Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance

As an avid reader of Julia's material and a writer who has been encouraged and spurred on by her words, I must say that Finding Water offers an even gentler voice than her earlier work. Yes, the advice is sound. Yes, her ideas and suggestions are a true ministry to those of us seeking encouragement and positive words as we strive to let our creative self free in a stifling world. Yet, for me, there is joy in reading her excellent prose - of relishing her descriptive scenes - of hearing her soothing voice emanate from the page. Julia not only shares her wisdom, she expresses it with a creative and loving flourish all her own. She is a beautiful writer - both concise and poetic. Finding Water reflects on some messages from her earlier work - but the way these truths are expressed is, in itself, worth the read. They cannot be repeated too often.

(An excerpt from my interview with Julia Cameron, see more on Amapedia) Q:How does Finding Water complete the Trilogy set by The Artist's Way and Walking in this World? A:You have to think of an artist's career in three stages: (1) The Artist's Way gets someone up on their feet and running with their creativity, (2) Walking in this World deals with the problems and situations of being an artist in the trenches, and (3) Finding Water is about the necessary discipline and spirit needed to keep one moving on in their career. The books are complementary with one another. Q:Can an Artist go back and forth between the books? A:A person with perseverance can rework The Artist's Way to jumpstart their creativity once again. Each set of tools in the different books reflects my own growth as an artist. For example, over the past seven years I have been working on a musical called Magellan. I needed to develop a "stick-to-it-ness" being such an active artist. This is a lesson I learned and now can turn around and teach. Q:What are the 12 weeks of the Finding Water program designed to do for the artist? The Artist's Way, The Vein of Gold, and Walking in This World had this same 12 week format. A:The book starts, as all the others do, with a basic set of tools that predate the weeks. They are common to all the books because in my 25 years of teaching, I discovered that if people just do these tools they experience a "see change". A "see change" is an awakening and a dramatic shift in their expression. Q:Why does this see change happen? A:The artist is essentially building a spiritual tool kit. The morning pages are a way of sending expression, the artists' dates are a means of receiving, and the walking is a form of integrating. The combination of all three is very powerful. Q: In your 30 plus years of being a thriving professional artist why does the art of perseverance develop in some artists but not others? A: This is a cultural problem. We live in a culture of instant hits and overnight successes. There are not many role models for going the distance. Americans are very different from Europeans. Artists have much longer careers in Europe. The people who persevere are people who have found their way to the same tools. These people also found an encouraging group of friends, were lucky with an agent and manager, and developed a cheering section and sense of community. This is pivotal in going the distance. Just like the 22 mile mark in a marathon, this support community of friends cheers you across the finish line. You need a lot of support for the process and the small steps but we have been culturally trained to think in giant steps. An artistic career is built on many tiny steps such as "I wrote three morning pages today". Q:Explain the concept of the Diving Rod that you describe in Finding Water. How do people get such a vicious inner censor? A:I think sometimes it is installed by a jealous teacher or an overly cautious parent. It is not always i

Ms. Cameron writes in a lyrical almost poetic prose that teaches the art of creativity without delving into a boring lecture. Over the forty years that she has been a writer she has written plays and movies, poetry and prayer books, books on spirituality and fiction, but mostly she has written books on creativity. After a hard time with alcohol, drugs, failed marriage (to Martin Scorsese) she seems to have found a world that works for her. (For more on her life, read her memoir 'Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir'.) It seems to combine a spiritual view towards creativity 'The music ... was dictated to me by God. I was merely ... putting it on paper ....' - Puccini regarding Madama Butterfly; with the more practical approach that you have to actually sit down and work at it. Even Puccini had to take pen in hand and put the music on paper. In this book, she talks of her life, thoughts, feelings, along with a hints and tips that have worked for her in maintaining her work as a writer. It's hard to say that this approach is going to work for you, it is easy to say that her books, her approach to creativity have appealed to a lot of people. As for spicing up my own creativity, I honestly haven't decided just yet. I do know that if I don't use a measure of discipline and perseverance by sitting here at the keyboard, nothing happens.

This new book is GREAT, and it's a logical topic for artists in general and fans of the AW process in particular. (I don't know HOW the previous reviewer could glance at this book in a store and then patently put it down so quickly!) I'm only 66 pages into it, and it's full of wisdom, tips, quotes and exercises, all geared at helping you keep discouragement at bay. Making art is most often lonely and isolating, and its so easy to fall into negative mind-traps... This book is also interesting because it seems more personal and revelatory--it reads almost like her personal diary, so we learn that Julia herself still struggles with her "inner critic" on what seems like a daily basis; and this is after 40 years as an artist and creativity teacher! I find this pretty comforting as I enter my 5th year of practicing my artform and SO wanting to take it to the next level. I can't put this book down, and I plan on reading the 2nd book (Walking in this World) as soon as I'm done with this one. So I may be a little out of logical sequence, but it's all part of the Big Picture as far as I'm concerned. If you have trouble persevering when the going gets tough, I urge you to order this immediately--you really won't be sorry--I think this woman's greatest gift is her ability to nurture the creative spirit in others, with practical, real-world advice.

I received a copy of FINDING WATER as a gift almost two weeks ago, and already I can feel it working in my life. I've loved THE ARTIST'S WAY and have done it twice. A couple of years ago I did the sequel, WALKING IN THIS WORLD, which I actually thought was even better than the first book, and really helped me to bring my creativity into the world. Now, with the third book of the trilogy, I can say that it came into my life just when I needed it. It does use the same basic tools that the other two books use, but it deals specifically with finding the strength within to keep going forward, to keep finding inspiration, to keep growing artistically and spiritually. The writing is beautiful, the exercises are challenging (in a good way), and the result for me so far has been a sense of renewal, and of re-connecting to my creative life. I'm doing it with my original Artist's Way group -- we've traveled together for a long time now -- and all of us feel the same way about FINDING WATER: it's great.