Julia Cameron

I started this in early October, determined to stick to the weekly habits and exercises. The reality was mixed levels of success in terms of my tenacity and appreciation for Cameron's methods.

Her two cornerstones are daily morning pages and a weekly artist's date. I did the morning pages in the morning for exactly one week, but couldn't sustain getting up at 5:30am to do them (she doesn't suggest a time, but this was my only window before getting ready for work). I was just too tired and it didn't seem the right time for me to get the best out of the exercise. So for a few weeks I stuck to it religiously in the evenings, but to be quite honest I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be getting out of it. Whatever 'it' was, I wasn't feeling it. It also coincided with a very sad period for me, and I kept finding myself writing about that, which after a time wasn't what I wanted to be immersing myself in just before bedtime.

Probably up to around week 7 or 8 of the course I did many (but not all) of the exercises set for the week, and did find it particularly interesting to let my mind wander remembering things I used to enjoy doing but have stopped doing for no good reason, and things of interest which I've never tried. At times, though, particularly in the second half of the book, there seemed to be a bit of repetition around the theme of these, and some of them felt a bit 'cutesy' and not something I felt I'd benefit from doing. It was at this point that I felt the book was diverging from what I'd hoped to get out of it. Possibly more my issue than the book's, I hoped this book would help point me towards my real passion in life, but increasingly I got the sense that Cameron assumes you already know what your artistic talent is and that the point of the book is to help with creative blocks. My creative block is I can't get off the starting blocks and don't know if I even have any creative talent, not that a teacher when I was 7 critiqued me and negatively changed the path of my life forever.

But, I will give Cameron credit where it's due. Whilst I was religiously doing the exercises in the first few weeks of the course, I DID find myself becoming more interested in creative pursuits. I'd assumed that writing was the creative pursuit I wanted to develop when starting the book, but surprisingly (to me) I became less interested in writing and more interested in other artistic pursuits. I did some watercolour painting for the first time in decades, and a strange new interest in line drawing has emerged. I never knew it was something I was either interested in appreciating in others' work or that it was something I'd be interested in doing. So there must be something to Cameron's methods, as I don't think I'd have explored any of that without reading the book. I've also very quickly got out of the habit of doing these things in the last few weeks since stopping the evening pages and doing the exercises, so perhaps the key benefit of this book is that it's simply a habit that reminds you to take creative time out for yourself.

I'm not entirely sure why it has such a cult following. It's interesting at first, but I felt it goes over old ground after a time. Perhaps if you are already a fledgling film director / screenwriter / novelist / artist it gives you a kick up the backside, but I don't think it's necessarily the best book for someone who's actively trying to find their creativity.

3.5 stars - interesting, but a bit disappointing given the hype.… (mais)