What to Write About When You Have No Ideas... Quick Writing Inspiration with Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron:

And I was told, "Put up a little sign, Julia, that says, 'Okay, God, you take care of the quality. I'll take care of the quantity,' and then try writing and letting that creative energy write through you." And I said, "Oh, but what if it doesn't want to?" And they said, "Well, just try it." 

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Marie Forleo:

Today's guest is one of the most prolific writers of our time, and she is personally responsible for reigniting the creative passions and output of literally millions around the world. Hailed by The New York Times as the queen of change, Julia Cameron is credited with starting a movement in 1992 that has brought creativity into the mainstream conversation. She's the bestselling author of more than 40 books, both fiction and nonfiction. She's also a poet, a songwriter, filmmaker, and playwright. The Artist's Way has been translated into 40 languages and sold over 5 million copies to date.

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So Julia, it is such an honor to have you on the show. I've got to be honest, I was like a little kid at Christmas all day, and honestly all week thinking about having the chance to talk to you. I'm going to hold these up, not to embarrass you, but just to show you like, these are just... I have six of your books right here, and that's not even the whole collection. Before we get into questions and conversation, I just want to say thank you for being you and thank you for your decades of creation and your commitment to helping people get unblocked, because you have made such a difference in my life. I am just so honored and excited that we get to have this conversation today.

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Julia Cameron:

Well, I'm delighted to be here and it's delightful that you have a stack of my books. I feel that we can go topic to topic as it suits you.

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Marie Forleo:

Absolutely. Let's take it back to the beginning. Tell us how this all started and how you became as The New York Times has called you, the queen of change?

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Julia Cameron:

Well, I found that I could help people. I found that the tools that I was using myself were potent for other people, and I found I was doing my Morning Pages, taking my walks, doing my artist dates. And I started to write little essays and I thought they were just to help a few of my friends who were blocked. And so I thought when I wrote The Artist's Way that I was writing it for me and 10 people. And of course, the message of The Artist's Way that we are all creative and can all become more creative with the use of a few simple tools, resonated with many, many people.

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Marie Forleo:

5 million and going strong. I mean, I have recommended The Artist's Way to so many people and I have done Morning Pages for years. I'm excited to get into the tools, but I want to talk about something else first. You've written about performance anxiety, specifically when it comes to writing. And this is something that I personally have suffered with. You said that creativity is an awful lot like sex. What do you mean by that? And I can go into it if you don't remember exactly the passage you wrote, but it had me laughing out loud because it was so truthful.

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Julia Cameron:

Well, what I meant was that the littlest touch begins the flow and that we often think, "Oh, I'm not in the mood", but then once we get started, the mood overcomes us.

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Marie Forleo:

That's right.

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Julia Cameron:

And so I do feel that creativity is a lot like sex where we may feel, "Oh, I have nothing to say." And then we think, "Oh, I have a little to say." And that's like the first stroke.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. And I love that you also shared if it always has to be great, that creates a certain amount of performance anxiety. If you're holding yourself to such a high level in your writing, that it has to be brilliant, that you have to perform at this level all the time, all you're going to do is feel anxious. And I realized Julia, that when I was working on my last book, my goodness, I tortured myself so much. And I felt so blocked because I had this inner fear that it wasn't going to be great. And that just lock-jammed everything.

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Julia Cameron:

Yes. I think trying to be brilliant rather than trying to be of service is a key. When I started writing and I was still drinking, when I was writing and drinking, I was trying to be brilliant and every line had to be perfect. And then when I was struck sober and told to pray and to try and be of service in my writing, I found myself untangling and the resultant prose was much better.

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Marie Forleo:

I think that shift is so powerful. This shift from trying to be brilliant versus just being of service, and trying to get it right versus you just want to be useful or helpful. And I loved that you talked about, and you always talk about in your work, invoking a higher power and how that impacts your flow.

