The Artist's Way

Sandra Scofield’s The Scene Book Introduction(and good riddance Julia Cameron) We’re saying goodbye to The Artist’s Way — and honestly, good riddance. We’re recapping our favorite quotes, the insights that actually landed, and the many, many reasons this was the most frustrating craft book we’ve covered on this show. Would we recommend it? Hard no....

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith We finally finished The Artist’s Way—Julia Cameron’s self-help bible for unlocking your creative potential. Spoiler: our potential remains firmly locked. Was it a lack of faith? Of confidence? Of cognitive dissonance? All we know for sure: the Morning Pages did not save us. But...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 10: Recovering a Sense of Self Protection Week 10 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way finally tackles the elephant in every writer’s room: creative block. And Cameron’s fix isn’t the standard “butt in chair, write daily” gospel (morning pages notwithstanding). No, she goes bigger, blaming workaholism, distraction, fame-...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 9: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy If you listen to this podcast, you probably dream of becoming a successful writer. But what happens when you actually get there—and find yourself flailing and blocked anyway? Sounds like a best-selling-author problem, the kind that shouldn’t have a place in Julia Cameron’s book,...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion What causes writer’s block? According to Julia Cameron, it’s not laziness—it’s fear. This week’s chapter of The Artist’s Way goes deep on identifying what keeps writers from writing, even if the solutions are a little thin on the ground. Cameron argues that blocked writers...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection A funny thing happened while we were reading the latest chapter of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. She actually had some good advice. That line about how making art is less about “thinking it up than getting it down” that’s simple, but completely true....

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength Making art can hurt — even when you’re fully bought into The Artist’s Way. This week Cameron tackles criticism and toxic teachers, and we suspect she’s drawing from some personal experience. Her descriptions of creative wounds ring painfully true; her solutions, less so. We...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance The starving artist isn’t a cliché for nothing — we’ve long assumed that art requires sacrifice, usually financial. But according to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, a little pampering is actually good for the artist’s soul. And while we won’t disagree that small luxuries...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Five: Recovering A Sense of Possibility What gives? We hate this book but love talking about it. Week 5 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way returns to her insistence that belief in a Great Creator unlocks opportunities and success—which we’re still not buying. But it does spark a conversation about...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Four: Recovering A Sense of Integrity Do Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages work? Specifically, do they work for us? We begin this podcast by discussing our success following the advice in her book The Artist Way to write three pages of stream of conscious thoughts every morning. Let’s say our results...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Three: Recovering a Sense of Power Should you use anger to fuel your writing? Do you experience shame while creating art? Have you been keeping up with your artist pages? Week 3 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way poses these questions with clear answers in mind—but we’re not convinced. In...

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Two: Recovering a Sense of Identity We’re on Week 2 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, shifting from internal creative obstacles to external ones—namely our friends and family.  We dig into Cameron’s concepts of “poisonous playmates” and “crazymakers”: how to identify them (spoiler: they’re not...