The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life - Hardcover

Cameron, Julia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0874779375 ISBN 13: 9780874779370

Publisher: Tarcher/Putnam,US, 2000

Synopsis

Argues that conventional writing methods actually stifle creativity, presenting illustrative stories and the author's personal writing techniques that are designed to unlock one's creative powers. By the author of The Artist's Way. 75,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Review

Writing, for Julia Cameron, is neither solely vocational nor avocational: it is a way of life. It comes first thing in the morning, while the horses are waiting to be fed; it happens at the kitchen counter, while the onions are sautéing; it takes place on "dates" at café tables shared with like-minded friends; it unfurls in the mind as the 65 pickup "bucks over the rutted dirt roads like a stiff-legged bronco." The more than 40 brief personal essays that make up The Right to Write are an unyielding affirmation of the writing life and a denigration of all that gets in the way: busy schedules, procrastination, insecurity, lack of writing space, a day job--you get the point. Cameron's common-sense advice is liberating to anyone who has felt hampered by making a big deal out of writing (this "tends to make writing difficult. Keeping writing casual tends to keep it possible"), by not having the time to write ("Get aggressive. Steal time"), or the like. If you can relate to a spirit that compares writing to revelation, prayer and Zen pursuits, that might just attribute misguided communication to Mercury retrograde simpatico, then you will find much to embrace here. And you will never, never again dream of waiting for that commitment-free sabbatical in the south of France to get your writing project under way. --Jane Steinberg

Review

"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

Edition details

• Publisher: Tarcher/Putnam,US
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874779375
• ISBN 13: 9780874779370
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 236