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Julia Cameron:

Well, I think what happened for me, I think we are going ahead a little bit now to talk about the book Seeking Wisdom. It's my new book. And in it, I talk about the power of prayer to impact creativity. And I found myself asking in my Morning Pages, "What should I write next?" And getting the answer back, "Prayer." And I was horrified and I said, "Prayer! I'm not holy enough to write about prayer. That should be for somebody much more spiritual than I am." But the guidance insisted, "You will write about prayer." And I found myself saying, "Oh, maybe I should tell them the beginnings of my story so that I wasn't standing on some pedestal lecturing down." And I talked about being cornered into prayer and I got sober and I was told, "Now, if you want to stay sober, you'll need to pray." I said, "You don't understand. I have 16 years of Catholic education. I don't like prayer." And they said, "You don't understand. You must believe in something."

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So I asked a girlfriend of mine what she prayed to, and she said, "Oh, I pray to Mick Jagger." And I asked another girlfriend, "Well, if you don't pray to Mick Jagger, what do you pray to?" And she said, "Well, I pray to sunspots." And then I thought, "Well, I must believe in something." And I realized that I believed in a line from the poet, Dylan Thomas, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower." That creative energy that was very powerful and very specific. And I thought, "Well, maybe I could pray to that energy." So I started praying to that energy and I found myself thinking, "I want to stay a writer. I don't want to be struck a waitress. I don't want to be struck a saleswoman. I must have something that I can hold onto."

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And I was told, "Put up a little sign, Julia, that says, 'Okay, God, you take care of the quality. I'll take care of the quantity,' and then try writing and letting that creative energy write through you." And I said, "Oh, but what if it doesn't want to?" And they said, "Well, just try it." So I began to try to pray to let the creative force write through me. What happened is that I began to be led a step at a time toward unblocking myself, and I was told, "Try and help others." And I thought, "I don't want to help others. I want to help me. Me, me, me." But I was sent another writer who was blocked. And so I said to him, "Well, you might want to try letting that creative force write through you. You might want to try being a channel or a conduit." And he said, "This all sounds too woo-woo." And I said, "Well, it may sound woo-woo, but it might work." And what happened was he used the tools and he became unblocked.

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Marie Forleo:

So you've got four core tools for creative recovery. For those, and I don't know who these people would be, who may be unaware of your work, but I think for the purpose of this video and this interview, it would be awesome if we could walk through the tools and I kind of want to go deep on two of them: Morning Pages and asking for guidance. Let's start with Morning Pages. For those that don't know, what is that tool and how would they begin to use it?

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Julia Cameron:

Well, Morning Pages are three pages of long-hand morning writing that you do first thing on awakening. You write them on 8.5x11 paper, and you write, "This is what I like. This is what I don't like. This is what I want more of. This is what I want less of." And it's as if you're sending a little telegram to the universe, and you're saying, "Here is my precise position. Here is how I authentically, actually feel." So it's a form of prayer and meditation and you don't show them to anybody. They're top secret. And they are done long hand rather than on a computer because what happens when we write long hand is that we go deep. And what happens when we write on the computer is that we may go whizzing past something important.

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So Morning Pages are a tool of expansion. You start to write them and you are given a dare and the pages say, "You might want to try X." And you find yourself thinking, "I can't, that's too threatening. I don't believe I can do that." And the pages are stubborn and they say, "You will do that." In my case, it was writing music. I was 45 years old. I was raised as the non-musical one in a very musical family. And the pages kept saying, "You will be writing radiant songs." And I kept thinking, "Not bloody likely." But what happened was they were persistent and I found myself going to visit a girlfriend and complaining bitterly to her, "I've been praying for what to do next. And I'm told I'm going to be writing music, radiant songs. I don't think it's possible. I think if I were the least bit musical, I would know it." And she said, she lived up in the Rocky Mountains, she said, "Why don't you go sit down by the stream?" And she pointed me down the slope to where a little Rocky Mountain stream would run through her property.

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I went down to the stream and I sat down on a boulder and I was sort of half-assed meditating. And all of a sudden I heard, (singing) “My green heart is filled with apples. Your dark face is filled with stars. I am the one that you forgotten. You are the one my heart desires. So dance when you think of me, sing to remember me, sing ‘till your heart can see who we are. Dance when you think of me, sing to remember me, sing ‘till your heart can see who we are.”

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And I thought, "I think it's a song. Oh my gosh."

