Week 4 Book Club
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
– Seneca
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Journal
Offer your reflections to this week’s Book Club in the comments
Take one small step in service to your creative project.
Engage in a “fear challenge” — do something small (and safe!!) that scares you
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What gifts does your fear lend to your creative journey?
How have you dealt with creative blocks in the past?
What is your relationship to failure and rejection? Can you shift your perspective, just slightly?
What's something you've learned from a past mistake or failure?
Where can you give yourself more credit?
What would it be like to gently catch yourself and change course when you're not kind?
What would it feel like to change your standards to just 80%?
Where can you reevaluate your standards?
In what ways has perfectionism gotten in your way?
How does it feel to imagine the time and space that would open up if your loosened your grip on perfectionism?
How does your inner editor manifest in your work?
Tune into what your inner critic and your soul are telling you to do. Who will you let run the show?
What are the labels you've assigned to yourself (I am a... democrat... vegetarian... caregiver... perfectionist...)? What would it be like to drop them for a day?
Consider if you ever censored your creativity in order to not offend or shock someone. Was it worth it?
Where can you let go of other people's expectations on you?
What distinguishes you from other artists/creatives in your genre/field/medium?
In what ways has comparison gotten in your way?
What has a greater hold on you than you do it?
What are some shadow aspects of your personality that may come up in your creative pursuits?
What truths can you admit in order to free the energy it took to suppress them?
Where in your creativity can you say: “So what, I'm going to do it anyway."?
What would it feel like to be on your own side?
How can you let your intuition guide you?
What are your greatest gifts?
Recommend Readings
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Excerpt from The War of Art
By Steven PressfieldThe Ego, Jung tells us, is that part of the psyche that we think of as “I.” Our conscious intelligence. Our everyday brain that thinks, plans, and runs the show of our day-to-day life.
The Self, as Jung defined it, is a greater entity, which includes the Ego but also incorporates the Personal and the Collective Unconscious. Dreams and intuitions come from the Self. The archetypes of the unconscious dwell there. It is, Jung believed, the sphere of the soul.
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Here’s what I think. I think angels make their home in the Self, while Resistance has its seat in the Ego. The fight is between the two.
The Self wishes to create, to evolve. The Ego likes things just the way they are. *
The Self is our deepest being.
The Self is incapable of falsehood.
The Self, like the Divine Ground that permeates it, is ever-growing and ever-evolving. The Self speaks for the future. That’s why the Ego hates it.
The Ego hates the Self because when we seat our consciousness in the Self, we put the ego out of business. The Ego doesn’t want us to evolve. The Ego runs the show right now. It likes things just the way they are.
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The instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.
The Ego hates it when the awakening writer sits down at the typewriter. The Ego hates it when the aspiring painter steps up before the easel.
The Ego hates it because it knows that these souls are awakening to a call, and that that call comes from a plain nobler than the material one and from a source deeper and more powerful than the physical.
The Ego hates artists because they are the pathfinders and bearers of the future, because each one dares, in James Joyce’s phrase, to “forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
[pp 134-141]
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Excerpt from Big Magic
By Elizabeth GilbertYou will fail.
It sucks, and I hate to say it, but it’s true. You will take creative risks, and often they will not pan out. I once threw away an entire completed book because it didn’t work. I diligently finished the thing, but it really didn’t work, so I ended up throwing it away. (I don’t know why it didn’t work! How can I know? What am I, a book coroner? I have no certificate for the cause of death. The
thing just didn’t work!)
It makes me sad when I fail. It disappoints me. Disappointment can make me feel disgusted with myself, or surly toward others. By this point in my life, though, I’ve learned how to navigate my own disappointment without plummeting too far into death spirals of shame, rage, or inertia. That’s because, by this point in my life, I have come to understand what part of me is suffering when I fail: it’s just my ego.
It’s that simple.
Now, I’ve got nothing against egos, broadly speaking. We all have one. (Some of us might even have two.) Just as you need your fear for basic human survival, you also need your ego to provide you with the fundamental outlines of selfhood – to help proclaim your individuality, define your desires, understand your preferences, and defend your borders. Your ego, simply put, is what makes you who you are. Without one, you’re nothing but an amorphous blob. Therefore, as the sociologist and author Martha Beck says of the ego, “Don’t leave home without it.”
But do not let your ego totally run the show, or it will shut down the show. Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it’s a terrible master – because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And since there’s never enough reward to satisfy, your ego will always be disappointed. Left unmanaged, that kind of disappointment will rot you from the inside out. An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call a “hungry ghost”—forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed.
