Nora Holzinger

By now, thousands of people have seen my article, The Artist’s Way is Elitist Trash . In it I critique the classic book by creativity guru Julia Cameron. The article got a lot more attention (and hate comments) than I anticipated, but I stand by everything I wrote. Well just a few months ago, at a charity book store in Silver City, New Mexico, I happened upon a copy of Writing Down the Bones (1986) by Natalie Goldberg, for a sensible $2. I had never heard of this book before, but for $2 I was willing to risk it.  I took the book back to the strawbale cabin I was renting at the edge of the Gila Wilderness and sat in the warmth of the late-winter sun and read. I read and read and finished the book, and then I turned back to page one and read it a second time. At this point, I think I’ve read this book four or five times. Part writing/creativity book and part Zen meditation guide, this slim volume teaches writing as a kind of meditative practice, a practice that can produce quality,...

  The morning sun peeks over two mountain ranges in New Mexico - the Sangre de Cristos of Santa Fe and the Sandias of Albuquerque, both moodily draped in clouds.  Two writers begin their morning pages - a stream-of-consciousness brain dump to kickstart creativity. One of these writers is me, hunched on my tattered blue cloth couch, scribbling as quickly as I can before I have to get ready for my desk job. The other is Julia Cameron on her leather upholstered chaise, in her million-dollar Santa Fe home. Nestled next to me is a cat I found in a dumpster. At Julia’s feet, a purebred westie .  We are both completing one of the pillars of her New Age self-help creativity bible, The Artist’s Way. The book draws a direct link between creativity and spirituality as the means of “unblocking” creatives who feel stuck or unproductive. It promises to be effective for “any one interested in creative living”, whether your art is a career or a hobby. Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keys, and ...