The Artist's Way – Julia Cameron

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Date read: 9/5/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

The definitive guide to discovering and developing your creative self. Cameron takes a true self-help approach with journaling invitations, activities, and exercises that help guide readers to tap back into their creative souls. And the invitations are actually helpful—this is coming from someone who ignores 90% of prompts in books. But these held real value. The new-age, recovery-style 12-step program likely alienates some readers, but if you’re willing to look past that there’s a lot to love about this book. And the message of channeling ourselves into more meaningful work is one we can never hear too many times.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Questioning previously held beliefs:
“Nothing dies harder than bad idea. And few ideas are worse than the ones we have about art.” Julia Cameron

“As you learn to recognize, nurture, and protect your inner artist, you will be able to move beyond pain and creative construction.” Julia Cameron

Creativity:
“What we play is life.” Louis Armstrong

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” Chekhov

“The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not in following laws already made.” Ferruccio Busoni

Relaxed concentration:
“A mind too active is no mind at all.” Theodore Roosevelt

“I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.” Brenda Ueland

It takes time:
“Nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small it takes time—we haven’t time—and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” Georgia O’Keeffe

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” Henry David Thoreau

“We learn by going / Where we have to go.” Theodore Roethke

Focus on your story:
“You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.” Anne-Wilson Schaef

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard.” May Sarton

“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.” Robert Louis Stevenson

“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.” Agnes De Mille

“Be really whole

And all things will come to you.” Lao-Tzu

Risks:
“The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.” Shakti Gawain

“Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.” Ovid

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.” Goethe

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.” Margaret Young

“There is the risk you cannot afford to take, and there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.” Peter Drucker

“Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.” Claude Bernard

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” André Gide

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be – Steven Pressfield

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be – by Steven Pressfield
Date read: 2/7/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

Similar to The War of Art, Pressfield continues his tried and true method of packing concise inspiration into a quick read. The main message of the book is about shifting your creative center of gravity from the superficial and fearful ego to the deep and fearless self. This requires committing for the long haul. Must read for any entrepreneur or artist trying to create something from nothing.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Show up:
“When I sit down to write in the morning, I literally have no expectations for myself or for the day’s work. My only goal is to put in three or four hours with my fingers punching the keys. I don’t judge myself on quality. I don’t hold myself accountable for quantity. The only questions I ask are, Did I show up? Did I try my best?” SP

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” Goethe

“Here’s my frame of mind as I sit down to work: This is the day. There is no other day. This is the day. In other words, I release every thought that smacks of, ‘Maybe we can do this some other time.’ There is no other time.” SP

“Putting our ass where our heart wants to be is the equivalent of Alexander charging into the breach at the Granicus River or at the Issus or Gaugamela. We too are risking it all. We too hold nothing back. We too have hurled ourselves headlong into the unknown.” SP

Location matters:
You must leave the place where you live and move to the hub of the creative world where your dreams are most likely to come true. There’s no substitute for being in the heart of the action. Ernest Hemingway moved to Paris. Bob Dylan moved to Greenwich Village. 

Commitment:
“The positive face of commitment is self-empowerment. The very act of putting our ass where our heart wants to be makes a profound impression, not just on those we wish to work with or be mentored by, but on ourselves.” SP

“In myth and legend, when the hero commits to an intention by taking bold action, he enacts a Cosmic Overthrow. He ‘crosses the threshold.’ Like Luke Skywalker heading with Obi Wan Kenobi for Mos Eisley spaceport or Dorothy being swept away from Kansas by a cyclone, the hero moves from the Ordinary World to the Extraordinary World. She has gone from the Known to the Unknown.” SP

“The universe responds to the hero or heroine who takes action and commits. It responds positively. It comes to the hero’s aid.” SP

Perseverance:
“For writers and artists, the ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent.” SP

“Resistance is always strongest at the finish.” SP

“Killer instinct is not negative when we use it to finish off a book, a screenplay, or any creative project that is fighting us and resisting us to the bitter end. Steel yourself and put that sucker out of its misery.” SP

Visualization:
“What fascinates me about the character of Alexander the Great is that he seemed to see the future with such clarity and such intensity as to make it virtually impossible that it would not come true—and that he would be the one to make it so. That’s you and me at the inception of any creative project. The book / screenplay / nonprofit / start-up already exists in the Other World. Your job and mine is to bring it forth in this one.” SP