If you go into bookshops at all, you’ve probably passed by Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way, hundreds of times. It’s been one of the biggest publishing successes of recent decades – and deservedly so.

Banishing blocks
The book is about breaking through creative blocks and while it may seem to apply exclusively to people interested in the arts, this isn’t so. Anybody can be blocked in their life and everybody can benefit from a creative approach to living. That’s why I have recommended it to many people, including those who have no interest in the arts.

The book is based on workshops that Cameron ran in the US for people blocked in writing, movies and related fields. She herself had blocked her creativity with a serious drink problem and had broken through the barrier to achieve success in her own field (mainly script-writing for shows such as Miami Vice and movie production). That’s what I like most about Cameron: she has done what she urges others to do; she has unblocked her creativity, written the books, made the movies and produced the scripts.

Write anything
Anybody I know who has read this book has found writing “morning pages”, as she calls them, to be a creative, liberating and valuable experience. The idea is deceptively simple and to convince yourself that it’s worthwhile you have to try it out. To write the morning pages, you sit down first thing in the morning and write a few pages about whatever comes into your head. You might be writing about the challenges of the day ahead, about what happened to you yesterday, about your mood or fears, about a relationship problem, or about feeling grouchy or great. You just start writing and you keep writing for a few pages. You don’t worry about grammar, syntax or spelling. You just write.

Sounds simple? Even simplistic? Yes, but a couple of things are going on here. First, you are opening up a very creative channel to your subconscious. For that reason, you will sometimes be surprised by the ideas that come to you as you write these pages. Second, writing uses a different set of brain cells to those used in thinking silently. For this reason, too, you will get new perspectives on difficulties, issues and opportunities. Very often, these are very helpful perspectives. I always feel better after I have written the morning pages than when I started.

Don’t show or tell
Don’t take my word for it. Try out the morning pages for yourself. Don’t just try it once. Stick with it for a few weeks and see what happens. I think you will find that writing the pages will come to feel like talking to a friend, a collaborator who knows you better than you know yourself – and that’s a good feeling. Two more bits of advice: don’t show the pages to anyone else; if you know you’re going to share them with someone, you are likely to censor yourself and thereby shut down that channel to your subconscious. Second, don’t leave them lying around for others to pick up and read: not everyone will realise that what you wrote when you were grouching to yourself about them three weeks ago no longer applies! In my opinion, you don’t need to hold onto the pages at all: it’s the writing of them that counts, not reading them later.

Cameron is all about breaking through limits, especially those we impose on ourselves. Let’s say you decide you want to learn to play the piano and a voice in your head (or even outside your head) asks: Have you any idea how old you’ll be by the time you’ve learned to do that? Answer? The same age I’ll be if I don’t learn it! Cameron’s book is full of gems like this.

If you buy this book and work your way through it, you won’t be sorry. And you just might be delighted at where it takes you.