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biagabino's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
muito crente, papinho demais, desatualizado e descontextualizado, mas da pra aproveitar umas reflexões! e as paginas+os encontros vou levar pra vida
orliemcdonie's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
the book itself is a bit trite but the practices it encourages really are wonderful. I disagree with a lot of what Julia says but I'm glad I read it
thehancam's review
super interesting read, leaving unrated because I’ll come back and do the exercises
ladyk23's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.0
Initially I was quite excited to dive into The Artist’s Way - a book that had been sat on my book shelves for so long that I forgot I had it and bought it again (only second hand so it wasn’t expensive). I was inspired to actually start the journey by two factors: 1) it was January and I had no money, the nights were long and cold, and so committing to 12 weeks of TAW seemed like a wise way to spend my time in a way that wasn’t going to cost me anything. 2) An actress and spoken word poet I admire talked on her podcast about doing TAW and how great it was for her. Right, said I, I’m finally getting that book off the shelf and reading it. And for about 10 weeks I had a good momentum with it, I was doing my morning pages and artists dates and weekly check ins, but then around week 11 I just lost the will to carry on. I have, after about 2 additional months, crawled to finishing this book, but it’s safe to say I won’t be continuing with the morning pages. I might do the occasional artist’s date as I can see the benefit in it, I mean I can see the benefits in the morning pages too but who has time? The thing that lost me most I think was just how much Julia Cameron shoves God down the throats of the reader. Despite it saying on the book’s cover that it is a spiritual path to higher creativity, I just wasn’t expecting it to be THAT godly. It’s too much for this Agnostic woman to take. And so I’m afraid I would only recommend TAW if you are both spiritual/religious AND looking for ways to be more creative. If you’re atheist or agnostic and creative, chances are this book won’t be for you.
misscecily's review
3.0
When it and followed the advice/program 20 years ago, I found it helpful and enlightening. Curious if nowadays I might find it self indulgent and precious? Hm... I think I still have it so maybe I will reread.
kingabee's review
2.0
Given the praise by so many artists I like and admire I expected so much more from this book. However, once you go past the useful ideas of morning pages and artist dates, you just end up with a white privileged woman’s interpretation of monotheistic religion in a Judaeo-Christian vein with a thin veneer of 90s New Age and pop-psychology.
Even though she insists the book can be used by atheists as successfully (as long as they accept the existence of higher power which lol) I honestly don’t see how. The whole thing is modelled after the 12 step program which is problematic in itself but that’s a story for another time.
This was not for me because it felt like more than half the book talked about getting rid of the doubters and toxic people in your life. I genuinely don’t have such people in my life. All my friends and family are extremely supportive and believe in me more than I believe in myself and push me to put myself out there.
I am my own worst enemy and Cameron gets to that (around chapter 8 I believe) but by that point I’d read a chapter about how you won’t be a starving artist because god will give you money as god loves artists and also likes to reward people with money, so I’m pretty much done with this book at that point.
There is also a ton of bullshit about how universe will provide if you just want something and show up. This is all in vein of The Alchemist and The Secret and all other absurd nonsense, including Jung’s synchronicity.
In general this was so violently at odds with my whole worldview it was difficult to weed out the useful tidbits from it.
But I guess my worthwhile takeaway would be: show up, put yourself out there, make time and space to be creative and don’t marry that with “productivity”, because creativity needs rest and playtime to flourish. So in the end I gave this book merciful 2 stars.
Even though she insists the book can be used by atheists as successfully (as long as they accept the existence of higher power which lol) I honestly don’t see how. The whole thing is modelled after the 12 step program which is problematic in itself but that’s a story for another time.
This was not for me because it felt like more than half the book talked about getting rid of the doubters and toxic people in your life. I genuinely don’t have such people in my life. All my friends and family are extremely supportive and believe in me more than I believe in myself and push me to put myself out there.
I am my own worst enemy and Cameron gets to that (around chapter 8 I believe) but by that point I’d read a chapter about how you won’t be a starving artist because god will give you money as god loves artists and also likes to reward people with money, so I’m pretty much done with this book at that point.
There is also a ton of bullshit about how universe will provide if you just want something and show up. This is all in vein of The Alchemist and The Secret and all other absurd nonsense, including Jung’s synchronicity.
In general this was so violently at odds with my whole worldview it was difficult to weed out the useful tidbits from it.
But I guess my worthwhile takeaway would be: show up, put yourself out there, make time and space to be creative and don’t marry that with “productivity”, because creativity needs rest and playtime to flourish. So in the end I gave this book merciful 2 stars.