The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

This section covers frequently asked questions and Cameron’s answer to them, covering everything from who can be creative to the reasons artists procrastinate. This is intended to be a supplement to the work and only focuses on the most common questions.

Cameron notes that The Artist’s Way is popular with therapists, teachers, wellness centers, and other group-oriented facilities. She explains that she has no interest in doing any accreditation for these groups and that she offers up the course at no charge to whomever feels it helpful. This section is intended for those who wish to complete the course in groups and offers guidance for how to make those groups as effective and supportive as possible, including the time frame, atmosphere, rules, and expectations needed to successfully maintain a group. She notes that it's important to stay true to the intention of the book and not to get bogged down with over-intellectualizing or therapeutic processing since these things can actually serve to block creativity or the over-examined creative resistant may mimic some other psychological issue. She also includes a note for the different kinds of teachers who may be using this book, including therapists, teachers, and therapeutic clients. She ends with a word of thanks for using The Artist’s Way.

This appendix details ways to build a creative environment by forming a Sacred Circle, which is a boundary to protect the soul and a commitment to elevate fellow creatives. She outlines rules for the Sacred Circle, including the expectations of creative friendships and how feedback should be given. At the end, she offers a poem called “An Artist’s Prayer.”

This section contains the Introduction to the Tenth Anniversary Edition of The Artist’s Way. She covers similar ground as in the other introductions but with more of a focus on her life in Manhattan and then transitioning into her teaching career and the development of this book. She discusses hew her aim for the book was for it to be free and to follow the same format as a traditional 12-step program, which is self-guided. She also highlights the attention the book brought her, including awards and it being featured on important book lists and was even included in a few movie sets. Cameron also stresses that she follows her own advice closely and morning pages are still part of her creative process. She closes with the notion of the importance of the artistic process and how God lives within that process.

Although Cameron recommends many other exercises to boost creativity than just reading, she provides a list of books that aided her research in writing The Artist’s Way and that other writers may find useful. Most of these books are pop-psychology works also aimed at helping artists find themselves and learning to nurture their creativity, but there are few fiction selections that resonate on one or more of the themes Cameron highlights in her work.