Welcome to The Artist's Way!

To all of you joining me on this journey through The Artist's Way:

I've let the world get in the way of my creative life in the last couple of years. I've started this blog as a way to jump-start my flagging creativity and, I hope, to help you move forward in your creative work, too. I'd like the Platform 9 3/4 blog to be a place where creatives can come to rejuvenate by reading the best books out on creative thinking and the creative process, interacting with the texts, and sharing their experiences and insights with other creatives in a way that will enlighten and encourage all of us and hold each of us accountable to our personal vision for our art, whatever that might be.

I've gone through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way in the past and found that the exercises helped me identify and rectify the things that were keeping me from going where I wanted to go in my creative life. I think it's the perfect book for a jump-start and I hope you'll find that's true for you as well.

I confess I'm figuring things out as I go, but here's how I see Platform 9 3/4 working: Every weekend, I'll send an email reminder to participants with a link to the blog, where I will have posted a short overview of the chapter we'll read in the coming week. Reader comments will be open so you can post as you wish during the week. Post once during the week or as often as you wish. No one should feel obligated to post at all, but making a commitment to do so at least once each week is a great way to hold yourself accountable for reading the text and doing the work--and to encourage the rest of us on our creative journeys. I'd like the comments to function as a conversation, so I encourage you to read and respond to the other participants' posts as well as sharing your own interaction with the text and your experiences doing the exercises. Let's create some synergy!

Your assignment this week:

1) Purchase The Artist's Way (or dig it out from wherever it's been hiding).
2) Look over the Table of Contents and read the Introduction, "Spiritual Electricity: The Basic Principles" and "The Basic Tools."
3) Respond to this post with a short self-introduction. Use your full name, your first name or a nickname--whatever you're comfortable with. Tell us what your primary form of creative expression is: writing? painting? knitting? cooking?
4) Based on your reading, also let us know what you hope to achieve in your creative life by reading and interacting with Cameron's book--and with the rest of us!

Note: Several of you have commented that you would be willing to pay me for my time for organizing and leading the group. I am interested in doing this in the future--for other books related to the creative life as well as Cameron's--as a way to supplement my income. But you are my Beta group, helping me work out the kinks to see if such an enterprise is viable. At the end of our time together, I'll ask you to fill out a response form, including whether you found the experience worthwhile enough that you'd be willing to pay for it, and how much you'd be willing to pay.

I'm excited to see where The Artist's Way will take me--and where it will take you. Welcome!