Blocked artists, step aboard the Artist’s Way train! Or not.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a twelve-week program to recover your artistic side, has been around for thirty years. I has had addendums and companion books, and Cameron has banked on being the voice of creative practices. Some of its concepts have spread across the mainstream, such as Morning Pages and cultivating your inner child or inner artist.
I recently finished the book, which I’ll call “TAW” from now on, and feel compelled to discuss some contentious points that make people give up. I have work-arounds that might be useful to other fellow artists.
In this article:
Concept of God as Creator
Morning Pages
Manifestation
Week 4: Reading Deprivation
Perfectionism
On the concept of a creative god
One criticism of this book is its use in the concept of God. I understand how anyone, regardless of religious affiliation, can doubt the use of God in this way. If it helps, try using the concept of a creative god as just that: a concept. Many twelve step programs use belief in a higher power as a surrender of control, or as guidance. In this application, the concept of a higher power may be a thought experiment in surrendering control to something bigger than your human form.
Consider your inner artist. Consider the various muses in your life. Now combine the two into a spirit outside of you. This outside source is what I considered when the concept of a creative god was mentioned in the book, and I saw the purpose of it. If we are to believe we have a blocked inner artist inside, that’s not going to do us any good. We can’t Kool-Aid man our way through the most stubborn of blocks. Well…we could, but there’s a fear our work will suffer if we force it. One way to get over that fear is to project that onto another being, and in return let that being guide us.
The belief in a creative god is a belief in the artistic goodness of the world. It means a blocked artist can still find inspiration outside of themselves. Consider this god your muse, your inner child stepped outside of you, the mere promise of inspiration. Call it God if you will. Three-letter words are easier to write than my explanation up there. Go forth and be guided.
Morning Pages
As someone who grew up journaling, I saw the purpose of Morning Pages. The only problem was my motor skills. And my blood sugar. And my mind.
I’m not a morning person, that’s what I’m saying. I can barely remember how to pour a bowl of cereal, let alone write a full sentence. So instead of sitting around for two hours in a stupor over how to hold a pencil, I did Morning Pages at a time when my inner critic is most insistent: in my bedtime routine.
Let me put you night owls at ease: Do your Morning Pages in the evening. Evening Pages!
If you have ADHD like I do, consider doing these pages right before bed. Evening Pages helped clear my mind. Where a mess of Morning Pages would wake up my mind in a bad way, Evening Pages helps me get all the thoughts I’ve collected throughout the day and put them somewhere else.
Manifestation
This is where Cameron and I split. I don’t believe in the prosperity gospel or manifesting material goods. She does mention luxury goods aren’t the goal here, but then she tasks us with listing all the material goods we desire.
In her chapter on recovering a sense of abundance, in the section on luxury, Cameron begins a paragraph with “Recently, I bought myself a horse for the first time in a decade.” This, after spending several pages talking about her rich and/or famous friends. I’m not sure if Cameron sees how privilege begets privilege in her life. Jules, please.
While Cameron brings up a good point that all artists regardless of fame or salary suffer blocks, the way she goes about telling us leaves out the recognition of destitute artists. Yes, it’s good to let go of anxieties surrounding money. Yes, little luxuries mean more to us than grand luxuries. But when the author of a self-help book believes everyone comes from the same socioeconomic status, that author loses an audience from the very first page.
She also makes a good point about leaving ourselves open to the possibility of accepting gifts from the universe. Creativity flourishes when we keep the channels open, our eyes seeking, our brain juices flowing, or however you picture yourself being on the lookout for interesting endeavors. Good things won’t come to us when our answer is “no.”
Some parts of this book are wishy-washy, mantra-loving, dreamy advice with its Basic Principles and thinking about God (see Point #1 above) and collecting pretty pieces of nature. Other parts of this book have a consumerist bend, with listing objects we want, locations we want to live in, and the little promoted shopping sprees for the sake of our inner artist, our dream self. Beware, this book is contradictory.
