Julia Cameron
Guy Kawasaki www.facebook.com
Julia Cameron has written over forty books, plays, musicals and screenplays with her most popular being The Artist's Way. The New York Times calls her The Queen of Change. You'll love this podcast about writing and creativity. Listen on Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People podcast.
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Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki:

I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. This episode's remarkable guest is none other than Julia Cameron. She is the author of The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Guide to Higher Creativity. Over five million copies of this book have been sold. That's about 4.8 million copies more than any single book of mine. The 25th anniversary of this book has over 3,000 ratings, and they averaged five stars. You have no idea how hard it is to have that many ratings come out to five stars. I am in awe of this.

Let me read one of her reviews, "I was turned onto this book in 1995, and it changed not only my life in powerful, profound, and exciting ways, but the lives of several of my family members and friends. It gave me a way in, into my own soul, my deeper voice, mind, purpose for living, and capacity for enjoying life" - Sedera Dharan.

The New York Times calls her the Queen of Change. She's also known as the godmother, or high priestess, of change.

She has written over forty books, as well as screenplays, musicals, and plays. She attended Georgetown University before transferring to Fordham. She has written for The Washington Post and Rolling Stone.

Her new book is The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention, it was released yesterday. We cover a lot of this book in our interview.

To get the most out of this episode, you have to know this in advance - Nigel is the name she has given to the self-doubt and negativism inside her. Lily is her dog. You'll enjoy our discussion of the bondage of self-centeredness, the uni-ball 207, and why perfectionism is for second and third drafts.

This episode of Remarkable People is brought to you by reMarkable - the paper tablet company. Yes, you got that right. Remarkable is sponsored by reMarkable. I have version two in my hot little hands and it's so good. A very impressive upgrade.

Here's how I use it. One: taking notes while I'm interviewing a podcast guest. Two: taking notes while being briefed about a speaking gig. Three: drafting the structure of keynote speeches. Four: storing manuals for all the gizmos that I buy. Five: roughing out drawings or things like surfboards, surfboard sheds. Six: wrapping my head around complex ideas with diagrams and flow charts.

This is a remarkably well thought-out product. It doesn't try to be all things to all people, but it takes notes better than anything I've used. Check out the recent reviews of the latest version.

I'm Guy Kawasaki, and now, here is Julia Cameron.

Guy Kawasaki:

Thank you very much for doing this. I love your glasses.

Julia Cameron:

Well, thank you.

Guy Kawasaki:

I read that there's a special store where you are that has glasses like that.

Julia Cameron:

Yes. My girlfriend Scotty has many pairs of glasses. I went and I tried on all of them and I found these, and I thought, “I love these.”

Guy Kawasaki:

How is Nigel these days?

Julia Cameron:

Nigel is alive and well, and critical. He starts me out on a podcast like this - terrified.

Guy Kawasaki:

I think we should put Nigel back in the box because there is no reason to be terrified by me. My podcast is called Remarkable People so I only want remarkable people to look remarkable.

As I was reading the manuscript of your latest book, very early on, I thought to myself, “She would love Brenda Ueland,” and then you mentioned Brenda Ueland! Brenda Ueland changed my life!

Julia Cameron:

That's wonderful. She was a great inspiration to me. She said, “Perhaps we are always talked to by God and his messengers. We're an incandescent power,” and I thought, “Oh, I love that!”

Guy Kawasaki:

My wife gave me her book, If You Want to Write, and, at the time, I had not written my first book. It really took the Nigel out of me and enabled me to write a book. How do you want ideally people to read your book?

Julia Cameron:

I'd like them to read the first three tools, which are artists’ way tools that have been proved over the years to be effective. I want people to get grounded in artists’ way tools, and then launch into the six weeks.

I found, over teaching, that six weeks was a long enough time for listening because people, very quickly, pick up the tools and become acute listeners. I didn't feel we needed to do twelve weeks. I felt, “No, there are layers enough for six,” so it became six but it comes out of experience, Guy.

When I teach, I take the temperature of the class that I'm teaching, and I find myself feeling, “Oh, they're cooked.” The Listening Path was cooked at six weeks instead of twelve.

Guy Kawasaki:

Do you think that the audio version of your book is a better way to learn what you have to say versus reading it?

