Good Life Project - Julia Cameron | Living the Artist’s Way [Best Of]

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

In 1992, after years of teaching workshops on creative unblocking, Julia Cameron self-published The Artist's Way, which became a global phenomenon that sold millions of copies, was translated into 40 languages, and anchors companion workshops that have brought creativity into the mainstream conversation. Along the way, Julia has authored more than 40 books, plays and screenplays, written for Rolling Stone, The Washington Post and The New York Times, and collaborated with legends of television and movies, including Martin Scorsese, who would, for a time, become her partner in life as well. A few years back, I had a great opportunity to sit down with Julia in her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a beautifully honest and open, deep-dive conversation that ranged from her upbringing to her entrée into the writing life, her years-long struggle with addiction and awakening from it, her time in Hollywood, swept up in the world of movies, and her fierce commitment to her craft and to helping others find their creative voices and let them out. So excited to share this Best Of conversation with you.You can find Julia at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with Chase Jarvis about the creative calling.My new book Sparked.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So in 1992, after years of teaching workshops on creative unblocking, Julia Cameron self-published a book called The Artist's Way, which has become this global phenomenon selling millions and millions of copies. It's been translated into 40 languages and anchors companion workshops that have brought creativity to the mainstream conversation. And along the way, Julia, she's authored more than 40 books, plays, and screenplays. She's written for Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, New York Times, and collaborated with legends of television and movies, including Martin Scorsese, who would for a time become her partner in life as well.

A few years back, I had the opportunity to sit down with Julia in her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico for this beautifully honest and open deep dive conversation that ranged from her upbringing to her entree into the writing life, her years long struggle with addiction and awakening from it, her time in Hollywood swept up in the world of movies, and her fierce commitment to her craft and to helping others find their creative voices and let them out. So excited to share this best of conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. We'll be right back. They've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not.

Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The sound is a little bit different. We're actually recording this out in Santa Fe. I'm sitting across from Julia Cameron in her living room with it around a little small table. Over to the left is this stunning picture window looking out at the mountains,

which is what you wake up to every day and see. Yes. This is a relatively recent reality for you, though. So let's kind of take a big step back in time and trace a little bit of your story and touch down in some moments along the way and then kind of come more recent and talk about some of your work. You're originally just from outside of Chicago. Yes, I grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, home of Adlai Stevenson. Oh, no kidding. And I once jumped my pony over a fence and landed on one of his lambs. There's got to be more to that story. So he was not pleased. What was the town like around then? Because this was, what, about 45 minutes, an hour outside of Chicago?

Yes, and the town was small, and it was not yet a commuter town to Chicago, so people lived there and worked there. And my father commuted to Chicago, and he was an early bird. What did he do? He was an advertising copywriter. So growing up, did you have conversations with him about what he did? Was it a curiosity at all for you or not so much? Well, he and my mother were both writers. And we all grew up with writing as a template and power of example. He loved his work. And my mother had a master's degree in English.

And she loved to teach. So we had seven children all being mentored and encouraged in our creativity. They never said, oh, sweetheart, don't you think you might need something to fall back on? We never heard that. They always assumed we would do well living by our wits. Seven kids. Where were you in that? I was the second to the oldest girl. There were five girls and two boys. Wow. What was it like growing up in a family like that? at a table after school with art supplies. And we would do the project of the time. So if it was Halloween, we were drawing pumpkins. If it was Christmas, we were making snowflakes.

And we had a lot of encouragement. My parents would hang the, quote, good art up, and we all got a shot at having good art. Yeah, was there competition for who got hung up on any given week? Not really, You know, my parents were very persuasive in talking about share and share alike. And so we never had a sense of, oh my God, I've got to beat out Connie. Instead, it was Julie and Connie are both making art. So I feel like I grew up in an atmosphere that was conducive to creativity. Yeah. I'm curious, did you feel, so this would have been 50s and 60s. Did you feel like that, maybe not at the moment, but even reflecting back,

like that kind of atmosphere was different, especially for that time? Or do you feel like that was sort of common? Like that was how your friends were growing up and that was just the common ethos? Well, we were very popular. And our friends would come over to the house and make art with us. So you were the house where everyone came and created? Yes. And my mother was a great baker. Extra incentive. So we were the house where everyone was creative and everyone got cookies. That sounds like the house to be at. Yes That sounds like the house to be at.

