Deciding to work through The Artist’s Way for a fifth time. Join me?

I was recently interviewed over on Creative Voyage about how my life changed after reading Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. It was good to be reminded just what a huge influence the book had on me, and has made me pick up my rather tatty copy of the book again with the intension of working through the twelve week course for a fifth time.

Possibly the best birthday gift ever

I was given the book by a friend about twenty years ago. I remember looking at and loving the cover (it wasn’t the current cover but rather a picture of a bright rainbow coloured handprint dripping with paint), reading through the first few pages and thinking that the book probably wasn’t for me.

The book found its way to my bedroom bookshelf and sat there for a number of years until I was diagnosed with ME/CFS and had become too ill to work. Illness made me begin to reassess my life and question paths I’d taken (and not taken).

Embracing jealousy and diving into the book

For a while I’d been thinking about how jealous I’d been of my school friends who’d studied art and gone on to art college. (I’d failed my O’Level art exam at sixteen and let go of any dreams of being a creative person when I saw my result).

The bright blue spine of The Artist’s Way kept catching my eye and I eventually picked it up. One of the first things I read as I flicked through the book was that Julia Cameron believed that jealousy was an indicator of the things we secretly wanted to be doing. Maybe this book was for me after all!

A very long journey (and one that’s not over yet!)

Those first (very uncomfortable) feelings of jealousy have taken me a very long way and been turned into something far more positive.

I’ve worked through the book four times over the last decade and a half. Each time I discover something new and feel like I take a new creative leap.

Time to work through the book for a fifth time

Now feels like a good time to work through the book a fifth time, revisit the exercises, re-embrace the tools of writing Morning Pages and going on Artist’s Dates (and even committing to the dreaded media deprivation week in Chapter Four!).

Join me?

If you’re a member of Sustainably Creative and would like to join me and some other members to work through the book together then you’d be most welcome. I’m planning to begin in the first week of February and will be setting up a dedicated chatroom in the members’ forum (new members are most welcome too of course!).

Julia Cameron on jealousy

If, like I was, you’re feeling jealous of other people’s creative skills and successes then this little interview with Julia might reassure you that that’s okay (and even a good thing!).

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If you’d like to work through The Artist’s Way with other Sustainably Creative members then pop over to the members’ forum and let Michael know in this discussion. He’ll be setting up a dedicated chatroom soon and will let you know details of that, plus when he’ll be starting working through the book via email.

If you’re not yet a member, but would like to join in and work through the book too, then you can find out about becoming a member here.