Some version of that hunger dwells within us all. We all have that lunatic presence, living deep within our guts, that refuses to ever be satisfied with anything. I have it, you have it, we all have it. My saving grace is this, though: I know that I am not only an ego; I am a soul. And I know that my soul doesn’t care a whit about reward or failure. My soul is not guided by dreams of praise or fears of criticism. My soul doesn’t even have language for such notions. My soul, when I tend to it, is a far more expansive and fascinating source of guidance than my ego will ever be, because my soul desires only one thing: wonder. And since creativity is my most efficient pathway to wonder, I take refuge there, and it feeds my soul, and it quiets the hungry ghost— thereby saving me from the most dangerous aspect of myself.
So whenever that brittle voice of dissatisfaction emerges from within me, I can say, “Ah, my ego! There you are, old friend!” It’s the same thing when I’m being criticized and I notice myself reacting with outrage, heartache, or defensiveness. It’s just my ego, flaring up and testing its power. In such circumstances, I have learned to watch my heated emotions carefully, but I try not to take them too seriously, because I know that it’s merely my ego that has been wounded— never my soul. It is merely my ego that wants revenge, or to win the biggest prize. It is merely my ego that wants to start a Twitter war against a hater, or to sulk at an insult, or to quit in righteous indignation because I didn’t get the outcome I wanted.
At such times, I can always steady my life once more by returning to my soul. I ask it, “And what is it that you want, dear one?”
The answer is always the same: “More wonder, please.”
As long as I’m still moving in that direction—toward wonder—then I know I will always be fine in my soul, which is where it counts. And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it. I choose to block out all the external (and internal) noise and distractions, and to come home again and again to creativity. Because without that source of wonder, I know that I am doomed. Without it, I will forever wander the world in a state of bottomless dissatisfaction—nothing but a howling ghost, trapped in a body made of slowly deteriorating meat.
And that ain’t gonna do it for me, I’m afraid.
[pp 248-251]
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Excerpt from The Gifts of Imperfection
By Brené BrownAs a recovering perfectionist and an aspiring good-enoughist, I’ve found it extremely helpful to bust some myths about perfectionism so that we can develop a definition that accurately captures what it is and what it does to our lives.
Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. It’s a shield. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from taking flight.
Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance. Most perfectionists were raised being praised for achievement and performance (grades, manners, rule-following, people-pleasing, appearance, sports). Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect. Healthy striving is self focused – How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused – What will they think?
Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addition, and life-paralysis. Life-paralysis refers to all of the opportunities we miss because we’re too afraid to put anything out in the world that could be imperfect. It’s also all of the dreams that we don’t follow because of our deep fear of failing, making mistakes, and disappointing others. It’s terrifying to risk when you are a perfectionist; your self-worth is on the line.
I put these three insights together to craft a definition of perfectionism. It’s long, but man has it helped me! It’s also the “most requested” definition on my blog.
Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfectionism is an unattainable goal. Additionally, perfectionism is more about perception – we want to be perceived as perfect. Again, this is unattainable—there is no way to control perception, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.
Perfectionism is addictive because when we invariably do experience shame, judgment, and blame, we often believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough. So rather than questioning the faulty logic of perfectionism, we become even more entrenched in our quest to live, look, and do everything just right.
Feeling shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we’ll experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: It’s my fault. I’m feeling this way because “I’m not good enough.”
To overcome perfectionism, we need to be able to acknowledge our vulnerabilities to the universal experiences of shame, judgment and blame; develop shame resilience; and practice self-compassion. When we become more
loving and compassionate with ourselves and we begin to practice shame resilience, we can embrace our imperfections. It is in the process of embracing our imperfections that we find our truest gifts: courage, compassion, and connection.
Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfectionism is an unattainable goal. Additionally, perfectionism is more about perception – we want to be perceived as perfect. Again, this is unattainable—there is no way to control perception, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.
Perfectionism is addictive because when we invariably do experience shame, judgment, and blame, we often believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough. So rather than questioning the faulty logic of perfectionism, we become even more entrenched in our quest to live, look, and do everything just right.
Feeling shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we’ll experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: It’s my fault. I’m feeling this way because “I’m not good enough.”
To overcome perfectionism, we need to be able to acknowledge our vulnerabilities to the universal experiences of shame, judgment and blame; develop shame resilience; and practice self-compassion. When we become more
loving and compassionate with ourselves and we begin to practice shame resilience, we can embrace our imperfections. It is in the process of embracing our imperfections that we find our truest gifts: courage, compassion, and connection.