Yes, it was the house to be at. Yeah. When, if you can recall, do you feel like you started to experience the creative life as a potential way to actually devote yourself, as a potential way to go out into the world and make this your quote thing? Sixth grade. Really? What happened? I had a boy named Peter Mundy who was very glamorous to me. He was Southern. He moved to Illinois from Missouri he had hair the color of Tupelo honey he had a whispering sort of seductive soft voice and I wanted him to be my boyfriend

I wanted desperately for him to love me so I started writing short stories and sliding them over onto his desk and And what happened was that he fell in love with Peggy Conroy, but I fell in love with writing. So that was the most, and it never left? No, it never left. I was very lucky in high school. I had a nun named Sister Mary Julia Clare, BVM. And she encouraged my writing and gave me a column in the local newspaper. And so I was encouraged to believe that what I had to say was special. Did you believe that at that point?

I think I must have. what I had to say was special. Did you believe that at that point? I think I must have. I think I believed that putting words to the page was a special knack, and that I had the knack, and that I was very lucky. And when I went to college, I had a professor named Roger Sleike and another professor named Roland Flint, and they encouraged me as a writer. They encouraged my poetry. They encouraged me to believe

that what I was writing deserved to be published. And so I sort of grew up and grew into a belief in myself. So you went to Georgetown and then Fordham, is that right? I went to Georgetown, and then my junior year I spent in the Bronx at Fordham. And Fordham didn't have the reputation that Georgetown did, but it was a much better school. So I went to Fordham and spent a year getting straight A's and then I went back to Georgetown and said now will you let me graduate as a woman

tell me more about that well Georgetown was predominantly a boys school and when I said I wanted to be a writer they said oh but you're going to be a wife. And men are writers. So they were very discouraging, and I was very determined.

And I started writing political diatribes, I guess, against the administration. And they were only too glad to have me graduate. To shuttle you along. Yes. So that's interesting. So you, it sounds like you had a few very direct mentors or teachers who strongly encouraged this side of you, but the, the bigger sort of administrative ethos was no, this isn't actually right. Not just for you, but for women in general. Yes. Um, and you actually felt the need to need to literally go to another school

and then come back almost as a mechanism to help demonstrate, like, no, this is right. Well, I went to Georgetown as an Italian major. Okay. And when I got there, I found out the whole Italian department had been hired away by Middlebury. So then I said, well, maybe I should be an English major. And that's when they said, oh, no, dear, men are English majors.

Got it. So it was almost like it was okay for you to take classes in that area to actually make that your major. That's where things became more of a challenge. Yes. Very sticky. encouraging the writing side of you. I'm curious whether you, at that time, had conversations with them about what was actually going on and how they felt sort of being caught in the middle to a certain extent. No. We didn't talk about it.

They just made me assignments. And Julie, you might want to... I was called Julie then. Julie, you might want to try and write a poem about X. Or Julie, don't you think that you have a better understanding of Jane Austen than some of the men in the class? And they were encouraging. And they didn't express anger at the state of affairs.

They just accepted it and pointed a way out. So it was sort of encouraging your individual exploration and skills and abilities and development of your creative capacity, while at the same time almost saying, let's get you through this so that you can go out into the world and begin to actually do it more. Yes. Okay, so i can't let drop where does julie become julia and why oh all right i was julie growing up and then when i started writing for publication i thought, Julie doesn't sound very persuasive or dignified, and Julia sounds better. So I became Julia Cameron Ryder. Ah, so it was a professional decision. Yes. Interesting. So what, leaving Georgetown then, I know at some point you end up at Washington Post.

