Walking in this world: the practical art of creativity

Cameron--poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and guru to the creative masses--engenders as much adoration as scorn; she is the artsy equivalent to Martha Stewart (sans the investment investigation). Cameron broke new ground with The Artist's Way (1992), and now, two million copies later, she helps people improve their lives via a guided inquiry into their creative potential. This intermediate-level creative how-to uses her signature format and 12-week structure, which have worked so well for so many readers as they explore the often convoluted landscapes of their artistic psyches. To the catchphrases "Morning Pages" (her requisite three daily pages of longhand) and "Artist Date" (a weekly creative adventure)," now so well known they have entered a subculture vernacular, she adds another tool, "The Weekly Walk," an aid to walking in this world with a renewed sense of childlike wonder. This is yet another milestone for Cameron as she advances her mission to illuminate creativity as a spiritual path, a compelling vision embraced by people of diverse faiths and backgrounds worldwide. --Whitney Scott

Touted as the long-awaited sequel to The Artist's Way, Cameron's latest is so similar in look and format to the original that they could be sold in a boxed set. Previous follow-ups, including The Vein of Gold and The Right to Write and a slew of little spin-offs, here give way to a 12-week course of encouragement and exercises promoted as an intermediate level of The Artist's Way (inviting us to anticipate an advanced volume). At first and for a long way into the book, we encounter the wheel-greasing exercises that worked magic for millions, helping people discover their innate creativity by devising gentle ways around the myriad obstacles that block us (e.g., listing things we would secretly love to do.) Cameron re-introduces the basic tools the daily morning exercise of hand-writing three free-flowing pages and the weekly solitary "artist's date," designed to help us romance our inner artists and she adds the ancient practice of walking as a means of getting in touch with our deeper feelings and truer thoughts (hence the title). "When I can, I walk with friends, noting how companionable our silences become, how effortlessly deep our conversations," Cameron writes. Cameron does indeed capture the feeling of strolling and talking with an old and trusted guide. Her core insights are the same as in earlier volumes, yet her words seem to have grown wiser. She writes about the distractions of success, and about the long solitary stretches "climbing the glass mountain" it takes to bring a large-scale creative project to completion. Her latest book reveals how reaching higher also means going deeper. 10-city author tour. (Sept.) Nonfiction Notes (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Cameron had an international best seller with The Artist's Way, which outlined a program that encouraged the reader's innate creativity. Here she extends her discussion of the topic. Aimed at practicing artists-and she considers everyone from full-time pianists to part-time pie makers to be such-Cameron explains how creating a work, whether it's a novel or a nosegay, puts people deeply in touch with the Great Creator. Then, in the form of a 12-week program, she outlines steps and exercises to nourish the "artist within." Some of these ideas, such as the pages she recommends writing every morning, will be familiar to readers of her previous work. Others, which are meant to help readers discover traits such as dignity, authenticity, and discernment, are new. Given Cameron's obvious familiarity with, and fondness for, the artistic temperament, this book is essential for public libraries serving "arty" communities. Most other public libraries will want a copy as well, since Cameron's broad definition of creativity will resonate with many patrons.-Pam Matthews, MLS, Olmsted Falls, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Cameron--poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and guru to the creative masses--engenders as much adoration as scorn; she is the artsy equivalent to Martha Stewart (sans the investment investigation). Cameron broke new ground with The Artist's Way (1992), and now, two million copies later, she helps people improve their lives via a guided inquiry into their creative potential. This intermediate-level creative how-to uses her signature format and 12-week structure, which have worked so well for so many readers as they explore the often convoluted landscapes of their artistic psyches. To the catchphrases "Morning Pages" (her requisite three daily pages of longhand) and "Artist Date" (a weekly creative adventure)," now so well known they have entered a subculture vernacular, she adds another tool, "The Weekly Walk," an aid to walking in this world with a renewed sense of childlike wonder. This is yet another milestone for Cameron as she advances her mission to illuminate creativity as a spiritual path, a compelling vision embraced by people of diverse faiths and backgrounds worldwide. ((Reviewed September 15, 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews

Celebrity tell-alls can be counted on for some kind of feel-good, inspirational payoff, and Collins' book is no exception. Her only child, Clark, an alcoholic like his mother and both grandfathers, took his life while only in his thirties, a blow from which his mother hasn't recovered--what mother could from such a loss?--though she has managed to go on. That act of bravery informs the book throughout as Collins speaks candidly about her father's drinking as well as her own, her drying-out at Hazelden, and her search for grace. She wrote the book, she says, "to shed more light upon the dark taboo of suicide," and as she does, she brings her own dance with near-death to light. In the end, her report, even peppered with illuminating song lyrics and journal entries, speaks of the struggle to understand, cope with, and, after a fashion, accept personality, loss, and life. Collins tells her story engrossingly and engagingly, and her fans as well as those dealing with addiction and loss will want to hear it. ((Reviewed October 15, 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews

Cameron had an international best seller with The Artist's Way, which outlined a program that encouraged the reader's innate creativity. Here she extends her discussion of the topic. Aimed at practicing artists-and she considers everyone from full-time pianists to part-time pie makers to be such-Cameron explains how creating a work, whether it's a novel or a nosegay, puts people deeply in touch with the Great Creator. Then, in the form of a 12-week program, she outlines steps and exercises to nourish the "artist within." Some of these ideas, such as the pages she recommends writing every morning, will be familiar to readers of her previous work. Others, which are meant to help readers discover traits such as dignity, authenticity, and discernment, are new. Given Cameron's obvious familiarity with, and fondness for, the artistic temperament, this book is essential for public libraries serving "arty" communities. Most other public libraries will want a copy as well, since Cameron's broad definition of creativity will resonate with many patrons.-Pam Matthews, MLS, Olmsted Falls, OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Touted as the long-awaited sequel to The Artist's Way, Cameron's latest is so similar in look and format to the original that they could be sold in a boxed set. Previous follow-ups, including The Vein of Gold and The Right to Write and a slew of little spin-offs, here give way to a 12-week course of encouragement and exercises promoted as an intermediate level of The Artist's Way (inviting us to anticipate an advanced volume). At first and for a long way into the book, we encounter the wheel-greasing exercises that worked magic for millions, helping people discover their innate creativity by devising gentle ways around the myriad obstacles that block us (e.g., listing things we would secretly love to do.) Cameron re-introduces the basic tools the daily morning exercise of hand-writing three free-flowing pages and the weekly solitary "artist's date," designed to help us romance our inner artists and she adds the ancient practice of walking as a means of getting in touch with our deeper feelings and truer thoughts (hence the title). "When I can, I walk with friends, noting how companionable our silences become, how effortlessly deep our conversations," Cameron writes. Cameron does indeed capture the feeling of strolling and talking with an old and trusted guide. Her core insights are the same as in earlier volumes, yet her words seem to have grown wiser. She writes about the distractions of success, and about the long solitary stretches "climbing the glass mountain" it takes to bring a large-scale creative project to completion. Her latest book reveals how reaching higher also means going deeper. 10-city author tour. (Sept.) Nonfiction Notes Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.