[pp 56-58 ]
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Excerpt from Art & Fear
By David Bayles and Ted OrlandThe ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of the work they produced, all those on the right side solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had littler more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
If you think good work is somehow synonymous with perfect work, you are headed for big trouble. Art is human; ergo, art is error. Inevitably, your work will be flawed. Why? Because you’re a human being, and only human beings, warts and all, make art. Without warts it is not clear what you would be, but clearly you wouldn’t be one of us.
Nonetheless, the belief persists among some artists (and lots of ex-artists) that doing art means doing things flawlessly – ignoring the fact that this prerequisite would disqualify most existing works of art. Indeed, it seems vastly more plausible to advance the counter-principle, namely that imperfection is not only a common ingredient in art, but very likely an essential ingredient. Ansel Adams, never one to mistake precision for perfection, often recalled the old adage that “the perfect is the enemy of the good”, this point being that if he waited for everything in the scene to be exactly right, he’d probably never make a photograph.
Adams was right: to require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do—away from the risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to make mistakes. Believing that artwork should be perfect, you gradually become convinced that you cannot make such work. (You are correct.) Sooner or later, since you cannot do what you are trying to do, you quit. And in one of those perverse little ironies of life, only the pattern itself achieves perfection—a perfect death spiral: you misdirect your work; you stall; you quit.
To demand perfectionism is to deny your ordinary (and universal) humanity, as though you would be better off without it. Yet this humanity is the ultimate source of your work; your perfectionism denies you the very thing you need to get your work done. Getting on with your work requires a recognition that perfection itself is (paradoxically) a flawed concept. For Albert Einstein, even the seemingly perfect construct of mathematics yielded to his observation that “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” For Charles Darwin, evolution lay revealed when a perfect survival strategy for one generation became, in a changing world, a liability for its offspring. For you, the seed for your next art work lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece. Such imperfections (or mistakes, if you’re feeling particularly depressed about them today) are your guides—valuable, reliable, objective, non-judgmental guides—to matters you need to reconsider or develop further.
It is precisely this interaction between the ideal and the real that locks your art into the real world, and gives meaning to both.
[pp 29-31]
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Excerpt from The Artist’s Way
By Julia CameronYou pick up a magazine—or even your alumni news—and somebody, somebody you know, has gone further, faster, toward your dream. Instead of saying, “This proves it can be done,” your fear will say, “He or she will succeed instead of me.”
Competition is another spiritual drug. When we focus on competition we poison our own well, impede our own progress. When we are ogling the accomplishments of others, we take our eye away from our own through line. We ask ourselves the wrong questions, and those wrong questions give us the wrong answers.
“Why do I have such rotten luck? Why did he get his movie/article/play out before I got mine out? Is it because of sexism? What’s the use? What do I have to offer?” We often ask these questions as we try to talk ourselves out of creating.
Questions like these allow us to ignore more useful questions: “Did I work on my play today? Did I make the deadline to mail it off where it needed it to go? Have I done any networking on its behalf?”
These are the real questions, and focusing on them can be hard for us....
Competition lies at the root of much creative blockage. As artists, we must go within. We must attend to what it is our inner guidance is nudging us toward. We cannot afford to worry about what is in or out. If it is too early or late for a piece of work, its time will come again.
As artists, we cannot afford to think about who is getting ahead of us and how they don’t deserve it. The desire to be better than can choke off the simple desire to be. As artists we cannot afford this thinking. It leads us away from our own voices and choices and into a defensive game that centers outside of ourselves and our sphere of influence. It asks us to define creativity in terms of someone else’s.
This compare-and-contrast school of thinking may have its place for critics, but not for artists in the act of creation. Let the critics spot trends. Let reviewers concern themselves with what is in and what is not. Let us concern ourselves first and foremost with what is within us that is struggling to be born.
When we compete with others, when we focus our creative concerns on the marketplace, we are really jostling with other artists in a creative footrace. This is the sprint mentality. Looking for the short-term win, ignoring the long-term gain, we short-circuit the possibility of a creative life led by our own lights, not the klieg lights of fashion.
Whenever you are angered about someone else beating you out, remember this: the footrace mentality is always the ego’s demand that our work be totally original – as if such a thing were
possible. All work is influenced by other people. No man is an island and no piece of art is a continent unto itself.
