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The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
by
The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
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Paperback, 368 pages
Published
September 22nd 1997
by Tarcherperigee
(first published 1996)
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Start your review of The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
I treated this book like the bible to open up my creativity once again. Years ago, nearly a decade ago, in London, I read The Artist's Way and religiously wrote my "morning pages" and followed the exercises.
Now, having once again at another milestone in my life, I am forever grateful to discover this book among a collection of books for sale by an 86-year old retired artist who lives nearby. It was in pristine condition, and I begged to borrow it before she sold it. Every day, I sat down and ...more
Now, having once again at another milestone in my life, I am forever grateful to discover this book among a collection of books for sale by an 86-year old retired artist who lives nearby. It was in pristine condition, and I begged to borrow it before she sold it. Every day, I sat down and ...more
Very inspiration - more like a workbook than a book. Creative ideas for exploring your creative heart... I found some great nuggets in this book. And plenty of inspiration.
This book was a fascinating and enlightening one. It has many exercises and ideas to help a person bring out their inner creativity, in whatever their chosen field. It was also filled with famous or not so famous, but great quotes from well known people, about life, and their own searches for creatvity and expression. It's a book worth spending lots of time reading, and sadly, I didn't own it, so had to return it to the library. But I highly recommend it.
Invaluable. Creativity is connected to Spirit is what I got from this book, which I thought I knew, haha. I go back over and over to this amazing book. Full of fabulous quotes and resources, too. Julia Cameron's exercises will change your life.
While this has some excellent ideas, the program is not suitable for everyone. Part of it is taking long walks, building up to longer walks, and all this walking is supposed to be essential. Not only is it not feasible for me, but, as she goes on and on about the glory of the energy coming up from the ground and into your feet, I'm thinking "What if people don't have feet? What if they are paralyzed?" I guess this could be argued about The Artist's Way because some people have good excuses for
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Some good reminders and advise like walking daily, but like others have commented, it isn't nearly as good as The Artist's Way.
The religious stuff seemed somehow more blatant in this one, and as an atheist, I really disliked that side of the book. With The Artist's Way I could more easily just skip in my mind all the talk about God.
Also I think the book is less well constructed - too many quotes, and it seems like very long stream of consciousness.
The religious stuff seemed somehow more blatant in this one, and as an atheist, I really disliked that side of the book. With The Artist's Way I could more easily just skip in my mind all the talk about God.
Also I think the book is less well constructed - too many quotes, and it seems like very long stream of consciousness.
This book was entirely worth it for the first few exercises. The ideas about the connection between walking and writing as well as the (rather intimidating) narrative timeline project both gave me more than I ever expected. I'm sure I'll come back to this book again and taste the next few exercises when the time is right.
An astounding, eye-opening resource for writers, painters, and other creative types. This is like a field guide for artists on how to coax out their freshest, most unique concepts and to rein back the inner critic that hampers creativity in the early stages. I highly recommend this work.
Cameron's books are very popular but I just didn't click with her technique. As someone who journals daily, having an additional assignment -- the morning pages -- was cumbersome. Her connection with the rich and famous was off-putting as well.
After working through The Artist's Way with a wonderful group of women, we decided to continue working together on Cameron's Vein of Gold. It's a project, but I'm setting aside time to work on the tasks and enjoy this spiritual journey.
Richer and deeper than Artist's Way. A fitting capstone.
Jan 22, 2019
Victoria Manning
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
sounds-true-library
This was an interesting audio selection... Tim Wheater is delightful and of course listening to Julia Cameron is beautiful... Her voice is so sweet and endearing and her message so spiritual... Tim introduces us to the process of “toning”.. which is a vocal exercise to help become centered... He led the exercises against the backdrop of a harmonium. I personally found the drone of the harmonium off-putting... irritating and somewhat creepy/scary... I was able to produce the vibrations but would
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This book is phenomenal. I read it when it first came out many years ago. I think many of us who read it at that time, had the same reaction to the beginning exercise of the "decades." We were still high on The Artist's Way. I don't think I'm alone that many of us never finished the book. I recently took it out of the library since I am now writing a book on creativity. It's a virtual feast of creativity wisdom and morsels... very tasty, even for a 5-minute inspirational pick-me-up at any time.
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This comes highly recommended by many, but I couldn't get into it at all. I like early morning writing and journaling, but no way can I manage three pages of longhand. I like walking, but not on my own, not for miles each day. The 'spiritual' side of this seems rather New Agey, and the writing rambles in a way that doesn't fit with my style or personality at all.
After taking nearly three months to read just a handful of chapters, I tried dipping into it at random and couldn't find anything that ...more
After taking nearly three months to read just a handful of chapters, I tried dipping into it at random and couldn't find anything that ...more
Good enough, inspiring
Though my favorite is still “artist way,” this was a very good complementary book to that. I wouldn’t have wanted to do this book before “artist way.” That being said it’s been a while since I’ve read “artist way” and don’t know how similar or how different this book is from that. It feels very similar but I also believe in inspired me in different ways.