Was that immediately after, or were there steps in the middle? There were no steps in the middle. I went home briefly to help my family. I came back to Washington, and a boy that I went to high school with called me up and said, would you like to work at the Washington Post? And I said, no, I'm a short story writer, not a journalist. And he said, well, they pay $67 a week. And so on the basis of that was how much money I needed I said okay I'll try it and what did you start out doing there then? I was a letter opener

I was somebody who sorted mail and we were called copy aides and our job was to support the writers. And I failed miserably at it. I had a night where the editor-in-chief came by and said, Julie, you look depressed. And I said, well, I just typed tomorrow's section and it stinks. And he said, well, if you think you can do better, feel free. And then he went to dinner. And while he was at

dinner, I wrote my first piece of journalism. And he came back and he read it and he said, oh, evidently I owe you an apology. We'll be running this on Sunday. So I had lucked into another mentor. And I began writing for the Post. And, you know, you couldn't tell that I wasn't a reporter because the byline just said Julia Cameron. It didn't say Julia Cameron, copy aid, lowly servant. Well, and at that point, I mean, if you're writing

and you're being published in the paper, what was it like for you, if you recall, when he came back and you had just rewritten this piece and you showed it to him? Did you actually have an expectation that he would legitimately consider it? And then once he said, no, we're running this, what did that feel like to you, that first moment? It was terrific. And it was expected, because I had had the experience with my mentors of writing pieces and having them say, oh, this is very good, Julie. So I was expecting, oh, this is very good, Julie.

And it was true that the section that I had typed for the next day did stink. So you start, and that effectively becomes your entree into, quote, journalism, into writing for this legendary paper. Yes, I wrote for them, and I had a good time writing for them. And then I got a phone call from Rolling Stone. They had been reading me in the post, and they said, would you like to write for us? And of course, it was Rolling Stone. So of course, I said, yes. And this would have been early 70s at that point?

Yes. Okay. So Rolling Stone is also kind of in the, I mean, I wouldn't say heyday, but they were a force. It was their heyday. Yeah. It was Hunter Thompson. It was Joe Esterhaus.

Yeah, I mean, it was an incredible lineup. Yes. What was it like stepping into that? Well, my first assignment from them was to write about E. Howard Hunt's children. And they said, would you do this? And I said, no, it's prying. And they said, well, would you try? And I borrowed a car from a Washington Post reporter

and drove out to the suburbs where the children were living largely unsupervised. And I said, I'm from Rolling Stone. Would you like to talk to me? And of course, Rolling Stone was magic to them. The boy, St. John Hunt, had a band. And so it was just right up their alley. And they were like, we'd love to talk to you. So they did. And that piece became famous. And it opened a lot of doors for me. At that time, were you still writing for Washington Post? Or was it you had transitioned completely to Rolling Stone? I transitioned completely.

Right. And also, I guess the nature of the pieces that you were writing changed as well. Yes, I think for the post, I was writing style pieces, lifestyle pieces. And for Rolling Stone, I was writing serious journalism. Yeah. Did that change the way that you went about what you were doing? Or did it change the way you felt about who you were and what your ultimate job was? That's a couple of questions. Yeah, it is. It changed the way I viewed myself. I had a compliment from a writer named Nora Afran.

And she said, you write the best leads in the country. And I thought, oh, maybe I can take this seriously. Yeah. That's, I mean, powerful words from a powerful writer. Right. swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,

iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. At that time, if we zoom the lens out, this is your professional devotion. What's happening sort of in the bigger picture of your life?

Not much. My life was my work. My writing was my path. I found myself not understanding the goals of some of my peers. And they were having legitimate goals like, I'm going to fall in love, I'm going to get married, I'm going to have children. And I thought, I'm going to write. Yeah. How did you reconcile that, or did you just leave it out there? Well, I found myself gravitating toward other people who were also as committed to writing as I was. And one of them was Hunter Thompson.

