pegkerr | The Sound of Paper (Reply)

kijjohnson gave me Julie Cameron's The Sound of Paper for my birthday. It seems to be a book about regenerating the creative process if you've been blocked, and god knows, that is up my alley. I started reading it and did the first exercise tonight.

I have mixed feelings about Julie Cameron. I read The Artist's Way and there were parts of that book that really spoke to me. But I cannot get her conception of the morning pages to work for me. (Write three pages longhand every morning, before you get out of bed, about anything, no matter what). She swears that it will Unlock the Font of Creativity within you. I tried, I really did. I did them religiously for months. But as you'll remember, I've been doing a daily journal every night (one page) for going on thirty years. Three pages in the morning seemed redundant (especially since I was doing LiveJournal, too), and I didn't have time. And I couldn't understand what was so magical about them, when I've been doing practically the same thing at night. I wasn't getting the Magical Unlocking of Your Creativity that she swore would happen, and I kept wondering "What's wrong with me?"

Finally, it occurred to me that I had written two perfectly good novels that sold without doing morning pages. (Well, duh.) I stopped doing them immediately and have never resumed, although I still do the night (paper) journal and LiveJournal. I don't miss the morning pages, and it was a relief to cut one other source of guilt out of my life. However, I still remain blocked.

I like her idea of the artist date, though, and I did really like some of the exercises in The Artist's Way. I really must scan the collage I made and post it. She suggested taking pictures and phrases from magazines and pasting them on a page for about an hour. I really got into it and worked on it for about a week. I liked the result so much that I laminated it when I was through. I'm really quite proud of it, and it's still up where I can see it in my office.

So anyway, I'll read and try the exercises in this new book, and try to be open and hopeful.

But no morning pages, dammit.