Julia Cameron:

That's an interesting question. I think the audio is calming, and I think people take in information through listening. It's an example of the premise of the book - do listen. I find that I wrote the book hoping for readers to walk alongside me as we went through the layers. I would hope to have people read the first three tools, start practicing them, and then move a week at a time into the remaining layers.

Guy Kawasaki:

I am very curious, why is there so much about Lily? Is there a deep metaphor or meaning there that you use Lily as a mechanism?

Julia Cameron:

Now, Lily - we should explain to everybody - is my little white Westie dog, and we live together up on top of a mountain. Lily, is my constant companion. I'm worried that I'm turning into a datty old lady.

I'm seventy-two, almost seventy-three, and that I'm someone who datty old lady-talks to her dog, and Lily talks back to me, so there's a lot of Lily in the book.

Lily is also a great listener. When the door squeaks at the courtyard gate, which is about 100 feet from the house, Lily says, “Mom, somebody is here,” and hopefully she thinks it's Nick, my helper.

Guy Kawasaki:

So Lily is a great listener is the lesson there?

Julia Cameron:

Yes, I think so. Lily tells me, “Oh, mom, pay attention.” She barks at coyotes.

I have an acre of land that's wooded, and half of it is fenced for Lily. The fence is about seven feet tall, so coyotes can't get over it, but raccoons and squirrels can, and skunks. So we have a lot of wildlife on the mountain.

Guy Kawasaki:

What would you say is the opposite of listening?

Julia Cameron:

Self-obsession. I think we say a prayer, “Relieve me of the bondage of self,” and the bondage of self is always wondering, “How am I doing? Am I brilliant? I certainly hope so.” It keeps nattering at you. I think I've said enough about that.

Guy Kawasaki:

What you didn't say is that the opposite of listening is talking, because you can be self-absorbed and not be talking, and still not be listening.

Julia Cameron:

Exactly. I think what I would say is that self-obsession is a constant companion that, when we truly listen, we forget ourselves. We become focused on what the other person is saying. We become focused, not on our response, but on what they have to share.

I think one of the tools of The Listening Path is to not interrupt. I think a lot of times in the conversation, it isn't a real conversation. It isn't “my turn, your turn,” It's “your tur- my turn!”

Guy Kawasaki:

You tell me if I start asking questions too quickly, because I want this to be your episode, not mine. Are believing mirrors ever supposed to be critical?

Julia Cameron:

Yes. So the answer is - well, first of all, what is a believing mirror? It's somebody who reflects back to your strength and possibility. They say to you, I believe you can do that, but a believing mirror also reflects back to yourself accurately.

So when I wrote, The Listening Path, I gave it in manuscript form to several people who are, for me, believing mirrors. My friend, Gerard, who has been my friend for fifty-two years, read it and said, “I really liked it. You could have expanded at the end.” I take the notes of believing mirrors, and take them into a second draft, and a third draft. I do multiple drafts of my books.

Guy Kawasaki:

I am also a writer. I have written fifteen books. I would love to know your process of writing - down really at the mechanics of how do you do it.

Julia Cameron:

First of all, I write long hand. I have found that when I write long hand, there is a flow to the work, and an intelligence to the work. I find I don't often need to do too much editing when I'm moving from a long hand draft to the second draft, which is on a computer. I find writing on the computer, I want to say it makes me too glib, and writing by hand makes me more thoughtful.

Guy Kawasaki:

When you are writing by hand, is this the romantic notion of you're using a fountain pen on parchment, or you using a one-dollar pen on a legal tablet?

Julia Cameron:

I don't use a legal tablet. I use what I call morning page journals, which are pages thick - the ink doesn't soak through, and I use a pen called uni-ball 207.

I don't like fountain pens. I find I press too hard and I scratch the paper. I have friends who swear by fountain pens, but I'm awkward with them. So I use the uni-ball 207.

Guy Kawasaki:

There's going to be a run on uni-ball 207s at every stationary store in the country right now. Do you type in the computer draft, or does someone do it for you?

Julia Cameron:

All right, I write in journals, and then I go to FedEx, and I Xerox them because I'm afraid to mail my rough drafts across the country for fear, my God, what if something happens and it doesn't get there?

