The Artist Way

I read Julia Cameron's The Artist Way for the first time in 2003, and right away I took to writing those morning pages.  I have to say that writing in the morning with no judgement, just letting anything come out in any way it wants to is liberating, freeing.

The book makes a simple premise for getting unblocked and restarting the creative motor.  She suggests one artist date a week, a walk every day, and writing morning pages.  she then has twelve weeks of assignments or "recoveries".

Julia was in AA for years, and the language of the program spills into her books. Chapters are all about recovering a sense of something: Safety, Identity, Power, Integrity, Possibility.

I only ventured further than the morning pages and started the 12 week program last year.  September seems to be the month that turns me within, the cold weather pointing into the spirit direction. Writing being the bridge that takes me there.   Six weeks into it I went to visit family in a two week adventure that drove me away from the program, however, my blog writing came back, creativity slowly re-entering, I began to flow again.

I suppose it would probably be easier to go through the program in a group, she has designed guidelines so anyone can lead a 12 week art recovery circle, here is a list of some of them. There are also online forums, AND she runs the program herself once or twice a year at the NY Open Center, next one is in February.

Have you done this program?