No one knows how to be creative better than Julia Cameron. Her book, The Artist's Way, is the ultimate and seminal text on how to be a working artist and a better, happier, more successful person. Having studied artists for decades, Cameron knows all there is to know about finding a way to break through your blocks and make more and better art. She is the creativity guru.
The Artist's Way first came out over 25 years ago (how is that even possible? on the one hand, it feels like this book has been around forever, and on the other hand, the advice is just as fresh as the first time I read it in 1996), and it's just as powerful in today's super-connected world as it was back then.
Cameron offers exercises to quiet the outside world and help artists reconnect with themselves. For the artist who had been wounded, she offers healing for those scars. For the artist who is stressed, she offers peace from the excess noise. And maybe most important, for the artist who had to grow up too quickly, she offers play to recharge and renew. The tools she utilizes-the morning pages, the weekly exercises, the artist's dates, the walks in nature--all work together to inspire, mend, invigorate, and move the artist back into the work and back into joy.
While The Artist's Way was originally written with blocked artists in mind, I don't know any artist who couldn't benefit from a course like this every once in awhile. It helps you focus on your goals while dreaming about possibilities. You can dive deep and get into all the exercises, or you can just read it to check in, to find areas where you feel stuck or burned out and find paths back to wholeness and creating.
Honestly, I don't believe in many self-help books, but this is one that really does fulfill its promises. Twenty-five years old but just as life-changing as the day it first hit bookstore shelves, The Artist's Way is a must have for all artists wanting to make their best art and live their best life. Must. Have. The Artist's Way.