Words to Write by

What gives? We hate this book but love talking about it.

Week 5 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way returns to her insistence that belief in a Great Creator unlocks opportunities and success—which we're still not buying. But it does spark a conversation about self-belief: that unshakeable certainty successful artists have that their work matters and will be recognized. That conviction helps them treat setbacks as part of the process, not proof they're not good enough. 

Cameron also introduces the Virtue Trap, where we sabotage our own creative needs by being "too responsible"—though she offers zero advice for escaping it. We wrap up with her exercises and Cameron's very 1990s view of the world.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

Do morning pages work? Specifically, do they work for us. We begin this podcast by discussing our success following the advice by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist Way to write three pages of stream of conscious thoughts every morning. Let’s say our results are mixed. We then go onto discuss who this book is for, Cameron theory of synchronicity, and what she’s talking about when she advises us to take a break from reading.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

Should you use anger to fuel your writing? Do you experience shame while creating art? Have you been keeping up with your artist pages?

Week 3 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way poses these questions with clear answers in mind—but we're not convinced. In this episode, we dig into what happens when a wildly successful writing craft book conflicts with your actual creative process, and what's still valuable even when you fundamentally disagree.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

We're on Week 2 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, shifting from internal creative obstacles to external ones—namely our friends and family. 

We dig into Cameron's concepts of "poisonous playmates" and "crazymakers": how to identify them (spoiler: they're not always people) and strategies for protecting your creative space from their intrusions. Then we tackle Cameron's uncomfortable idea—that blocked creators might actually want these distractions to avoid doing the work. 

But our strongest reaction to this chapter is Cameron's reliance on God and a capital-C Creator throughout her method. Can an atheist follow the Artist's Way?

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

We're officially starting our Artist's Way journey—Julia Cameron's program for unlocking creativity—and we're already running into problems. 

Specifically, we take issue with some of Cameron's ideas about what it means to be an artist. We challenge her concept of the "Shadow Artist" and argue for a middle ground between making art and handling practical life responsibilities like earning money for yourself and your family. Cameron does offer valuable insights, particularly around the internalized negativity that drains creative joy—Renee especially appreciates her term "Artist Abuse." But some items on Cameron's Core Negative Beliefs list are questionable (and that's putting it mildly.) 

We wrap up by attempting a few chapter-end exercises, which reveal some early obstacles in our own creative histories.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

Three pages. Every morning. No exceptions. No mercy.

We're going to unblock our inner artist using Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. For three months, we'll write stream-of-consciousness drivel before our brains fully wake up - a bizarre ritual Cameron swears by and millions of writers have adopted.

But will these 'Morning Pages' really unlock our creativity? In this episode, we dig into the practice and the equally peculiar 'Artist Date' before diving headfirst into one of the most influential (and controversial) creativity programs ever written.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

Over the past few months, we've taken a deep dive into AI writing tools. Now we're coming up for air and trying to reconnect with our human creative souls. What better book for this than Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way? 

Published over thirty years ago, Cameron's much beloved Creative Recovery Program is the reason why so many writers drag themselves out of bed for Morning Pages. This is a twelve week course, so buckle up - we're in it for the long haul. And it's not just a book for wannabe authors - this self-help tome promises to unleash the creativity of "potters, photographers, poets, screenwriters, dancers, novelists, actors, and directors." What's not to love? 

Well, there's a catch: Cameron's book is veryspiritual, packed with calls to a higher power. We dive into Cameron's Great Creator, whether this book works if you're not particularly religious, and what we're hoping to get out of this whole endeavor - besides possibly talking to the universe.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

We've been looking at how AI chatbots have been upending fiction writing, but how about in news media? Today we talk with former Wired writer and freelance science journalist Ramin Skibba about the issues that chatbots, as well as business models based on new technologies, are having on journalism - both the news that he writes and the news that we read.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

What if chatbots result in the next generation never learning to write? It's a doomsday scenario that we keep coming back to in our series on AI writing tools. If AI can craft essays and compose emails instantly, why would kids bother mastering grammar, sentence structure, or the art of putting thoughts into words? And here's the terrifying follow-up—if they never learn to write, will they lose the ability to truly read and think critically too?

If you've been spiraling down that educational apocalypse rabbit hole, this episode might cheer you up. We're talking with Sonia and Karthik, the team behind SuperDecoders, who are taking a different approach to AI in education. Instead of replacing human creativity, their AI-powered writing tool acts like a personal writing coach for kids—the kind of personalized attention that could help kids develop their writing skills rather than bypass them entirely.

Our discussion with them left us genuinely optimistic about the future. Sometimes the best way to navigate new technology isn't to ban it, but to find smarter ways to use it.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

In our quest to cover the mind-blowing benefits AND the nightmare scenarios that AI chatbots are unleashing on the writing world, we called in friend-of-the-podcast and editor Kristen Tate to find out if she's using AI in her work. 

The answer? It depends entirely on her clients' wishes—and a few hard lines she refuses to cross. But this isn't just about ethics (though we go there). Kristen gets into the nitty-gritty technical stuff: what chatbots absolutely nail, what they're garbage at, and her brilliant hack for wrangling conference notes that'll make you wonder why you didn't think of it first. Plus, she's got some hard truths for authors who are way too eager to let AI do their editing dirty work. 

If you're an indie writer or just need some tips to polish your work, this is the episode for you.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.