The Artist’s Way is for Writers too!
Since I became serious about my writing back in 2006, I have met a lot of other writers through different ways: blogging, Facebook, writers’ groups and writers’ forums. Through this network, a certain book has kept popping up on my radar from time to time during the last six years. It is Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and its last appearance was through this website last fall when BIW was hosting the 12 week course in conjunction with the book.
At that point the timing was wrong for me and I gave it a miss which I now regret. However, I did buy the book where it languished on my bookshelf for more than six months. It was only in April that I opened it up in a desperate attempt to deal with a bad case of writer’s block.
Recently, I posted about this and how I had only managed to write 10k words from January to April. I felt my effort was paltry. Threadbare. Lackluster. I would sit in front of my computer and stare at the blank screen. In my post, I mentioned some things that I was going to do to combat writer’s block. It would be terribly remiss of me not to include this book on that list.
Initially, I was skeptical as it is divided into twelve chapters with tasks/exercises to complete at the end of each chapter. I tend to shy away from any form of exercise be it aerobic, writing or otherwise. Plunging in, I knew my capacity for this sort of thing was about fourteen days. But here I am, heading into the 8th week of this 12 week course and hand on heart, I completed all of the assigned tasks so far.
But best of all, since May 1st, I have added another 40,000 words to my new work-in-progress and it is zipping right along. The excitement has been in the process; I never know from day to day where I am going to end up on my writing journey and I love the surprises that have developed because of that.
I have also managed to finish a short story I have been working on for the last two years. I feel much more productive and most important, the creativity is flowing again. There are two central tenets to this book that will unblock your creativity; they are surprisingly simple and easy to do.
If you are serious about your writing and your writing career, then this is a must have book. As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
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