It reignited my passion for morning pages. I was in a rut and headed journaling and now I’ve come to really love it like ...more
Though my favorite is still “artist way,” this was a very good complementary book to that. I wouldn’t have wanted to do this book before “artist way.” That being said it’s been a while since I’ve read “artist way” and don’t know how similar or how different this book is from that. It feels very similar but I also believe in inspired me in different ways.
It reignited my passion for morning pages. I was in a rut and headed journaling and now I’ve come to really love it like ...more
This is one of those books that appeals to artists and creative people of all types. In my quest, I return to this book again and again. Julia Cameron has done the footwork and outlines topics such as relationship, attitude, and possibility through which the artist can develop more fully. There are tasks for soul seeking using techniques such as writing, story, and collage to bring the child-artist in us back to health and wholeness.
I love some of her exercises of exploring and understanding yourself. I think i rewrote a few notes about the morning writing and daily walks, but other than that most of her advises i have already done and experienced. It was a reminder of all the things that i have completed in various stages of my life. Would recommend for new artists or those that have inspiration/creativity blocks.
Julia Cameron continues to challenge my growth in creativity. I love exploring myself through the tools she provides.
Even if you don't feel like an artist, read and work with Julia Cameron and expect surprises!
Even if you don't feel like an artist, read and work with Julia Cameron and expect surprises!
Nice companion to The Artist's Way
Are you a writer/artist looking for some inspiration? Look no further than this book. It continues where The Artist's Way leaves off and is more like a workshop than a book.
I read this when it came out and I re-read it every year. Cameron lights the path to enlightenment and your creativity is just waiting to be unleashed.
Disclaimer: I bought the paperback copy when it came out from a bookstore.
My Rating: 5+ stars
I read this when it came out and I re-read it every year. Cameron lights the path to enlightenment and your creativity is just waiting to be unleashed.
Disclaimer: I bought the paperback copy when it came out from a bookstore.
My Rating: 5+ stars
I found this book on tape quite a few years ago. It's the one I can listen to over and over until I wore out one tape. Found it again in a drawer yesterday. Healing, soul filling and lifting.
A pretty good blend of practical and woo woo.
Aug 10, 2019
J. Elliott
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
self-development
Used this as a text book in a women's art class. Terrific reference and inspiration.
The Vein of Gold is a wonderful refresher of the tools and techniques used in The Artist's Way. It is a delightful, packed validation for embracing your creativity, nurturing your shy inner child. I admit I didn't do most of the exercises though but have bookmarked pages of sections that really spoke to me.
I'm re reading again!!
Overall, I found that The Vein of Gold adds less value and contains more fluff than The Artist's Way. Which is a pity, because some of the tasks in this book are great. I particularly like her cross-disciplinary use of music, to which I can add my own skills from art and dance therapy. The importance of the narrative time line was also valuable to realise, but I would use different methods in future. The Vein of Gold expanded my toolkit, but was definitely second-class.
Much like her book, "The Artist's Way" this one appeared just when I needed it. I love doing my Morning Pages and my 20 minutes walks everyday - I have found so many cool things in my new neighborhood just by taking that small time out of my day to explore. The exercises are quite extensive, but I think definitely worth the effort. If you crave more space in your life read one of her books and do the exercises. They work miracles :)
I didn't finish it, but it has a lot of neat introspective activities I'd like to try when I'm not busy with other stuff. I guess I'll hold off on rating it until I finish it. The morning pages thing is very productive, and I only did it once. Some of the other activities (something about scripting a not-too-detailed biography) kinda scare me, both because of what might come up and the time involved.
There are a lot of good ideas and constructive advice in here for "the artist in us all," but it comes across as something of a new-age smorgasborg that had me rolling my eyes more than once. Julia herself seems to have roamed all over the world as her muse has called her. Would that we all had that luxury!
Vein of Gold is another top-notch Julia book and I am thoroughly enjoying my reading of it and doing the tasks. It seems any of her work fits me and I stick with it too the end - and this is a big book, but I have no doubt I will finish it because it is well written and entices me to come back to it each night to take on another chapter or two and look for the new task of the day.
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Julia Cameron has been an active artist for more than thirty years, with fifteen books (including bestsellers The Artist's Way, Walking In This World and The Right to Write) and countless television, film, and theater scripts to her credit. Writing since the age of 18, Cameron has a long list of screenplay and teleplay credits to her name, including an episode of Miami Vice, and Elvis and the
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“Artistic anorexia & sexual avoidance have the same root fears – fear of intimacy, fear of exposure, fear of failure”.”
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