So I send them to a woman that I work with named, Emma Lively, and Emma and I have worked together for twenty-two years, and she is able to decipher my handwriting. She very seldom has to ask me what word I had intended. Emma types it into the computer. Emma is, for me, a believing mirror.

After she types it into the computer, I say to her, “What did you think?” And Emma tells me what she thinks. Then I work with her as an editor. She and I have written books together, and she's very hard-headed. I find her feedback supportive, but also critical.

Guy Kawasaki:

Just to back up for a second, as you're writing in longhand, are you working off of an outline? Is there an outline in your brain, or it just flows?

Julia Cameron:

I want to say it just flows. I want to say this is where I depend upon prayer. I find myself - I write in the morning pages and it puts me in touch with a flow, a benevolent flow. Then, when I sit down to write, I start right where I am, which is why you have so much Lily in the book.

Guy Kawasaki:

This may seem like a confusing and maybe too esoteric question, but do you write and then listen, or do you listen and then write?

Julia Cameron:

I listen, and then write.

Guy Kawasaki:

So you're listening to something inside you telling you what to write?

Julia Cameron:

Inside me, outside me. I feel like when you tune into your environment you get guidance. So I don't want this to sound to woo-woo. My experience is that you can trust yourself, and when you write by hand, you're trusting yourself, you're listening.

Well, I'll give you an example. We go through COVID, and I'm friends with a woman named Judy Collins, who's a wonderful singer, and Judy has written a dozen books.

I called Judy during COVID and said, “What are you doing?” Which is a fatal question to ask Judy because she says, “I'm practicing the piano, I'm singing, I'm writing a coffee table book, doing a podcast,” and she ticks off a whole list of creative things. Then she says to me, “What are you doing?” And I said, “Well, I'm writing my morning pages. I'm taking walks, I'm taking artists dates, and other than that, I'm not doing anything creative.”

I said to her, “I'm supposed to be the Queen of Creativity but I find myself mulling rather than creating.” So I went to the page, to the next day after talking to Judy, who was inspirational, and I found myself reading guidance, which is, I write, “What should I do next? And then I listen, and I heard, “You're going to write another play.” I had written six plays already and I thought, “Another play? Well, I have no idea,” and then the guidance said, “Start with birds.” So I found myself starting a play, long hand, with the line, “Aren't they lovely?”

Guy Kawasaki:

I love that story. So I'm going to read to you four little clips from your book, and then I have a question after I read them. So one is a greased slide to atheism. Another is driving with high beams. Another is mental cigarette breaks. The last one is a higher force, shaking ice cube trays. This is when it was hailing in New Mexico.

I love those metaphors, and I want to know how do you come up with such great metaphors?

Julia Cameron:

So I'm going to say again, I do the morning writing every day, and Nigel says, “Oh, you're boring,” and you say, “Thank you for sharing, Nigel,” and you just right on writing. What happens is that your Nigel, your critic, becomes miniaturized. It becomes a cartoon voice, and not something deadly, forbidding, looming, and frightening.

What happens when you write something like, “I imagine the higher power giving ice cubes a celestial shake,” if Nigel says, “That's a ridiculous image,” you say, “Nigel, thank you for sharing, but I think I'll keep my image.” So I think the morning pages lead to freedom, and the freedom of expressing dry... Everybody knows high beams versus low beams, and I think it's important not to talk down to your readers, to assume that they're going to get what you're saying. I think that readers bring a world of associations, and people have said to me, “Oh, can I see Lily?” And when I'm doing a podcast, I will hold Lily up. Would you like to see Lily?

Guy Kawasaki:

I would love to see Lily! Yes!

Julia Cameron:

Here's Lily.

Guy Kawasaki:

Oh, wait. She's, you have to...

Julia Cameron:

She's a little bit camera shy. She's focused. If you had a dog barking, she would be alertly focused on the computer saying, “Let me at him.”

Guy Kawasaki:

Thank you for sharing that Lily moment. That was very special. Thank you.

Next question. I think that you and Brenda Ueland share this concern that perfectionism is a barrier. That until you can do things perfect, or everything else is perfect, you can't do anything. So I understand that, but don't you think that perfectionism also produces quality?

Julia Cameron:

So here's how it works for me. I make a list of ten things. If I didn't have to do it perfectly, I'd try, and I list all ten things. Then I find myself writing imperfectly. What I find is that the perfectionist is useful in the second and third drafts, but draft should be free-form.

