People have told me about this book, The Artist's Way. I never really bought into it. After all, I am a working "artist".
I bought it recently and have slowly been working through it. There's a lot of good creative sense in it. It reminds me in some ways of the Celebrate Recovery program, set up to help people recover from addiction. Julia Cameron presents it as a program to help unblock our creativity, revealing the artist in us all.
She has two main "weapons" in that task. Both of which have been touched on in different ways in the writing groups before, but it's good to have them codified.
The first one is the Writer's Date - taking yourself for a day out somewhere you haven't been before. (How many times have I suggested visiting various exhibitions?)
The second is the Morning Pages. She suggests starting the day off by sitting down and writing three pages of... whatever. Just... whatever.
I've been trying this, and it's more difficult than it seems. But, rest assured, whatever excuse you or I can come up with Ms Cameron has heard before.
I could see so much good in this before I even started. It's a "mind-dump" in one way, getting rid of the clutter in your head. It's also a chance to look at your thoughts, perhaps go off on some tangents, writing beyond the initial ideas and coming up with new one. (I've talked in the past about writing down the first responses to a prompt - then scoring through them and going further.)
I'm just at the beginning of this. It will be a new discipline for me. There will probably be more to say about it further along. But, I thought I'd see if any of you artists fancied joining in (if you haven't already).
Who's up for a little creative adventure, into lands hitherto unexplored?
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