And he said to me once, Julia, the secret to good journalism is good notes. And I always remembered that and strove to take good notes. Yeah. And it sounds like you very much did stand in this at that point. You stood in that identity as a journalist. Like this is which, I mean, it's interesting to me because I sometimes wonder what is the difference between somebody who is a quote writer or writes lifestyle pieces or editorial or books and a journalist. And at least from my lens, it feels like so much of it is a real understanding of skill

set of information acquisition, discovery. Well, I was a snob. Tell me more. I didn't want to identify as a journalist. Really? Why? Because I had been writing short stories and I considered those a higher art form. So I was reluctant.

I was a reluctant journalist. Even though I began to have success there and be encouraged there, I found myself feeling like it was selling out. And I guess if you look at Hunter Thompson, right? Known for really both, the journalism but also the story side. So you're developing this career surrounded by an astonishing cast at Rolling Stone. How long were you actually at Rolling Stone for? Well, I didn't officially write for them. Okay.

They would call me every so often, and it lasted a couple of years until I married Martin Scorsese. And then they said, if you want to write for us again, get divorced. The belief was I would be unduly influenced by my husband's views. And I was insulted. And I thought, I certainly can hold my own. And they were firm. And when I did get divorced, they said, oh, goody, you can write for us again. So they were very sexist. Yeah, I mean, when you say influenced by his views, tell me more about what you mean by that. Well, they were assigning me movie pieces.

Okay. And they were feeling like I would be unduly influenced by Martin's perceptions of things. So they're saying you don't have, effectively, the ability to have your own point of view, independent. That's right. So much so that they didn't trust you to continue to write. That's right. I think I know the answer't trust you to continue to write. That's right. I think I know the answer to this, but how does that land with you?

How does that make you feel? Well, I was aggravated. I was frustrated. I was incensed. And I looked down on them for looking down on me. So when that marriage ends, I guess it was about a year, year and a half later, and they come back to you and say, okay, we're good now. What's your response at that point? I needed a job.

Yeah. So I went back to them. Right. So it's all kind of like reality kicks job. Yeah. So I went back to them. Right. So it's all kind of like reality kicks in. Right. And I guess part of the reason, you know, that you need a job at the same time is in that intervening year,

you not only get married, but you have a child. Right. So all of a sudden, you find yourself now a single mom. Yes, with a need to support my daughter. Yeah. And that's the amplified reality that we're talking about. Well, it was an amplified reality.

It was a rude shock. You know, I went from being able to travel, being able to be on sets, to suddenly being more homebound. And I started writing for women's magazines, Mademoiselle, Vogue, Glamour, and I began to write lifestyle essays for them. And I want to say their assignment saved my life.

How so? Money. Yeah. So when you step back in and you're starting to write those pieces, I know you've also written very openly that, and tell me if I have the timing right here, that around that same window, you had, I mean, you started, you were drinking, you were certainly around people where there seemed to be a very public association with being able to create on a high level and some form of intoxication or addiction and that became up to a certain extent a part of your life as well not to a certain extent to a great extent i started drinking when i was 19 which was maybe a little late. And I found myself blacking out. And I thought blackouts were what you did

and your friends told you about. And I drank for 10 years. And the Rolling Stone years were drinking years and cocaine years. And I realized that using intoxicants wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go. So it was largely ambition that skidded me to a halt. And I found myself thinking, I don't know if I can write without scotch, as if the scotch itself were doing the writing. And I luckily discovered that I could not only write, but write more freely.

Yeah. Was there, I mean, it sounds like you were concerned, you know, at this point, you're supporting yourself, you're supporting your daughter by writing. And if part of your questioning is, will I still be able to write on a level that lets me not just express myself, but support us when I'm sober, that's heavy. It was heavy. It was a dark time. Yeah. It was a dark time. Yeah. It was a dark time. Was there... I'm always curious when you make an abrupt left turn with something around addiction or something around substance,

very often there's a moment. There's either a happening or a reckoning or an awakening. I'm curious with you, I mean, you said you sort of, you came to this realization. Was it a gradual emergence for you, or was there something that happened, or was there a moment or a day or an incident? Well, what happened was I stayed out all night one night

and left my daughter with a babysitter. And then I thought, my God, I'm an unfit mother. And that woke me up. And I got help. So how quickly did you realize yeah you said that you realize that you are not just an equally good but better writer when you're clean when you're sober did you awaken to that pretty quickly pretty immediately well i was lucky i had some friends who had gotten sober ahead of me. And they said, try letting something spiritual write through you.

