Tag: the artists way

The Artist’s Way – Completed!

I’ve now finished the 12 weeks of the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This book was suggested to me by a performer friend over the summer. The book is laid out by week and while it’s a bit “hippie” for me, I stuck through it and I’m glad I did.

Let me start by saying, that I don’t think I’m this book’s target demographic. A lot of it feels like it’s trying to get people to step away from negative people who say you can’t do art for a job. I did that years ago, however it did encourage me to deal less with negative people and I’m a happier person because of that!

Did the book make me more creative?

Sort of. It’s given me some tools to get my ideas out a little bit faster, and while I play a lot, it’s encouraged me to play a lot more…and write a lot more.

I think anyone who commits to the book will get something out of it.

-Louie

The Artist’s Way – Week Two…

I’m still going through the book The Artist’s Way, which is a book about being more creative. It’s a 12 week program that has a lot of writing you need to do. I’m just starting week two, and I’ll say, I’m getting more than I expected to get out of it.

For me, the big thing is the morning writing you do each day. It’s just putting a pen to paper and writing for three pages. It’s a free writing scenario, you write whatever’s on your mind. I’ve had a couple of great ideas come out of the writing. It’s also giving me more depth as a person on and off stage as it’s making me explore some internal things that I might not really have looked at.

One of the ideas that came out of the daily writing is a trick with a jar of candy. The jar is full, then I produce candy and when you look back at the jar, it’s now half full. You then put the candy you just made appear back into the jar and it’s full again. The method is solid, and practical. I wouldn’t really have this trick it if it wasn’t for the daily morning writing. I still need to make the trick…but it wouldn’t exist on paper at least without the morning writing!

Anything that gets you to write is good.

The Artist’s Way…

A couple of weeks ago I was performing at a fair and another act mentioned she was going through a book called The Artist’s Way. This is a book about how to be more creative. It’s more than a book, it’s a series of things you need to do and it’s broken down by week. It doesn’t feel like a lot work, but it is. There’s a lot of writing that needs to happen. I’m not afraid of writing, so it’s not as daunting as it may be for me. If you’re someone who really hasn’t done much writing, it may be a little bit of a challenge.

I’m only on day three, and the book gives you things to do by the week, so I’m on week 1. The first week seems to be identifying the things that are holding you back, and while I did know some of the things that I’ve brought up in my writing, there were a couple of surprises as well.

This book has a pretty hippy vibe. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I guess that writing style may turn some people off. So far, I’m down with this book, but it’s a twelve week thing, so we’ll see how I feel by the end (assuming I make it to the end).