You asked before, and I didn't answer it, and I should have, if I used an outline and the answer is no. I go with the flow. I believe that there's an inherent form that what we're writing knows the shape it should be.

Guy Kawasaki:

In the book you tell multiple stories about when your landline was not working. In every instance, you said, “I'll call you on my cell phone,” and then later in the book, you talk about how deprivation leads to creativity. Is there some conflict or irony there? Because most people would not associate having a cell phone and deprivation. You could make the case that, without a cell phone, or without any other phone, you'd be in deprivation and therefore more creative. So does this cell phone help you or hurt you?

Julia Cameron:

Well, I keep the cell phone in the kitchen and I only use it for calling out. I found when I had the landline depriving me of communication that I came to rely, again, this is going to sound woo-woo. I have a girlfriend who says as a Jungian analyst, and since she says, “Julia, woo-woo is where it's at.” So that's too woo-woo. I came to depend on ESP.

What I would find is my friend, Jennifer, would call me up and she would be cross with me that the landline still wasn't working. I went to four technicians, and finally one said, “Your conventional landline draws too many volts. So you need to use a portable phone.” I was dubious, but I tried it and it worked. What I found though was that, if I didn't have a working phone, I would go to my cell phone and call out, and I would call my friend, Laura, and say, “Where are you trying to reach me?” And inevitably the response would be, “I was just about to call you.”

I have a friend, a wonderful writer named Jacob Nordby. He has a book coming out called The Creative Cure, and I got to write the forward for it, which was a privilege. I will call him and he will always say, “I was just about to call you!”

Guy Kawasaki:

You talk about the concept of an artist date, and for me, I consider an artist date going out on a drive in a fast car. Most people would say, “Guy, that's not an artist date. An artist date is going to the forest, or going to the ocean, or doing something like that.” I like to drive fast on my artist dates. Am I making this up, or can that be true?

Julia Cameron:

You're talking about - first of all, we should say what an artist's date is - it's a solo, festive expedition to do something that enchants or interests you. You're actually trying to please your inner eight-year-old. I think what you're describing, the thrill of speed, is something that does sound like a valid artist date to me, because it's something that enchants, or interests you, or thrills you.

I have an artist date that people say, “Oh, Julia, that's not an artist date,” and that is: I go to a bookstore where they have a bunny rabbit named George, and instead of looking at the books, I ask permission to pet George. When I pet George, I find myself feeling exuberant. He's a wonderful creature. Then I go to the books, and they say all about snakes, all about big cats, all about engines. I find that the amount of information in a children's book is just about the amount my artist needs to start working.

Guy Kawasaki:

You discuss the power of music in the book and is it conceivable that rap music can be considered a soundtrack for young people?

Julia Cameron:

I think, yes, I think so. I've written several musicals, and I do it on a little teeny keyboard that has eighteen keys. I do it there because it's less intimidating than the major piano. So I write on the little keyboard for fun. I think that rap music is fun.

Guy Kawasaki:

I love the concept of the twenty-minute trick. So could you explain that to my audience?

Julia Cameron:

Yes. All right, I'm going to give credit here to an actress named Jennifer Bassey, who is the one that was crabby with me about my phone. She's a delight.

She was married for thirty years to a writer, and so she observed closely what worked. What she saw him doing - and his name was Luther Davis, and he wrote Kismet - what she saw him doing was tricking himself into work.

I said to her, “I'm stuck. My perfectionist has me by the throat,” and she said, “Try writing for twenty minutes,” and I thought, “twenty minutes - I can manage twenty minutes. That's a small, doable amount.” So I tried writing for twenty minutes and discovered that when I got to the twenty-minute mark, I was up and running and wanted to keep going further.

So the twenty-minute trick is a bribe. You're telling your artist, “You don't need to do something serious. You need to do something festive,” and the festive something is the quick twenty minutes.

Guy Kawasaki:

Wonderful. This is something that, because of my past, struck me as very interesting. I just want to check something. So in your book, you tell the story about how your handyman, and once your handyman came with his wife to your house, and you say something to the effect that she had five carat or eight carat earrings.

I used to work in the jewelry business. So a five or eight carat earring is a humongous earring.

