on weekends. Weekends, sometimes I didn't get to them until afternoon. But, each day (except for 1 day in 12 weeks) they were religiously done.
Guess what? I'm hooked. I'm continuing and you might too. Consider this as a book (a life), you are writing, you are directing. What a concept!

MORNING PAGES LENGTH:
With the Artist's way book, I bought the journal. These 3 pages were the size of 8-1/2 X 11 pages. 3 pages do not take you 1/2 hour but more like 45 minutes to an hour. Get ready for that. It seems like a lot some days and not enough on others. You don't need a special book to do this in either. I bought a spiral notebook to pick up where the journal left off, when it was full. The journal is nice though as it has passages from the book on each page.

ARTISTS DATES:
I found that some of the timing of the artist dates were bad. I'm sure most others will run into this as well. I did this book through the Thanksgiving, Christmas holiday. Artist's dates were often dropped and sometimes one did double-duty. However, these can be very simple. You have to make them what is important to you and that is the point of the book. It makes you feel special. I think all of us wait for others to make us feel special. Most of us could wait a very long time. Little do we realize, we have to set the standard. Make ourselves feel special. Because we are. We have to appeal to the artist within us. It can be simple or extravagant. One thing I like is pens with a 1.0mm tip. They use ink like crazy, but what a wonderful broad stroke they make on the paper. That is one of my "perks".

SOME CRITIQUE:
In the past years you've no doubt heard of people coming out of therapy accusing their parents of abuse. Many of these people were suggested into this practice by psychologists looking for a quick solution to some of their patient's psychoses. What I didn't care for in the book, is that some of the tasks appeared to be excercising these same demons. Trying to find devils in the details of past "creative blocks". Some times these blocks are cumulative and not one earth-shattering event. Like water on a rock. Sometimes the people around you were highly supportive, etc. etc.
We all have a mix of that. I felt however, that this negative aspect was overemphasized. A person sensitive to these suggestions could walk away very convinced that there was a horrible trauma they just can't quite remember.

WEEK OFF OF READING TRULY IS IMPOSSIBLE IN SOME PEOPLE'S LIVES:

One week was supposed to be one free from reading. I used it as a media free week (Radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, books and non-work email) and not from work related reading. If I neglected the reading in my job, I would have over 300 emails, very job related languishing in my in-box. I also would not be doing my job in writing specifications. Not possible in my job and not realistic in many others I'm sure. I think the author should just emphasize the noise factor or suggest doing this type of exercise on vacation.

In summary this book and its tasks were excellent and I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm going on to her book on Work creativity next, then the Right to Write and the Vein of Gold.

KEEP UP THE MORNING PAGES AND CHANGE THE WORLD - ONE PERSON AT A TIME!


Two months of Morning Pages later....   January 23, 2004
 100 out of 138 found this review helpful

After doing my best to follow through with all the "creative" exercises and dutifully churning out pointless Morning Pages, taking myself on Dates (no surprise, since most creative people spend plenty of time alone, this was less exciting than Ms. Cameron makes it out to be) and forcing myself through silly exercises, not to mention starting to choke on the author's obviously high opinion of herself and all her wonderful, creative friends, I gave up in disgust. For one thing, it was hard to take seriously the creative raptures of a woman who makes a career of telling other people how to be as creative as she is - except that her own forte seems to be self-help books, not brilliant novels, screenplays, or anything worth reading for its own sake. Nor do I think that anyone can write. On the contrary, most people can't, any more than most people can act or compose music or write memorable poetry. A far better book on writer's block, the recently published "Midnight Disease," goes into much more useful information on brain chemistry, the struggles of truly brilliant writers with block, hypergraphia (what Ms. Cameron seems more prone to), and the links between creativity, depression and the search for the divine. Among other things, it points out that the "inner critic" that such books as Ms. Cameron's try to silence is very useful, as it may be that very inner critic that makes the difference between crafting a brilliant novel and churning out Morning Pages. (As the book points out, anyone can get over writer's block merely by lowering one's standards sufficiently!) Of course, block is its own kind of hell, but I suspect that any block that can be cured by silencing one's instincts, never mind taking walks or visiting museums, is not a very deep block to begin with.


Repetitive, trite, irritating, and a waste of time...   June 22, 2005
 80 out of 109 found this review helpful

This book was given to me as a gift by my brother,who is a real cheerleader for Cameron's ideas. I started reading it enthusiastically, because I respect my brother's opinions deeply. I was sure this book would be life-altering.

Maybe the problem was in my high expectations. I was immediately irritated with her writing style. Cameron is in love with the written word, and can come up with three ways to say one thing. Nornally that would be good, but instead of using the best one, she will use all three. I found the repetition annoying.

Equally annoying is her constant patter about God. She claims that the reader may substitute his own particular brand of faith into her comments, but it is just too pervasive and too overtly Christian to be effective. I also happen to know some mighty fine atheists who are as creative as anyone could hope to be, so her opinions don't hold water. I have no problem with her choice to give God all the credit for her creativity, but to insinuate that all creativity comes through Him is pompous.

Cameron's book is full of numbered lists. I find it interesting how so many of them end with nice numbers like 10 and 20. How convenient that life's truths can be summarized that way. It has been my experience that the items on such a list are often either repetitive or trite. In other words, it seems that the goal is to fill out this nice comfortable number, even if the contents of the list have to be pushed and manipulated in order to make it so. How useful is such a contrived list, really?

One of the basic premises that Cameron has is that creativity can be reborn when we free ourselves from the nay-sayers, and "shoulds" that plague us. I happen to agree with that. But does it really help a struggling would-be artist to substitute existing negatives with her own lists of "shoulds"? She is doing the very thing she would seem to abhor. Her plan is so time-consuming and intricate that most readers will not carry it out fully, leading to yet another exercise in self-imposed negativity.

Just like the bloated lists that painfully stretch to number 20, her work is overstuffed so she can call it a book. It would make a fine religious tract.

Despite my criticisms, I do believe there is an appropriate audience for The Artist's Way. If the reader is a devout, practicing, main-stream Christian and suffers from a serious and debilitating creative block, I think there could be a benefit. Otherwise, there are shorter and less offensive ways to go.