When we respond to art we are responding to its resonance in terms of our own experience. We seldom see anew in the sense of finding something utterly unfamiliar. Instead, we see an old in a new light.
If the demand to be original still troubles you, remember this: each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit. It is the accurate mapping out of our own creative interests that invites the term original. We are the origin of our art, its homeland. Viewed this way, originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves.
The spirit of competition – as opposed to the spirit of creation—often urges us to quickly winnow out whatever doesn’t seem like a winning idea. This can be very dangerous. It can interfere with our ability to carry a project to term.
A competitive focus encourages snap judgments: thumbs up or thumbs down. Does this project deserve to live? (No, our ego will say if it is looking for the fail-safe, surefire project that is a winner at a glance and for good.) Many hits are sure things only in retrospect. Until we know better, we call a great many creative swans ugly ducklings. This is an indignity we offer our brainchildren as they rear their heads into our consciousness. We judge them like beauty pageant contestants. In a glance we may cut them down. We forget that not all babies are born beautiful, and so we abort the lives of awkward or unseemly projects that may be our finest work, our best creative ugly ducklings. An act of art needs time to mature. Judged early, it may be judged incorrectly.
Never, ever, judge a fledgling piece of work too quickly. Be willing to paint or write badly while your ego yelps resistance. Your bad writing may be the syntactical breakdown necessary for a shift in your style. Your lousy painting may be pointing you in a new direction. Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself. The ego hates this fact. The ego wants instant gratification and the addictive hit of an acknowledged win.
The need to win—now!—is a need to win approval from others. As an antidote, we must learn to approve of ourselves. Showing up for the work is the win that matters.
[pp 119-121]
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Excerpt from The Gifts of Imperfection
By Brené BrownComparison is all about conformity and competition. At first it seems like conforming and competing are mutually exclusive, but they’re not. When we compare, we want to see who or what is best out of a specific collection of “alike things.” We may compare things like how we parent with parents who have totally different values or traditions than us, but the comparisons that get us really riled up are the ones we make with the folks living next door, or on our child’s soccer team, or at our school. We don’t compare our houses to the mansions across town; we compare our yard to the yards on our block. When we compare, we want to be the best or have the best of our group.
The comparison mandate becomes this crushing paradox of “fit in and stand out!” It’s not cultivate self-acceptance, belonging, and authenticity; it’s be just like everyone else, but better.
It’s easy to see how difficult it is to make time for the important things such as creativity, gratitude, joy, and authenticity when we’re spending enormous amounts of energy conforming and competing. Now I understand why my dear friend Laura Williams always say, “Comparison is the thief of happiness.” I can’t tell you how many times I’m feeling so good about myself and my life and my family, and then in a split second it’s gone because I consciously or unconsciously start comparing myself to other people.
As far as my own story, the older I got, the less value I put on creativity and the less time I spent creating. When people asked me about crafting or art or creating, I relied on the standard, “I’m not the creative type.” On the inside I was really thinking, Who has time for painting and scrapbooking and photography when the real work of achieving and accomplishing needs to be done.
By the time I was forty and working on this research, my lack of interest in creativity had turned to disdain. I’m not sure if I would categorize my feelings about creativity as negative stereotypes, shame triggers, or some combination of the two, but it came to the point where I thought of creating for the sake of creating as self-indulgent at best and flaky at worst.
Of course I know, professionally, that the more entrenched and reactive we are about an issue, the more we need to investigate our responses. As I look back with new eyes, I think tapping into how much I missed that part of my life would have been too confusing or painful.
I never thought I’d come across something fierce enough to shake me loose from my entrenched beliefs about creativity. Then this research came along...
Let me sum up what I’ve learned about creativity from the world of Wholehearted living and loving.
1. “I’m not very creative” doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as creative people and non creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.
2. The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born out of our creativity.
3. If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing – it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.
...Letting go of comparison is not a to-do list item. For most of us, it’s something that requires constant awareness. It’s so easy to take our eyes off our path to check out what others are doing and if they’re ahead or behind us. Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared. And, without comparison, concepts like ahead or behind or best or worst lose their meaning.
[pp 119-121]
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Excerpt from No More Secondhand Art
By Peter LondonOne of the very few things I did learn in school was that I was not the best at anything. No matter how hard I racked my brains, prepared for tests, or shaded in that drawing of a crumpled paper bag, there was always some kid who did it better. If I did manage to get the best mark in my class, I certainly never made it past those quarter finals to the big leagues of the best in the grade, not to mention best in the school, best in the district (city, state, region, division, nation, world). Some smart, fast, talented kid was always in front of me, way in front. That gets to you after awhile. For some, never being first may have the dubious benefit of cultivating a healthy degree of humility, but for me —and I don’t believe I am alone (there were plenty of kids in back of me)—the uninterrupted experience of being bested diminished my sense of self-worth and self-confidence.