And I said, what if it doesn't want to? And they said, well, just try. So I put a little note up by my writing station. It said, okay, God, I'll take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality. And then I sat down to write. And what I found was that when I had been drinking and using, I had been focused on being brilliant. And I was asking my writing to do two things, to convey information and to impress people. And so it's no wonder that it sort of buckled under the weight of the two intense demands. And then when I started to write sober, it was no longer a matter of being brilliant. It was a matter of trying to be truthful, trying to be honest, trying to write down what seems to want to be written through me. And as a result, my writing sort of straightened out, and my career took off. Yeah, I mean, your career took off, I guess, in a number of different ways. So this would

have been, so now we're talking sort of late 70s, early 80s-ish, right around in there? 1978. Okay. So you can peg it to the year. So you start writing more, your career starts growing. I don't know if you can answer this, but I'm curious about it. Because when you're writing, when you're addicted and when you're writing, you're experiencing the creative process in one way, and maybe not as clearly because of the state of mind.

How did the actual experience of being in the creative moment, regardless of what the outcome was, regardless of whether you were writing better or worse, actually being within the creative moment, feel different for you? Well, it felt easy, which was different. You know, before that I had struggled and I had strained to be creative and brilliant and good at it and respect it. And when I started writing sober,

I found myself having a sense of ease. I could actually feel a creative force working through me. So it was potent. It was potent. Yeah, it's the difference between writing to try and create a certain appearance or reality versus writing to simply reveal what is, what you know to be true and real. Right. I would imagine that also comes with a sense of relief to a certain extent. A sense of shock.

Oh, really? Tell me more. Well, it was shocking to me to find that I could write freely. And I was grateful. And I began to have assignments where I found myself trying to be lucid, trying to be clear, trying to be truthful, trying to be anything other than impressive. And in doing so...

You became impressive. Right, exactly. I mean, it's interesting the way that works. So you're writing and your career is developing now as a writer. At some point you also become involved in screenwriting. Was that also happening sort of in this mid-70s, late 70s window? Or was that later? It started earlier. When I met Martin Scorsese, he was making Taxi Driver. And he gave me the script to read. And I thought some of it didn't work.

So I sat down and boldly wrote out stuff I thought would work. And I showed it to him. And he proposed. Probably not the reaction you were anticipating. Well, when I met him, I had called my mother and said, I've met the man I'm going to marry. No kidding. And she said, does he know that? Apparently soon after he did. Yeah. What was that year like for you? Heady and difficult. Heady and difficult. The day after we got married was the beginning of the cocaine addiction. And that became very black and very terrible. And I lost touch with my East Coast friends who had known me sort of when. And

the year when I got pregnant, I got pregnant our wedding night too. A good Catholic girl. And that meant that I gave up drugs for the duration. And so I was surrounded by people who were actively using, and I felt like the odd man out. And when I had my daughter, I immediately said, now can I have some cocaine?

So it was a pretty persuasive addiction. And it was a pretty tough year. Yeah. But you pulled out of it pretty, it seems like pretty soon after that. I mean, I know the marriage didn't end the way that you would have wanted it to end or last as long. You know, you've written, you've shared like very transparently about that. So when you emerge from that and when that ends, you begin a sober life, you begin writing, you begin also raising your daughter

and building your career. Well, your daughter was with you, right? So we're talking late 70s, then moving into the early 80s, you building your career as a single mom with a young daughter. In the world of writing, what was life like as you're starting to sort of rebuild effectively? Well, it was a matter of going from assignment to assignment and hoping that the pieces were going to be accepted. And I had some lucky breaks. I wrote for Miami Vice.