Julia Cameron:

That’s what she said! She couldn't believe the people who would come to her shop and buy these clunkers. She said, “We have a hard time keeping them in stock.” I think she herself has a more petite earring that maybe a little bit more tasteful.

I live in Santa Fe, which is the land of turquoise and silver, and sometimes I see somebody and they have a belt with a huge buckle of solid silver with turquoise embedded in it. I think that the people who are wearing the diamonds are trying to avoid wearing the turquoise.

Guy Kawasaki:

I would like you to explain why people should write their diaries in the morning, but you were composing prayers in the evening. So why diaries in the morning and prayers in the evening?

Julia Cameron:

All right. So the three pages of long hand morning writing are intended to catch you in a vulnerable position before your defenses are up. A lot of times, at the end of writing three pages of free-form stream of consciousness, I would ask a question, “What should I do about X?” And I would listen for an answer. Sometimes I would tend to get a pretty direct answer, which would tend to set my mind at ease for the day. Then I would get to the end of the day, and I would go back to the page and I would say, “I tried X, now what about X?” I would pursue it.

I think that in the calm of the evening, up on the mountain, it was a wonderful time to pursue prayer. I think I'm too energetic in the morning to pray properly. I know there are people who do morning pages, and then they meditate for twenty minutes. I find that I get my most guidance when my hand is moving across the page, rather than when I'm sitting still trying to do nothing.

Guy Kawasaki:

How do you pick your heroes?

Julia Cameron:

I think I look at my own value system and say, “What do I value?” And I find myself answering with answers that surprise me. At this point, The Artist's Way has sold five million books, which is a lot of books, and especially since I thought I was writing the book for ten of my closest friends, and it turned out to speak to others.

It has become a movement, if you would. I found myself thinking, “Who could be graceful with this situation?” And that's where I came up with Bill Wilson. He wrote a little bit for a few people, and now it's spoken to millions.

Guy Kawasaki:

My last question is, for young people listening to this, and they aspire to write. What is your advice?

Julia Cameron:

Write morning pages. I think getting on the page, teaching yourself to move past your sensor to write freely. What I find happens with people when I teach is that they start out a little bit cranky and say, “I'm boring and my life is boring,” but then they write, and they discover that their life is actually fairly interesting, and it gives them confidence.

So what happens is, if you write morning pages in the morning, later in the day when you turn to your other "serious writing," you find yourself writing freely. I would coax young writers to try morning pages. You'll see, it's a wonderful gift. Give it a shot.

Guy Kawasaki:

Thank you. This podcast is sponsored by a company that makes a tablet - this tablet - it looks like this. So this is a tablet, and this is a stylist that operates like a pencil, so I can just write on it. We're going to send you one. Maybe you will like writing with it.

It's not a computer, not in the sense of typing with a keyboard, but you literally, and it feels like you're writing with a pencil. So we'll send you one, and maybe you'll like it. That would just make our day.

Julia Cameron:

Thank you. It looks like fun to me. Fun is enticing.

Guy Kawasaki:

One of the beauties is, thinking about your workflow is, as you write out your book in long hand, with this pencil, pen like device, it will automatically go up into the cloud and be synchronized. So you immediately have another copy, and you could easily give your friend, the other person who helps you write, access to the account so she could immediately have it. You won't have to go to the FedEx store anymore, to Xerox and mail stuff. It might help your workflow. On the other hand, it might just be fun.

Julia Cameron:

It sounds festive, and I will look forward to receiving it.

Guy Kawasaki:

All right. Thank you so much. My wife was just thrilled that I could talk to you. She knew all about, all the daily writing, and the prayer - she's a fan. I went up in her book because I'm interviewing you. So thank you very much.

I hope you enjoyed this episode with, Julia Cameron. Remember: put the Nigel back in the bottle, or at least ignore him. One needs to learn how to control negativism and self-doubt.

I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. My thanks to Jeff Sieh and Peg Fitzpatrick, who remove negativism and self-doubt from my podcasts.

Until next time, maintain adequate social distance, wash your hands, wear your mask, and, if you can, get vaccinated as soon as you can. Mahalo and Aloha.

This episode of Remarkable People is brought to you by reMarkable - the paper tablet company.

This is Remarkable People.