At 57, Cameron, famous for her semispiritual approach to healing artist's block (presented in 1992's The Artist's Way) still seeks her creative and emotional center. She now details her creative struggles, framed by her fight to maintain sobriety after years as an alcoholic and drug addict. Early fame writing for Rolling Stone led her to the most cataclysmic relationship of her life, a youthful marriage to director Martin Scorsese, with whom she had her only child. The relationship lasted less than two years. For 10 years after, Cameron chased similar creative ground to Scorsese's, attending film school, making small films and screenwriting for film and TV. She seemed unable to settle down, moving between Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Taos, and details a constant, painful struggle to find a creative touchstone. Her one focus remains her art-yet that often resembles monomania and leads her to periodic psychotic breaks. She leaves her daughter adrift to work on her art; relationships crash and burn because she is a workaholic and egomaniac. Cameron is best at revealing the dark side of her privileged life: her descent into alcoholic blackouts and drug-induced paranoia as well as descriptions of her bouts with psychosis. These are disturbingly vivid; the rest is febrile New Age rhetoric. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Poet, novelist, songwriter, playwright, and now memoirist Cameron (The Artists's Way) details her life as the leader of the "creative unblocking" movement. The beginning of the book is peppered with anecdotes about her early career as a "hip" twentysomething journalist for Rolling Stone and the New York Post and-in what is in many ways the liveliest part of the book-her Hollywood "glamour" years with first husband Martin Scorsese (years during which she was, in fact, addled with drugs and alcohol). A recovering alcoholic, follower of New Age mysticism, and survivor of mental breakdowns, Cameron somewhat bogs down the book's second half with in-depth trials of the heart rather than the pen, though her struggle to write her musical is given a good share of space, an emphasis that could result from her self-proclaimed discomfort at being seen "only" as the globe-hopping teacher of The Artist's Way books and not a creative person in her own right. Despite all the ground covered, readers may close the book with pressing questions. What is the connection between Cameron's personal and writing lives? How does staying sober and staying on her medication affect her work? Nonetheless, this is an engrossing account that will be snapped up by her many fans. For all public libraries.-Elizabeth Brinkley, Seattle Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
New Age writing guru Cameron (The Dark Room, 1998, etc.) tells of her frenetic, peripatetic life as screenwriter, playwright, novelist, columnist and poet. The author breezily describes her Catholic education, her early addiction to alcohol and her promising start as a magazine writer before a brief marriage to Martin Scorsese took her to Hollywood. There she discovered cocaine, and her life spiraled downward. On the advice of "sober alcoholics" (a term she uses to describe herself), the desperate Cameron quit drinking, gave up drugs and began writing under a new regimen, which called for a quota of just three pages a day. In time, she began teaching her writing technique to others, putting together a course on unblocking creativity and connecting it with spirituality. Spiritual guidance has evidently played a major role in Cameron's life decisions since then. She repeatedly moved-back and forth across the United States, to and from England-often at the impetus of guiding voices. She ricocheted from New York to Los Angeles, Chicago, Taos, London, Dublin, never finding a comfortable home or compatible working environment. All the while, she sought out astrologers, psychics and other guiding spirits. In a career that combined prolific writing with running a program designed to teach others how to tap into their own creativity, she bounced back from near disasters again and again, even recovering from a nervous breakdown that landed her in the hospital with a diagnosis of manic depression. Throughout, the author never stopped exploring new genres, tackling big projects and discovering new talent in unexpected areas. She is a "floor sample of my own tool kit," and devotees of her creativityclasses may well be inspired by this enthusiastic outpouring. An absorbing narrative revealing a woman of extraordinary energy, drive and confidence.
Praise for FLOOR SAMPLES...
"An absorbing narrative revealing a woman of extraordinary energy, drive and confidence."
—Kirkus Reviews
"A page-turning, richly textured, and wrenching memoir."
—Booklist
"Cameron is best at revealing the dark side of her privileged life: her descent into alcoholic blackouts and drug-induced paranoia as well as descriptions of her bouts with psychosis. These are disturbingly vivid."
—Publishers Weekly
Review
Praise for THE ARTIST'S WAY....
“THE ARTIST’S WAY by Julia Cameron is not exclusively about writing—it is about discovering and developing the artist within whether a painter, poet, screenwriter or musician—but it is a lot about writing. If you have always wanted to pursue a creative dream, have always wanted to play and create with words or paints, this book will gently get you started and help you learn all kinds of paying-attention techniques; and that, after all, is what being an artist is all about. It’s about learning to pay attention.”
—Anne Lamott, Mademoiselle
“The premise of the book is that creativity and spirituality are the same thing, they come from the same place. And we were created to use this life to express our individuality, and that over the course of a lifetime that gets beaten out of us. [THE ARTIST’S WAY] helped me put aside my fear and not worry about whether the record would be commercial.”
—Grammy award-winning singer Kathy Mattea
“Julia Cameron brings creativity and spirituality together with the same kind of step-by-step wisdom that Edgar Cayce encouraged. The result is spiritual creativity as a consistent and nourishing part of daily life.”
—Venture Inward
“I never knew I was a visual artist until I read Julia Cameron’s THE ARTIST’S WAY.”
—Jannene Behl in Artist’s Magazine
“Julia Cameron’s landmark book THE ARTIST’S WAY helped me figure out who I really was as an adult, not so much as an artist but as a person. And award-winning journalist and poet, Cameron’s genius is that she doesn’t tell readers what they should do to achieve or who they should be—instead she creates a map for readers to start exploring these questions themselves.”
—Michael F. Melcher, Law Practice magazine
“This is not a self-help book in the normative sense. It is simply a powerful book that can challenge one to move into an entirely different state of personal expression and growth.”
—Nick Maddox, Deland Beacon
“THE ARTIST’S WAY (with its companion volume THE ARTIST’S WAY MORNING PAGES JOURNAL) becomes a friend over time, not just a journal. Like a journal, it provokes spontaneous insights and solutions; beyond journaling, it establishes a process that is interactive and dynamic.”
—Theresa L. Crenshaw, M.D., San Diego Union-Tribune
“If you really want to supercharge your writing, I recommend that you get a copy of Julia Cameron’s book THE ARTIST’S WAY. I’m not a big fan of self-help books, but this book has changed my life for the better and restored my previously lagging creativity.”
—Jeffrey Bairstow, Laser Focus World
“Working with the principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Cameron developed a three month program to recover creativity. THE ARTIST’S WAY shows how to tap into the higher power that connects human creativity and the creative energies of the universe.”
—Mike Gossie, Scottsdale Tribune
“THE ARTIST’S WAY is the seminal book on the subject of creativity and an invaluable guide to living the artistic life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published in 1992, it is a provocative and inspiring work. Updated and expanded, it reframes THE ARTIST’S WAY for a new century.”
—Branches of Light
“THE ARTIST’S WAY has sold over 3 million copies since its publication in 1992. Cameron still teaches it because there is sustained demand for its thoughtful, spiritual approach to unblocking and nurturing creativity. It is, dare we say, timeless.”
—Nancy Colasurdo, FOXBusiness