I wrote a movie for Elvis Presley fans that starred Don Johnson. And I sold a number of movies to Paramount, and it was a difficult time because the movies weren't getting made. They were being bought but not made, and that frustrated me and ultimately led to my making a feature film of my own, bankrolling it with my Rolling Stone money

and my leftover Miami Vice money. And that was a very satisfying experience for me, making that film. And it got accepted at the London Film Festival. And they said, she's not an old coward, but she is funny. Do you ever wonder whether a comment like that again was a reflection of the times and gender? That never occurred to me.

So as you're rebuilding, it seems like you're also expanding your scope, right? So now at this point, it's not purely a focus on writing for magazines or journalisms. It's not for print. You're also writing for screen. And plays. And plays and becomes more theatrical writing as well. Musicals at some point enter the picture as well. Yes, that's true.

Tell me where the, so, you know, for those who've heard your name in sort of like the public domain these days and probably for the last 25 years, they've very likely heard it for the first time in conjunction with this incredible book, The Artist's Way, which is eventually sort of quotes officially published by Torture Paragree in 92. But you're working on that and what goes into it and the ideas and the exercises. It sounds like for years before, tell me how the beginning seeds of that start to to unfold well like this is where it comes back to i come from a big family because in my family we would learn something and then we would turn around and teach it to a sibling so as i was getting sober, I was learning how to write sober,

how to be fulfilled creatively rather than blocked. And as I would learn a new trick, I would turn around and teach it. So I began teaching probably by 1980. So I had about 10 years of teaching experience before I wrote the book. And I wrote the book thinking I was writing it for a handful of people. And of course, it's gone to millions now.

Yeah. So you're essentially workshopping the ideas, testing them out, refining them for a decade. Right. Primarily with writers or people in different creative domains? Different creative domains. And did you find it, even from the earliest days, that even the individual exercises and ideas were broadly relevant across so many different areas? Well, I found that my classes started unblocking.

Yeah. And that was very exciting. So I had a fantasy that has become a reality, which was I fancied myself sort of a creative cartographer mapping out the trail, and it turned out that's what I was doing. Yeah, I love that. It sounds like a lot of these things, initially also, they were things that you were trying to figure out just for you. Sort of like as you turn the page to this new way of approaching your creative life and trying to move through whatever things were stopping you from being able to create on the level that you wanted to create um

is that accurate that a lot of this really started as okay so i need to create some ideas some exercise some tools for me. And then you said, well, let me share these and see what happens. That's accurate. That's accurate. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need them. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. What was it about in the earliest days even? Because there are so many people who teach different elements of creativity, even within writing, there's so many different points of entry that you could have sort of said,

here's where I'm going to focus. What was it about this idea of blocking and unblocking that led you to say, this is where I want to focus, this is where I want to step into this arena? I don't think it was conscious. I think it was I found things that worked and I was eager to share them. And later on I was told, oh, you teach creative unblocking. And I thought, I guess I do. So did you even coin it that in the beginning? No.

Yeah. No, I think that I have benefited from being named by others. You know, like people will say to me, well, you really started a movement. And then I'll think, oh, I started a movement. It kind of looks like I did. Yeah. Which actually, the thing that just flashed into my head,

which is kind of out of left field, but I'm curious now. You mentioned when we started talking that your dad worked in the ad world and he was a copywriter. As you're moving through all of this, how much of it were you actually sharing with both your dad and your mom, who was a writer and a teacher? Both the dark times and then as you emerged, the light times and the ideas that were coming out of it? Well, they were relieved when I got sober. Yeah. They had understood that I was in trouble, but they didn't know the name of the trouble.

They just knew I was dramatic, and I was dramatic, and I was unhappy. And then I suddenly began to be sunnier. And they were very grateful for that. And I think my mother died in 1979, so she didn't witness the artist's way. My father witnessed it and was pleased and was like, you're doing the family proud.

