I’ll put my hands up and say it: I’m a The Artist’s Way evangelist.

Every time I do it, I come out feeling literally RE-fucking-birthed. It truly is creative kryptonite for me. And for many others - rave reviews of Julia Cameron’s best-selling course include the likes of writing and creativity heavyweight Elizabeth Gilbert.

In case you've not heard of it, The Artist's Way is a 12-week course in what author Julia Cameron calls "creative recovery."

Basically, it helps you shine a light on the creative parts of yourself you may have let languish as the boring realities of adult life and “sensible careers” loom large. It does this through a bunch of exercises aimed to dispel the "I'm not talented enough" baggage that all of us carry around in our heads. The book helps you remember what you love, and reconnects you with that childlike sense of curiosity so that you can bring more joy and creativity into your life.

It does this through a three-fold approach:

1) Morning Pages

2) Artist Dates

3) Weekly exercises to think and journal upon

Do I have to write Morning Pages if I do the Artist’s Way?

You may have heard tell about a thing called Morning Pages? Even if people haven’t done TAW, many people have given this journalling technique a whirl.

But what exactly are Morning Pages, and how do you do them? Effectively, they’re stream-of-consciousness writing, that must be done as soon as you wake up, for 3 pages, every single day. (Yes, even when you'd rather stick pins in your eyes.) The aim of them is to clear out the crap. By getting all that mind gunk, anxiety and angst out onto the page, the idea is that it doesn’t get carried with you into the rest of the day.

Does it work? For me, yes. There are only so many times you can write about needing to be this, or wanting to do that, before you get totally sick of your own shit and have to take action. Morning Pages have helped me realise that relationships need to be ended, and they’ve also made me get the fuck on with putting up those shelves and repairing that light switch. All are equally shoulder-dropping once completed.

Now you get to treat yourself with an Artist Date.

The other major component of The Artist’s Way is a concept called Artist Dates, where you take yourself on a solo creativity-fuelling date once per week.

According to Cameron herself, “The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you.”

I loved mine. At first, it felt hard to come up with Artist Date ideas. But, once I’d found space for one and got into the swing of things, I often got so addicted that I couldn’t stop taking myself on Artist’s Dates.

At the beginning, it’s not unusual to struggle with ideas (especially if you’re on a budget, or coming out of pandemic lockdown, as I was when I last completed TAW in 2021.) A lot of us try doing things that are too grand and lofty to become a realistic ritual in our week.

In fact, Artist Dates really can be pretty simple. My favourite and most memorable was a double-layered one (remember how I said once I started, I struggled to stop?) I went and picked nettles (rubber Marigolds essential, obvs) to create a homemade nettle soup, and then created myself a three-course meal which I ate with a candle burning and French music on to make myself feel like I was in a French bistro, rather than the 1-bedroom maisonette I’d been pretty much stuck in for the last several months.

Loved it.