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

And I went racing back up the hill and she said, "Here, sing it into this little tape recorder." And I sang it into the little tape recorder. What happened after that was that I had 60 pieces of music come through me.

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Marie Forleo:

Wow.

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Julia Cameron:

And so now if you go to my website, juliacameronlive.com, there's a section that's called Julia's Art, and there's a section in that on music. And it has three musicals that I've written and many flower songs that are just sort of delightful little didees.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. I've listened to some. They are magical.

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Julia Cameron:

So I feel like Morning Pages dared me to become larger and I eventually took up the dare. So that's Morning Pages. And at the end of… In The Artist's Way, I talk about asking for guidance and could I have guidance about X? And then I listen. And, so people will say to me, "Julia, you've written 40 books. Why are you now suddenly talking about guidance?" I've realized that I've been using guidance for 30 years, myself, and I used it so frequently that it was invisible to me. And then I realized, "Well, I need to make it visible and accountable for my students. So I asked them to inquire, "What should I write next? What should I do next?" And listen for guidance. They were often saying, "Well, Julia, what if it's just my imagination when I hear something back?" And I say, "Well, if it is your imagination, your imagination is much more powerful and benevolent than you had previously thought. So more power to it."

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. I've got to tell you just quickly, I practiced asking for guidance this morning at the end of my Morning Pages. It was the first time that I did it in the fashion that you lay out for us, which is, you had given the example that you'll write LJ for Little Julia. So I wrote LM for Little Marie, and I asked probably five or six questions this morning when I did my Morning Pages at the end. And I will tell you, the answers were simple and straightforward. They felt wise and truthful and it was fantastic.

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Julia Cameron:

So I think I want everybody to experiment with asking for guidance and I have been told it doesn't have to be difficult. The answers are simple, straightforward, loving, encouraging.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

And that sounds like that's your experience.

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Marie Forleo:

Oh, I've experimented with a form of guided writing, doing a bit of a meditation, asking a question and then almost doing like stream of consciousness. But what I love about your method of asking for wisdom, it's like a Q&A. It is so conversational and so direct and so right there, what should I do about... I'm working on a new writing project. I was asking about a piece of real estate. Then I was asking about... I went all over to the different nooks and crannies of my life from the big stuff to the tiny stuff and it flowed. So I just want to give that texture so that anyone listening, if they think like, "Oh my goodness, Julia Cameron hears guidance, but I don't know if anyone else could." I just want to give that further encouragement of how profound and fun and simple and easy it was. I want to thank you for that because it's brilliant.

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Julia Cameron:

You're very welcome.

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Marie Forleo:

I would love to talk, if you're open to it, about the productivity of creativity. And this is just me being curious, because, as a writer myself who loves your work so much, do you outline your new books before you start writing? Do you work from a table of contents or are you in such a flow now, Julia, after so many decades that you just sit down and you're just like, "I'm going to write and it'll be complete when it's complete?”

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Julia Cameron:

Well, that's a good description of how I do it. I do not write from an outline. I do not write from a table of contents. I sit down and I ask, "What next?"

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Marie Forleo:

Wow.

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Julia Cameron:

And then I listen. The pages seem to come one right after another, the words come one right after another. And I believe that all of us can have this experience and that what happens with Morning Pages is that it trains you to stand to one side and let a flow move through you. So I think we should say that when we do Morning Pages, we may encounter our critic who says, "You're boring. This has been done before. What are you doing?" And what we learned to say to our critic is, "Thank you for sharing." And then we keep right on writing Morning Pages. This is a portable skill. And so when we sit down to do our "serious writing" and the critic shows up, we say, "Oh, thank you for sharing." And it goes from being a large, overbearing ogre, to being a weak peeping cartoon character.

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Marie Forleo:

Isn't Julia just amazing? Now, if you want to write more consistently and have the right words just flow out of you, go to thecopycure.com and sign up for our free seven-day writing class. Just pop in your first name and your email, and you will get lesson number one instantly. You're going to love this. So head on over to thecopycure.com and sign up for your free writing class now.