Since the other kids in the class were so smart and I was not, it became obvious to me that “they” knew something that I didn’t, something “out there.” Clearly I was deficient, empty of correct (or even much) information, and if I wanted to succeed in life, or at least get through school, I had better know a great deal more about the world than I did. I therefore set about to know. Turning what meager gifts I was given to the task, I went to the library, walked up to the “A” section, took out the very first book, and launched into the world, starting with that portion inhabited by aardvarks. Some short time later, I pulled ashore at acoela, which you may remember are a group of worms belonging to the Turbellaria family and having no digestive tract. No sooner had I begun my simple linear conquest of the knowable world than my plan revealed its inadequacy. The world “out there” was growing bigger and I was growing smaller, quite the opposite of what I had in mind. My confidence in my intellect had taken a turn for the worse, if that was possible. This remained the case until I came upon another class of questions: questions that did not have their answers in the world “out there,” but “in here,” in personal history, in imagination and dreaming, in assertions of will, value, and belief. This other class of questions did not become apparent to me in one incident but over a course of time in which I saw and read much and during long reflective sessions in my studio, alone and with other artists. There was no repository of truth or data outside my own mindfulness. I became the subject, object, and instrument of my attempts at mentation. I did better in this domain. Most everyone does.
This noncompetitive knowing is a special reward of creative enterprises. It is quite delicious to carry on an investigation, personally arrive at a response, and not feel compelled to measure the worth of your findings against those of others. Others no longer pose a potential threat to your own degree and kind of intelligence. Their responses are valuable just as a journey to a distant land is valuable, not for the sake of comparing the quality of your life with theirs, but for the sake of witnessing the world and thus deepening the quality of your life experience.
To “draw within” is to draw upon a source of wisdom that no one else could possibly have; it is a step that places you in a quiet and exclusive domain. Here, there is no one else to turn to. No one, however loving or intelligent, can accompany you on this inward journey. And the very solitariness of the quest brings about a sense of your own self-sufficiency.
As true as it is that we live within a community of others, it is equally true we are born and die alone. There are essential privacies that we are destined to maintain. These deep troughs of uniqueness are our particular gift and genius. So much of our life is standard, requiring conventional thoughts and behavior, that we forget that each of us is one of a kind, one whose life will either manifest our unique display of intelligence and enrich the story of humankind or fail to embroider the fabric of being human.
Creative engagements wake us up to the task of contributing to human history by accepting the challenge to compose our own story—a challenge that, if accepted, remains without takers.
Questions designed to provoke answers that can be measured against a norm and against each other make life competitive. We often use the answers to these kinds of questions not for their own worth, but as instruments with which we measure our status relative to others. There is really little intrinsic value in knowing the dates of inauguration of all the presidents of the United States, but if you are the only one in the class to do so, you are the smartest kid in the class, which is certainly of value in the world of status seekers.
Creative responses are those which have no comparative worth. They are of utility only to the person who responds to them. These responses may themselves be questions: “Why did I say that? What does that form, that gesture, those colors, that silence mean? Why do I feel a need
for the presence of that blue, when it seems not to fit the rest of the image?” As a consequence of being touched in such a way as to uncover and awaken the person who, at root, we are, the unique potentiality that we are becomes manifest in the world, to us. The mere fact that we have been given life doesn’t mean that we realize the nature of the life we are given. The creative process has the potential to wake us up to the vast unexplored domain of our own nature. No one has been there before, no one can enter it except us. No one can challenge our story. We are the only ones who can explore this territory to tell the news. The encounters remind us of this by indicating points of access, doorways to our natural domain, and by carefully designing encounters, we can provide ourselves with handles to doors.
[pp 45-47]
References
Brown, Brown. The Gifts of Imperfection: Letting Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Hazelden Publishing, 2010. Cameron, Julia. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Penguin Random House, 2002
Gilbert, Elizabeth. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. Riverhead Books, 2016.
Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones. Shambhala Publications, 1986.
London, Peter. No More Secondhand Art: Awakening the Artist Within. Shambhala Publications, 1989.
Pressfield, Steven. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. Black Irish Entertainment LLC, 2002.