10 More Stuck-busting Quotes from The Artist's Way
Morning breezes are starting to feel crisp and refreshing here in my little corner of Maine. Leaves are starting to turn, shorts and tank tops becoming the rarity rather than the rule. My kiddos are leaving for college in a few days, and the final week of August is suddenly upon us, September knocking down the door.
Which means I’m finally ready to admit summer break is coming to an end (whatever summer break even means now that I’m middle-aged, no longer in school, not a teacher of any sort, and officially not responsible for anyone’s education for the first time in 17 years). A new season will be here in no time. . .
Fall — the most creative time of the year.
The season when our hands itch to make new things and our minds itch to understand them. When the yummiest foods are at the farmer’s markets and the best recipes ready to be made. When pottery classes have open seats again. When every book about creativity and building a creative life suddenly looks like the perfect thing to finally get us unstuck. (or is that just me?)
The perfect time for inspiration to hit.
So, while I’m right in the middle of reading Don’t Call It Art by Austin Kleon (and highlighting every other sentence because it’s so good) but not quite ready to write about it yet, I thought it might be fun to revisit another book about creativity by the Master of Unstuck herself, the one and only Julia Cameron.
It’s the book that’s been most recommended to me and by me over the years, and it happens to be the subject of my all-time most popular piece of writing on the blog ⤵
I wrote “17 Stuck-Busting Quotes from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way” in early 2022, when I wasn’t writing about books all that often. (I was still in the early days of family togetherness-focused writing.) So I had no idea it would become my #1 or #2 most widely-read and referenced blog for four years running. (The other top performer has been “10 Life-Defining Quotes by Toni Morrison”, also great for getting unstuck.)
Looking back at those 17 Stuck-Busting Quotes now, I can’t help but be grateful for the ways I’ve grown and changed since then and how much more I’ve come to appreciate and admire the artist that lives in all of us, too.
Digging back into Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way four and a half years later, it feels like a different book. New revelations emerge. I laugh at my old margin scribblings. New quotes speak to me and move me deeply. These are those new quotes. I hope they speak to and inspire you, too ⤵
#1
“. . . in order to do something well we must first be willing to do it badly.”
#2
“Creative living requires the luxury of time, which we carve out for ourselves. . . Creative living requires the luxury of space for ourselves. . . “
#3
“. . . ask yourself bluntly what next step you are evading. What dream are you discounting as impossible given your resources? What payoff are you getting for remaining stuck at this point in your expansion?”
#4
“Experiment with this two-step process: ask for answers in the evening; listen for answers in the morning. Be open to all help.”
#5
“Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.”
#6
“Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.”
#7
“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”
#8
“. . . We change and the universe furthers and expands that change.”
#9
“One of the favored tricks of blocked creatives is saying no to ourselves. It is astonishing the number of small ways we discover to be mean and miserly with ourselves.”
#10
“We are meant to celebrate the good things of this earth.”
And one more that meant so much to me back in 2022, and still makes me stop and rethink today. . .
“Most blocked creatives have an active addiction to anxiety. We prefer the low-grade pain and occasional heart-stopping panic attack to the drudgery of small and simple daily steps in the right direction.”
These quotes are, of course, taken out of context, so they may not mean all that much to you yet. But I’m resisting the urge to try to give that context for one very specific reason — I want you to read the book for yourself.
I want you to have your own revelations. . .
I want you to find your own favorite quotes. . .
If you have a copy of The Artist's Way on your shelf that you never finished or finished so long ago you forgot its meaning, take it down, dust it off, finish it, read it again. If you haven’t read The Artist's Way yet, I would like to suggest it’s time.
Here’s why ⤵
#1 — When a book changes my perspective so profoundly the way The Artist's Way has and continues to, and when sharing that book continues to impact others over the years, I take it as a sign that it’s worth recommending again.
#2 — It’s only $6.99 today on Thriftbooks (link here)
#3 — If there’s a voice in your head right now saying, “This doesn’t apply to me, I’m not an artist”, you’re the perfect person and this is the perfect time in your life to read it.
Right away.
Seriously.
You’re in for something that might just change the way you see everything. I hope you love it.
✌🏼️💓 📚
Celeste
did AI write this? nope, this lady did ⤴ always
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*No portion of this work may be used for training artificial intelligence without written permission from the author (which she will not be giving). See you next Friday!