Week 4: Reading Deprivation
You should have heard my laugh when Cameron suggested I stop reading for a whole week. A whole week! If you read my introduction post, you know that if I don’t read several days in a row my brain melts.
Listen, my little artist babies. I may have completed The Artist’s Way, but that doesn’t mean I completed every week down to the letter. I decided to skip a crucial part of Week 4 after trying and failing twice to get it right. Allowing myself to move on helped me curb my perfectionism. Besides, I learned a powerful lesson.
I declare a post-COVID update needs to be made to this book. The most recent edits/addendums to TAW were made in 2016, but things have happened in the zeitgeist which need to be addressed.
When I attempted to do first reading deprivation, then all media deprivation, a little section of my brain—that same Spidey-sense that activated at the beginning of lockdown—reacted in all too familiar ways. For someone who doesn’t get out much, shutting out media is a kind of quarantine. The stir-crazy aspect of lockdown became real again, and I faced this chapter of TAW during summer in the Southwest when I can’t go outside without risking my health. I could have listened to music (which I did) or cleaned my whole house (over my dead body) or gone to a public place to people watch (for how long until I look like a creep? I have been watched by a stranger in public and it’s not a feeling I wish on anyone else).
I know the purpose of this deprivation exercise is to promote us to make things rather than consume them, but I had too many questions and little guidance from a handful of paragraphs. If it’s suggested I bake, am I allowed to read a recipe? What if I spend hours looking at recipes and don’t make anything? If I work on my writing, am I allowed to read what I wrote or should I be blindfolded? May I read time sensitive correspondence important for my future survival? Can I read labels at the grocery store?
Julia assures us, “…I point out that I have had jobs and gone to college and that in my experience I had many times wriggled out of reading for a week due to procrastination. As blocked creatives, we can be very creative at wriggling out of things.”
As I understand it, this exercise has more to do with procrastination than deprivation. One’s personal anti-procrastination practice might include reading more instead, and abstaining from social media or the internet entirely.
Maybe I’ll have to try this exercise again, at a time of my own choosing instead of being forced during a particular week. Maybe I’ll have to do TAW all over again in the future and follow it to the letter.
Still, I learned a little something from my failed attempt at this particular chapter:
The only way I will clean my bathroom is if I get to listen to Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend.
My lockdown experience, in general, wasn’t terrible. I acknowledge how lucky and privileged I was/am not to be devastated by the experience. Even so, I have seen in myself and in the public around me that there’s a unique type of PTSD we shared together, separately. I hardly think people have completely bounced back from it, and I’m not sure what to do about it. Psychologists studying this phenomenon might not know for another decade.
It’s OK to move ahead if you didn’t get something right the first time.
What would happen if I stopped reading for a whole week? This may be a subject for another post!
A PSA on Perfectionism
In my snooping around the internet, I’ve learned a lot of people give up on this journey. Then, they feel guilty about having given up and start from the beginning. I implore you, don’t keep starting over from the beginning.
Like Week 4 above, I kept going. If I was a Blocked Artist, stopping an exercise made to help me get over that hurdle would be like cutting off my own legs in the middle of a race. Keep crawling through the process regardless of what happens (or doesn’t happen) in your journey.
The whole point is to try. Done is better than Perfect. Perfect is the enemy of Good. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Just keep swimming. Hakuna matata. Pick one!
Remember this book isn’t a bible for creatives. It’s only a tool for you to shape into your unique life.
In Conclusion
Those are my thoughts on The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I may sample her other books, but for now I’m going to attempt a unique Week 4 redo and sample some other creative processes.
My experience with TAW was eye-opening, but not transformative. Many of the tasks I had already done on my own before beginning the book, out of boredom and attempts at blasting through creative blocks. I have also been cultivating my relationship with my inner child, so maybe TAW was too close in practice to what I had already been doing.
Take what you can and leave the rest behind. Or maybe you shouldn’t follow my advice because I didn’t get too much out of this but a little debt and more than a few hand cramps from writing Pages.
Did you try The Artist’s Way? What was your journey like?