Winding up Week 9 of The Artist’s Way creativity program, we look again at how to break through artistic or creative blocks, now from the perspective of how we convince or trick ourselves into thinking that staying blocked — by anger/resentment or fear/resistance — can pay off. Name your Blocks For creative people, there are […]
Each time I’ve come through The Artist’s Way Chapter 8, I find myself on the verge of precisely what author Julia Cameron addresses in Chapter 9: making a dastardly Creative U-Turn. It’s likely you’ll find yourself in the same risky situation because it’s not unusual! The Artist’s Way Process The ninth chapter of this powerful […]
According to Julia Cameron, many creative people spend years mislabeling themselves. When we do not create the way we think we should, we label ourselves lazy when in fact we are blocked by fear. The way past fear, asserts Cameron, is through love for your inner artist. Your inner artist is like a child in […]
“Filling the form” means to respect the creative process by making the commitment each day to take the next required step, and then the next step after that. We simply make small changes and take small actions right now where we are, with what we have available, to ultimately shift the trajectory of our creative […]
Being creative and creating new work involve taking risks and “moving out of the head and into action” as Julia Cameron succinctly describes it in The Artist’s Way. But most of us are very careful not to take risks. We’d rather be safe, but safety keeps us blocked, and so we are stuck. Is this […]
Perfectionism is such a fabulous trap. It sounds so lofty and pure and worthy to insist on our creative work being perfect. But aiming for perfection means there is always some aspect yet to be fixed, yet another detail to improve, tweak, polish, fine-tune, finesse… This obsessive mindset or standard or expectation means that the […]
In chapter five of the landmark creativity book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron discusses some unexpected reasons for how and why creative people stay blocked or stuck. For example, we may unintentionally limit what we can achieve by ruling out an idea as crazy or impossible — when in […]
Not doing your Artist’s Way Morning Pages by hand? It’s surprising how many of us really resist this directive. Doing the daily pages and writing them out by hand is an important part of the process. Author and teacher Julia Cameron gives all sorts of reasons why, but for me the critical aspect is that […]
There are all kinds of tips and tricks for getting through a writer’s block. Mostly, I ignore them and procrastinate instead. But here’s a technique I do recommend, a no-pressure method to ease into writing. It’s especially helpful if you have a deadline and aren’t quote unquote in the mood to write, or you are […]
What do shame and creativity have in common? Possibly lots. In her book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron ties the two together in many ways and offers methods for artists to use to cope with shame and learn to deal with criticism. Shameful Secrets, Darker Thoughts Making art can be a form of secret telling, […]