How did it make you feel to know that he witnessed it and was like, you're doing the family proud. How did it make you feel to know that he witnessed it and felt that way about it? Wonderful. Wonderful. I adored my father. When you first, tell me if this is true, this is what I sort of unfolded in a little bit of exploration did you originally effectively self-publish The Artist's Way as photocopied

just sort of like stapled combinations tell me that and tell me more The Artist's Way began because I fell in love with Mark Bryan who was a blocked writer. And I started writing essays at him,

thinking, what does the pastor need to know next? He was so pushy. And so I wrote the book at him, and he said, it should be a book. It could help a lot of people. And I thought, well, easy for him to say. But then we began getting requests, and we'd be like, I'm with the State Department in Geneva.

I hear you have a manuscript. And the word of mouth spread through the Creation Spirituality Network and through the Jungians. We Xeroxed it at a little communist bookstore. And Mark would pull the lever and cut the pages. And we sold it for $20 a copy, which was what it cost us to make them, which was more than the book actually cost when it was published. Where were people finding it? And how did the word start to get around? Well, we were lucky. There was a Jungian named John Giannini who was teaching all over the country.

He was at the height of his career. And everywhere he would teach, he would talk about my book. So we began getting requests. And then the Creation Spirituality Network people, Matthew Fox's people, discovered it, and they began asking for it. So we probably sold a thousand books just by word of mouth. Yeah, and of the self-published, you know, like doing it yourself with the photocopier. When and how does a major publisher come to you then and say,

hey, this is interesting? Well, what happened was I had a literary agent who suddenly said to me, I can't represent you. I represent Natalie Goldberg and your work is too similar. And I said, I don't think Natalie would think so. And they said, well, we're very sorry. So I was heartbroken. And Mark, meanwhile, had gotten the name of another literary agent. He was quite an entrepreneur. And I said, I can't call her. He said, I'll call her. So he called her up, Susan Schulman, and told her, there's this wonderful book. It's unblocking people.

Would you like to look at it? And Susan said, every year at Christmas I get a good book. Maybe this year it's yours. So we sent her the book and waited on pins and needles. And then she called back and said, I'd like to represent you and I think it should go to Tarcher. And that's how we came to Tarcher. So you end up, after a decade of developing these ideas, of actually teaching them to people in workshops and refining them, and then spending a solid year or so photocopying and sort of like putting together your own self-published versions of these in a deal with a major publisher.

When you partnered up with Tarsher in the beginning, were they completely sold? Did they look at this and say, this is going to be huge? No. Okay, what happened? They thought this is a modest little California book that we are going to happen to publish, and we'll print 7,000 of them, and that's a stretch.

And then the book took off. Did it take off right away? Yes. And were you surprised by that? Well, I felt like the book was needed. So it didn't become a question of surprise. It became a question of satisfaction. This is an interesting theme that has kind of come up a few times in our conversation now, where I've asked you, were you surprised that somehow other people recognized your value and you say, no, not surprised. I knew it. Do you feel like that inner validation, that knowing that you do have something truly unique and of value is unusual? I wish more people had it. And I actually think that's one of the gifts of the artist's way, is that when people work with the tools, they gain self-worth.

And when they gain self-worth, they gain self-belief. And when they gain self-belief, they gain success. I'm letting that land. It feels really true. One of the things that was in The Artist's Way, and I think if you ask a lot of people, well, what is your association with this incredible book? What are the major things you took out of it?

My sense is that one of the central things is this idea of something you call morning pages. Can you share a bit more about what those are and how they work? I'd be delighted. Morning pages are the pivotal tool of a creative unblocking. There are three pages of longhand morning writing about absolutely anything. So you might write, I forgot to call my sister back. I didn't buy kitty litter. I didn't like how Fred talked to me in the meeting yesterday. I'm actually sort of angry. And you write down your mood of the moment, and you keep your hand moving across the page,

and you put down anything and everything that occurs to you. It's a little like meditation. I call it meditation. Where you are sitting quiet and then you have what we call a cloud thought. Something comes cruising across your consciousness that you hadn't thought of. And that's what happens with morning pages, but you write your cloud thoughts down. And what happens is that you're urged into action. They maybe take three times saying to you, I think you should try this. And you're urged into action. They maybe take three times saying to you, I think you should try this, and you're thinking, oh, no, I couldn't.