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Staying on process just for a few more minutes, I read somewhere when I was doing my research to talk with you that when you are doing a first draft of your next book, that you actually aim for about three pages a day, which will get you about 90 pages a month. Is that, again, just in that flow of like, you'll write for about three pages, have you ever been the type of writer who feels like you want to stretch or say, "Oh, I'm supposed to reach a certain word count," or working on deadlines? Or again, is it just a different kind of experience for you?

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Julia Cameron:

I think it's a different kind of experience for me. I write my Morning Pages, three pages of morning writing. And then later on in the day, I sit down to write on my "real project.”

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

And one more time, I find that three pages is a manageable amount. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Julia Cameron:

I don't try to do more than three pages because I don't want to strip my gears.

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This brings us to an artist date. So every day you write your Morning Pages, that's a daily practice that you do despite resistance. And when I'm teaching and I say, "I have a tool for you. It's a nightmare. You'll have to get up 45 minutes early and work." People will say, "Work! Oh, I get it. I'm going to work on my creativity." So they're quite willing to do the work of Morning Pages. But then I say, "Now, once a week, I want you to go out by yourself, do something incredibly interesting, friendly, frivolous, fun." It's a sort of an assigned play. And what happens when I start to talk about do an artist date, take your creative consciousness out for a little expedition, people say, "Oh, I don't see what play has to do with working on our creativity." And they cross their arms and they tilt their heads and they get very skeptical. I say to them then, "Well, we have an expression, the play of ideas. And we don't realize that it's actually a prescription. Play and you'll get ideas."

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I think what happens when we are working on a project is that we start fishing from an inner well. And what happens is that we hook images, we hook ideas, we hook concepts. And what happens then is sometimes people will say, "Julia, I was doing so well and then it dried up." And I say, “Well, it up because you overfished your inner well. You hooked too many ideas without replenishing the flow of images." So artists' dates replenish the inner well. And if you're working flat out, I sometimes say, try to take two artist dates in a week, but that's usually not necessary. Usually people can get by taking one artist date a week.

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My favorite artist date is going to a pet store where they have a big giant bunny named George. And I go to the pet store and I ask the owner, "Can I pet George?" He says, "Well, that's up to George." But I have found that George likes to be petted, and it gives me a sense of whimsy, expansion4, delight, sensuality. I find that an artist date that has all those factors in it refills my inner well.

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Marie Forleo:

Okay. We've covered three of our core tools, Morning Pages, artist date, and asking for guidance. Shall we talk about the final tool of the four?

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Julia Cameron:

Well, I think we're talking now about walking.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

And I think walking is something that is so simple that we tend to overlook it. What I have found is that if you go out a couple times a week for 20 minutes at a crack and walk by yourself, you wake up to a sense of benevolence. I've had people say to me, "Julia, I think I felt God." And they're sort of marveling at the connection that they feel when they walk. So we recently lost a wonderful Buddhist teacher named Thich Nhat Hanh.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

He was a great believer in walking. And he said, "Try and walk as if with each foot fall you're kissing the earth."

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Marie Forleo:

So beautiful. I was just in Costa Rica a few weeks ago, and I thought of you because I had my last morning there before I was jumping on a plane back to New York, and I got up early, I did my Morning Pages. And then I went for about a 30-minute walk into the forest and into the jungle without my phone, without anything. And it was so incredibly healing, and it made me think I need to do more of this. I need to do more of this where I live and wherever I am. And I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, when we go walking for this purpose, leave your phones, don't listen to anything, don't bring anyone else. It's not for pets. It's not for companions. It's for you and the creative force. Is that right?

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Julia Cameron:

That's exactly right.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Julia Cameron:

And sometimes people will say, "Oh, but I'd like to listen to music." And then I say, "Well, then you're listening to the composer's walk."

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

Or they say, "I want to take my dog." And I say, "Well, if you take your dog, your dog is going to start saying things like, 'Oh, look at that handsome Rottweiler. Oh, look at that adorable Cocker Spaniel.'" And you find yourself taking your dog's walk. So it's something that's done solo, just you and your creative consciousness.

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Marie Forleo:

Let's talk about the power of making lists. I know one motivated your cross country move. I think you lived in New York for many, many years, and then you moved to Santa Fe and I believe it was following an exercise from one of your books about listing just 25 things that you love. Do you want to talk about the power that sometimes lists can have in unearthing our next moves or something that we may want to go explore?

