Reddit reviews The Artist's Way: 25th Anniversary Edition

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

It's putting me on a path that may not align with the RE of FIRE, but is slowly stepping me towards things I enjoy. Do I really enjoy being a hardware engineer in industry? No. Can I use the tenets of FIRE to manage my money to allow for a more flexible and enriching life? Yes! And I'm mid-plan on executing that change which was crafted d during the 12 weeks of working through this book.

EDIT: I also did the Marie Kondo tidying during this stage so that helped too!

Art is something everyone loves, but artists are sometimes not held in the highest esteem due to eccentricities/lazy dispositions/delusions of grandeur/ etc. Some of the criticism is warranted and some of it isn't, but one thing I have come to realize it that being an artist is one of the hardest jobs around unless you are one of the 1/1,000,000 that just has that undeniable raw talent combined with some je ne sais quoi that people just gravitate towards and find irresistible.

For the rest of us, cultivation of our inner artist, practice, studying the past, learning from mistakes, and being honest with ourselves is important if we ever hope to progress. There are so many variables that play into this: what kind of art do you make? Is it for profit? Is it for self expression?

To make good art, you gotta become the artist that makes the art you love. You've probably heard the quote from Michelangelo, "I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free." in regards to his piece David, becoming the artist you are meant to be is a similar process. Sometimes it is about freeing yourself, finding yourself.

As a writer and a fashion designer, I sought education, I taught myself, I worked hard and practiced, I sought the advice of others...and I still wasn't able to properly express myself. At any moment, I felt like my heart could burst, nothing i did quenched my artistic thirst. Nothing was good enough.

I realized that my process was all wrong and that if an artists relies solely on their completed works, they will never find happiness. Something is always going to be left unsaid, no piece will every be finished perfectly, something to make it better will always be thought of later.

This book helped me tremendously r/https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252

It is a book that can teach you many things in regards to becoming the artist you want to be. It has themes that aren't for everyone (i'm not spiritual, and it does take it there at times) but they aren't overbearing and it is a little self-help-y. But anyway, I still recommend it as a tool to embracing your own work and growing as an artist. It is a 12 week program and has exercises to do and things like that.

It is possible to do alone. I've been to (court mandated) AA and NA and I simply cannot stand it. One sob story or wild tale of drunken adventure after another, the same stories week after week...everyone with tears in their eyes, a good 40% of people in there saying they are sober when the reality is that they have just switched up to something else (weed or pills generally). All the God and Jesus bullshit. I hate everything about it, even the camaraderie/people pretending to care about you

I wanted to become sober and I have. books like these X † X help me put things into perspective and realize that there is much more that I want to do in life than get home and get wasted and then feel shitty the entire next day.

I was a monster...I'd do any drug under the sun, I'd drink a fifth of vodka every night and I was able to stop with my own willpower eventually

It is a great question, and something almost everyone struggles with. I'd suggest working on creativity as a skill, separate from your job, and it let organically work its way back into the office.

There is has been a ton written in the last decade about how the creativity that almost every child has is drained out. It may be the way our education works, our society, or just a byproduct of being an adult and becoming aware of right and wrong, possible and impossible, true and false. There are tons of approaches to tapping back into that childlike sense of creativity and wonder, some more psychological, some more spiritual. I'd just look and see what suits you. But look at stuff like:

https://zenhabits.net/how-to-be-childlike/

https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/

https://www.amazon.com/Out-Box-Ideas-Thinking-Creatively/dp/1844834115

https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252/

Two book recommendations!
the artists way

And
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

I suggest you work your way through this book, completing all the exercises one or two a day: The Artist’s Way. Take her advice and free-write every morning or at some convenient time when you don’t have to think about your structured work or studies. It’s very freeing (I am not generally a person who requires a guide but this one is seriously helpful):

https://www.amazon.ca/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252

The other books that really got me standing up straight are Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Stephen King’s On Writing.

The absolute best and most inspiring book on writing I’ve ever read - and one that always kick starts me when I feel my writing is ‘wooden’ - is Brenda Euland’s If You Want To Write. Hands down, it’s the best book.

We all need a little inspiration from time to time to drag us from the doldrums.

Happy birthday!!! The Artist’s Way makes me happiest because it reminds me that as long as I’m trying to become an artist, I will be one. It also reminds me that there are others who face the same blocks I do. :)

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Mitch Hedberg once said:

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“I saw a wino eating grapes.

I told him he had to wait.”

The exhaustion and drainage you feel is the proof - the receipt, as it were - of the strength you have at your command.

If you need to do anything, you need to find a means of recharging that strength without having to worry about the ugliness submerging you while you rest & recuperate. At the risk of sounding trite, Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way has a laundry-list of methods of recharging one's creative batteries, most if not all of which are transferrable skills when it comes to recharging one's mental health. Found this of interest too.

Fingers crossed in your favour...

I just started doing The Artist's Way program. https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536667414&sr=8-1&keywords=the+artists%27+way

It's for blocked writers, to get past your inner critic. It's a 12 week program, with assignments each week. And the author is in long term recovery, so a lot of the language is similar to recovery (and she talks about "recovering" your creativity.)

I'm enjoying it, and It has helped me figure out a bunch of stuff I had been stuck on with my own writing.

Get the book The Artist's Way and do that whole program. It's life changing.

https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252