The Artist's Way: 25th Anniversary Edition

Nobody is allowed to read your morning pages except you.

always remember that your Censor’s negative opinions are not the truth.

the pages are a pathway to a strong and clear sense of self. They are a trail that we follow into our own interior, where we meet both our own creativity and our creator.

Anger is not the action itself. It is action’s invitation.

We are operating out of the toxic old idea that God’s will for us and our will for us are at opposite ends of the table. “I want to be an actress, but God wants me to wait tables in hash joints,” the scenario goes. “So if I try to be an actress, I will end up slinging hash.” Thinking like this is grounded in the idea that God is a stern parent with

Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expe

When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant, defensive hostility: “But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?” Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don’t. So let’s start.

many changes will be set in motion. Chief among these changes will be the triggering of synchronicity: we change and the universe furthers and expands that change.

In a twisted version of Darwinian determinism, we tell ourselves that real artists can survive the most hostile environments and yet find their true calling like homing pigeons. That’s hogwash. Many real artists bear children too early or have too many, are too poor or too far removed culturally or monetarily from artistic opportunity to become the