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Julia Cameron:

Well, I think they're very powerful. I think for me, I had been living in New York and I did... It's an Artist's Way exercise of listing 25 things you loved. And I started listing and I listed, "Well, I love mountains. Well, I love golden chamisa bushes. Well, I love green chili. Well, I love black beans." And I'm looking at this list and I'm going, "Nowhere on here does it say the Empire State Building?" I found my list was that I was living in New York, but my heart was in the Southwest. So that became the impulse that moved me to Santa Fe.

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Marie Forleo:

If anyone listening or watching right now feels like they just don't have any idea of what they could write about. They feel completely like a blank slate. What would be something that you could suggest for someone to get their creative juices flowing? And we know we've got the tools under our belt, but is there anything that you would say to someone who's just like, "I have no idea what to write about right now?”

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Julia Cameron:

Well, I think what you're asking me for is there a secret final tool? And the answer is there is no secret tool. The tools are the tools that are explained at great length and Morning Pages will give people a clue as to what to write about.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

Another thing I would say, the power of the list. Write 25 things you love, and then look down the list and see if something sort of gently beeps at you. I believe in coaxing ourselves forward, not in flogging ourselves forward. So if we coax ourselves forward, we may find ourselves saying, "Oh, I'm living amid skyscrapers, but I'm missing mountains."

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. Julia, this is just such a powerful conversation. I am so grateful for your continued contribution. Is there anything that you want to leave people with as we wrap up today on the power of creativity, consistency, continuing to show up for yourself, anything that you want to share?

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Julia Cameron:

Well, I think the power of creativity is the power of consistency, is showing up for yourself. So I would gently say to people, please, I'd like you to try Morning Pages. I'd like you to go on an artist date. I'd like you to take a walk. And I'd like you to ask for guidance about what it is you should do next. And then listen. So I think a great deal of what I'm talking about is the power of prayer, where we say, "Dear God, please guide me." And the power of listening for the guidance that we hear. I think we are led. I believe that. So I think we should say that this is the 30th anniversary of The Artist's Way.

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Marie Forleo:

Wow. How incredible?

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Julia Cameron:

It has been climbing best seller lists. After 30 years, it's number three in Los Angeles. And I think that the power of the pandemic cracked many of us open to spiritual ideas.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

I think The Artist's Way has been enjoying a renaissance because it's a proven, gentle path for expansion.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Julia Cameron:

And I think that's what many of us have been looking for. If people will go to juliacameronlive.com, they will find lots of art and it's for free. And I think I'd like to read a poem if we could.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. Of course.

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Julia Cameron:

This was a poem that... Many times people believe creativity is born out of pain, but I have found that creativity is born out of joy. So this is called, “Jerusalem Is Walking in This World.”

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“This is a great happiness. The air is silk. There is milk in the looks that come from strangers. I could not be happier if I were bread and you could eat me. Joy is dangerous. It fills me with secrets. Yes, hisses in my veins. The pains I take to hide myself are sheer as glass. Surely this will pass. The wind, like kisses. The music in the soup. The group of trees laughing as I say their names. It is all hosannah. It is all prayer. Jerusalem is walking in the world. Jerusalem is walking in the world.”

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Marie Forleo:

So beautiful. Thank you so much for that.

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Julia Cameron:

You're welcome.

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Marie Forleo:

For anyone who's interested, go to juliacameronlive.com and you can enjoy so much beautiful music and artwork and poems from Julia, in addition to seeing the over 40 books that she's produced, all of which are absolutely brilliant. Julia, I adore you. I thank you. And we so appreciate you making the time today.

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Julia Cameron:

You're very welcome. It's a pleasure to talk to you.

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Marie Forleo:

I've got a question for you. Do you ever wish that you could just write faster? Well, I have got the next episode for you that you've got to watch right now. It's How to Write Fast: 8 Secrets to Better, Quicker Content Creation. Click on it now, you're going to love it. You want to think about your end result. What is the thing that you want your reader to walk away with? What action, if any, do you want them to take? Then you have to reverse engineer your content to get them there.