Should you use anger to fuel your writing? Do you experience shame while creating art? Have you been keeping up with your artist pages?

Week 3 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way poses these questions with clear answers in mind—but we're not convinced. In this episode, we dig into what happens when a wildly successful writing craft book conflicts with your actual creative process, and what's still valuable even when you fundamentally disagree.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday. Check us out.

We're on Week 2 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, shifting from internal creative obstacles to external ones—namely our friends and family.

We dig into Cameron's concepts of "poisonous playmates" and "crazymakers": how to identify them (spoiler: they're not always people) and strategies for protecting your creative space from their intrusions. Then we tackle Cameron's uncomfortable idea—that blocked creators might actually want these distractions to avoid doing the work.

But our strongest reaction to this chapter is Cameron's reliance on God and a capital-C Creator throughout her method. Can an atheist follow the Artist's Way?

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday. Check us out.

We're officially starting our Artist's Way journey—Julia Cameron's program for unlocking creativity—and we're already running into problems.

Specifically, we take issue with some of Cameron's ideas about what it means to be an artist. We challenge her concept of the "Shadow Artist" and argue for a middle ground between making art and handling practical life responsibilities like earning money for yourself and your family. Cameron does offer valuable insights, particularly around the internalized negativity that drains creative joy—Renee especially appreciates her term "Artist Abuse." But some items on Cameron's Core Negative Beliefs list are questionable (and that's putting it mildly.)

We wrap up by attempting a few chapter-end exercises, which reveal some early obstacles in our own creative histories.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday. Check us out.