, author
, artist
, poet
, playwright
, novelist, filmmaker, composer
, and journalist
. She is perhaps most famous for her book The Artist's Way
(1992). She also has written many other non-fiction works, short stories, and essays as well as novels, plays, musicals, and screenplays.
Julia Cameron was born and raised in a Chicago suburb, and grew up Catholic
. She started college at Georgetown University
, then transferred to Fordham
. She started her journalism
career at the Washington Post, then moved on to Rolling Stone
.
She met Martin Scorsese
when interviewing him for Rolling Stone.
Nothing dies harder than a bad idea. And few ideas are worse than the ones we have about art.
Anger is meant to be acted on. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us.
I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.
Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.
Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try again.
What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.
Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down.
Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission. The admitting is often very difficult.
Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: "And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!" It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary.
All too often too often we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.
:The Right to Write : An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life (Tarcher, 1998; ISBN 1-58542-009-3)