The Artist

In this online exclusive to our profile of bestselling creativity guru Julia Cameron—as featured in the July/August 2011 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine—we take a glimpse into Cameron’s signature methods of rediscovering your creativity, as described in her seminal work, The Artist’s Way.

Julia Cameron’s most lauded work, The Artist’s Way, has sold more than 2 million copies since its debut in 1992, and launched projects by—or unblocked—everyone from writers to painters. A 12-week program, it’s designed to help anyone channel their creativity—something Cameron believes every human has, and not merely a select, elite few.

The book uses two basic tools to help readers do this:

Morning Pages: A mandatory routine comprised of three pages of daily longhand stream-of-consciousness writing—but writing that isn’t meant to be writing. Instead, it’s anything and everything, an outpouring that only the writer reads. You get out what you need to so you can tap into your creativity. The pages are designed to help writers escape their internal censors. Without rules or any goal to the morning pages, the censor has no role, and thus theoretically disappears.

Artist Dates: A few hours every week set aside to water and reacquaint yourself with the artist within you. A writer goes out on an excursion, alone, anywhere from a museum to a mountaintop. You then listen to what your inner artist says about the trip.

So what’s the point of the two tools? As Cameron writes in the book, “Doing your Morning Pages, you are sending—notifying yourself and the universe of your dreams, dissatisfactions, hopes. Doing your Artist Date, you are receiving—opening yourself to insight, inspiration, guidance.”

For a more in-depth look at both tools, visit theartistsway.com.