Revelry Review.

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron

A few months ago, when I thought I might need a creative outlet that was different from what I work on/go to graduate school for (Latin America-related stuff), I started thinking about carving out time in my week to write and read about the writing process.  I was an English/Spanish literature major with a women's studies minor in undergrad.  Sometimes I really miss that part of myself.  I hope to find a way to mix all the parts of myself together through writing.  Since I am a big fan of The Artist's Way, I picked up this book the second I saw it.

Each chapter is on a different topic related to writing, the writing life or finding the courage and inspiration to start.  Each chapter ends with an initiation tool--essentially ideas from Cameron to get the creative juices flowing.  There is some overlap here with her other books, but this one, organized in chapters that are relatively unrelated, makes a great morning or bedtime read.  Get inspired and move your writing life forward chapter by chapter.

Overall, I found this book helpful for motivating myself.  There were many times when her writing exercises helped me to get over, as Cameron calls it, the mythology that surrounds writing and writers.  It made me put the pen to the page and get started.  That, in and of itself, made this book worth it.

It also had several beautiful quotes.   I will leave you with one that I wrote in my journal:

"We should write because it is human nature to write.  Writing claims our world.  It makes it directly and specifically our own.  We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance as well.  We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living.  Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding.  We should write because it is good for the soul.  We should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.  We should write, above all, because we are writers whether we call ourselves writers or not."