Perfectionism is "the murderer of all things good" she says. Equally, we should allow, or even embrace, our mistakes. "Creativity will always provoke your fear," says Gilbert, who has come to terms with her own artistic anxiety by "talking to it in a friendly way… I acknowledge its importance and I invite it along". Their main problem, she concluded, is "always and only fear – tumbling piles of fear". She was inspired to write it having met so many people who complained they were creatively blocked. Gilbert explored creativity in her 2015 book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. The writer Elizabeth Gilbert acknowledges Cameron's influence on her, saying "without the Artist's Way there would have been no Eat Pray Love", referring to her 2006 memoir that has sold 12 million copies. They were married (albeit briefly), and had a daughter, Domenica, now 46, a film director who has faithfully written "morning pages" since her mother came up with the idea. It is no coincidence the Artist's Way is a 12-week system of "recovery", in the same way Alcoholics Anonymous follows a 12-step programme of recovery, and also addresses a spiritual lack.Ĭameron tells how she was "messaged" in her 20s, on being sent by Playboy to interview the then-budding film director Martin Scorsese over lunch: "I heard a voice say: 'This is the man you're going to marry.' I thought – does he know this?" He soon did. Without sobriety, she says, she would have had to kiss goodbye to creativity. Intuition and "guidance" which "comes from inside" have helped her stay sober since she was 29, following battles with alcohol she has been candid about. "People were always asking me how do I continue to be so prolific, and my answer is, I listen – and I 'hear' what I should be doing next." The author's own listening powers have become more attuned since relocating 10 years ago from the "honking, sirens and whistles" of Manhattan to a mountain village above Santa Fe where "it's so quiet, I can hear a truck rumbling on the road a quarter of a mile away". The book focuses on listening – to others, yourself, the environment, your ancestors, silence. "They are non-negotiable." "The artist date" is her second tool a weekly experience to thrill, that "woos your inner artist", such as a visit to the zoo or buying crayons.Ĭameron's new book, The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention, revisits those two tools, and adds walking "to induce 'aha' moments of insight". The pages "develop our creativity and encourage belief in our potential," she says. Her "bedrock of creative recovery" prescription is to write "morning pages" – three pages of stream-of-consciousness longhand writing accomplished on rising, "when our rational, self-editing mind gets out of the way of intuitive inclination". "Many blocked people are very powerful and creative personalities who have been made to feel guilty about their own strengths and gifts," she says. And while she began life as a scriptwriter – and continues to write novels, poetry and songs – it has become her life's work to teach the many thousands from all creative fields who come to her artistically hampered by the demons of self-doubt and self-criticism, or claiming lack of time or talent. For Cameron, there is no "creative elite" we are all creative, she says. It is subtitled A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity because, she tells BBC Culture, "creativity is, to my eye, a spiritual experience". Life is energy – pure creative energy," is the first of 10 basic principles to be found in Julia Cameron's bestselling creative guide, The Artist's Way. "Creativity is the natural order of life. Three ideas for how to live your best life But the word – which derives from the Latin creare, to make – is most often associated with the arts and culture, and is believed to have first appeared in the 14th-Century literary work, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. We know creativity is alive in all fields of life, from medicine to business and agriculture. While advertising supremo David Ogilvy came at it from a business perspective: "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative". "Creativity is intelligence having fun," is a phrase often attributed to Einstein. Creativity, according to Maya Angelou, is a bottomless pit: "The more you use it, the more you have," said the novelist.
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