And then you think, oh, maybe I could. And then you do. So they move you from blocked to decisive. It's interesting. I was talking to a number of friends recently who have all done this exercise, and the response was very different from each of them. It seems like there's, on the one hand,

people who would start it from day one. They were in. It was three pages. who would start it from day one, they were in. It was three pages. They would bang it out. They wouldn't edit. They would, whatever it was, they wouldn't judge what was coming out. They understood that it was literally just about letting the pen lead, letting it move through you more than anything else.

And then others sort of on the other side of the spectrum, really struggling to get into this practice, judging themselves along the way, or even if they didn't judge themselves along the way, or try and craft these three pages rather than just letting them sort of like pour out. They struggled. They just, they said they struggled to sit every day and just let these three pages pour out of them. And after, you know, a week or so just gave up because they said it was too quote hard. I'm guessing that with all the people that you've taught over the years, you've seen both of those variations many times over. When somebody comes to you with sort of like that latter condition, what's the insight that you offer them? Or the questions you might ask them?

Why do you expect it to be easy? Sometimes things that are difficult are worth doing. Why not take the risk that this difficult thing is worth your time so it's in no small part then about resetting expectations i don't try to sell my ideas very much i feel like they sell themselves and i feel like if someone is not wanting to do pages, fine. Let them not do pages. But if somebody is delighted to do pages, I am delighted to have them. Hmm. I wonder if to a certain extent it's also a matter of what hurts worse, the pain of being stuck or the frustration of morning pages not coming easily.

That's probably true. One of the other things that tends to come up often is this idea of the artist's date. Tell me more about this. Well, if I say to you, I have a terrible tool, it takes a lot of work, you'll have to get up an hour early, you'll have to go to the page, you'll experience resistance, they'll say, fine, I'll do it because we understand working on our creativity we have a work ethic and we feel that it's a valid thing to try and work but if I say

I have another tool for you I'd like you to go out once a week and play all of a sudden resistance comes flying up and they're like, play? I don't see what good play can do for our creativity. And I say, well, we have an expression, the play of ideas, but we don't take it literally and realize that playing creates ideas. So I want you to go out once a week and do something festive, something that you just find enchanting and enjoyable, something that your inner eight-year-old likes,

like maybe go to a pet store and pet a bunny, something really simple. Something not like taking another computer class. I think we could all use a little more of that. One other thing that I want to ask you about is this notion of, you know, my sense is if you ask people to reflect on the artist's way, and you're actually a pretty astonishing body of work right now, I think over 30 books, musicals, plays, so many different things. But if you look at sort of like this bigger body of work around the artist's way and asked, what genre does this

fall under? My sense is you would get as many people offering spirituality or personal growth as you would creativity. Is that your sense too? And if so, is there an intention behind that? There's no intention behind that. And what I have people say to me is always the same sentence. They say, your book changed my life. So it's all. No. So as we sit here in this conversation

the name of this is Good Life Project if I offer out the phrase to live a good life what comes up? to live a spiritually fulfilled life to feel connected to a benevolent something

that intends us great good. And that's, I think, the gift of the artist's way. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this conversation, safe bet you'll also love the conversation that we had with Chase Jarvis about the creative calling and how we follow it. You'll find a link to Chase's episode in the show notes. And even if you don't listen now, go ahead and click and download so it's

ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work we're doing here at Good Life Project, please go and check out my new book, Sparked. It'll reveal something incredibly eye-opening to you about your very favorite subject, potentially, that would be you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and re-event work the way that you show up at work as a source of meaning and purpose and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find the book at your favorite bookseller now. Till next time, I'm Jonathan Field, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

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