Is your spirit vital, blushing and thrumming? Or do you have psychic cramps because you’re wearing an old skin and you know you need to get out of it, but you’re scared to bust free? I want you to be well. I want you to be so well that ideas jump into your brain like popcorn after two minutes in the microwave. I want you to be so inspired that you have to remind yourself three a.m. is a time for sleeping, not getting up and banging at your keyboard.
If you don’t feel these things, it’s time to do The Artist’s Way. I’ll do it with you.
I heard about Julia Cameron’s book for years before I did it. It’s described as: “a course in discovering and rediscovering your creative self.” It’s secretly a 12-step program for the artistically atrophied. I know because it made me well.
Recovery is what most of us need. Like I did… during the decade of law school and lawyering, when I considered myself a novelist, though I did not write. Not writing gave me a crusty feeling and made me prone to sour bouts of envy. I had something critical to say about everybody whose work was getting made—even folks who were just tinkering for their own enjoyment (the best kind). I disguised my envy as sophisticated criticism. Eventually, I STOPPED READING NOVELS altogether.
The better a book, the more it depressed me that I hadn’t written it myself. I was so certain I could. Except I didn’t.
I resisted trying the AW for years, turning my jealousy on dear Julia: who was she to write a book about creativity? I was plenty creative! Nobody finishes a decade of Montessori school square. I wasn’t making any art though, because my blustery confidence was a disguise: I worried the quality of my output wouldn’t match my expectation. Because I’d been so mean about other writers, I knew how mean people could be. Better to rest in the landscape of pure potential—where I could remain superior to everybody getting their work done. This is a terrible, extremely common strategy for the creatively unwell.
You would never do such a thing.
Anyway, it turns out creativity isn’t really about making stuff… it’s about tending your spirit. It’s psychic hygiene, as vital as clean water and deep sleep. If you have a desire to write poems and you are not writing poems, you have a problem. If you’re supposed to be needlepointing key fobs and you’re not—there’s trouble ahead. You can’t let the best part of you go wan and wither. Creative inaction has consequences.
How do you know if you have a creative desire? Well…do you imagine yourself doing something (or being the kind of person ✨who has done something✨) when your favorite song comes on in the car, or while you’re walking up the city streets, daydreaming? Tell me you haven’t drafted a major awards speech in your head. I dare you. What did you win, my friend? Because there’s your dream—best you follow it.
My guess is you’ll discover that the award isn’t the thing you really want. It’s the doing that counts. It’s the try that’s noble, ahem.
Unblocking is not easy. The Artist’s Way will force you to admit what you haven’t been doing. And that’ll make you sad. The book will also crack your armor, and that’ll be scary. It’s not hard to see why many people opt non-doing over prying themselves open to watch the truth dribble, gush or spill out. It might make a mess. But being honest and unguarded is the only way to live. And—there’s going to be a mess anyway. Consequences.
The AW will help you see all that fear as misguided. Every doubt you’ve had, every mean, monstrous critic: Julia has a gentle answer. Compassion is at the heart of recovery, and she’s nothing but kind. She’s sure you can do it, whatever it is. Even if you’ve tried and been disappointed. She’s still sure.
This January, I’m going to open the book again and I hope you’ll join me. I’ll figure out how to use Notes for paid subscribers and check in a few times a week with quotes or questions from the AW chapter for that week. I want to revisit the theme that first got me writing these essays: creative encouragement.
These are scary times. Winter is coming. We’ve got to resist the pull of despair. And there is so much good waiting for us. So buy the book or dust it off and read the first chapter. Start or revamp your morning pages (mine have become 5-minute grocery lists, HELP). I’ll check in on January 7th. If you’re a free subscriber, hop on over the paywall so I can get to work aggressively hyping your creative ambition. Because if you have a pulse, you have a dream.
And I can’t wait to see it.
xx
Isabel
❤️🔥
Have you done AW before? And with what result? Have you always wanted to, but resisted? And if you’re brave enough, will you please tell us what you’re scared to find?
My friend Valley started and stopped The Artist’s Way a few times, always giving up. But then she just decided to *do it badly* and said she still got so much out of it.
I love when you say “Because there’s your dream - you best follow it”. Sometimes I feel like I have nothing figured out, other times I have my heart set on something. It’s difficult for me to pick and choose what I want! How did you know you wanted to write instead of practice the law? PS love the picture you chose for this week;)