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A beautifully crafted memoir by the woman who has helped thousands of people uncover their creative inspiration.
In Floor Sample, the author of the international bestseller The Artist's Way and twenty-one other classic books on the creative process weaves an honest and moving portrayal of her life. From her early career as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine and her marriage to Martin Scorsese, to her tortured experiences with alcohol as she struggled with a Hollywood existence that she would never learn to make peace with, in this unflinching memoir Cameron reflects on the experiences in her life that have fed her own art as well as her ability to help others realize their creative dreams. She also describes the fascinating circumstances that led her to emerge as a central figure in the creative recovery movement-a movement that she inaugurated and defined with the publication of her seminal work, The Artist's Way.
Julia Cameron is a passionate and wry observer of the world, and this story of her life as a self-described "floor sample" for all she teaches in her brilliant creativity books will surprise, entertain, and inspire all of her many fans as well as anyone interested in a good literary memoir.
Review:
"Julia Cameron has changed many lives; mine is one of them. When 'The Artist's Way' came out — was it 1992? — I had already been a writer for some years. I read her book with arrogance and a bit of a chip on my shoulder. What could she — or anyone, for that matter? — tell me about my vocation? Cameron's injunction, at the end of her book, to find others of like mind, to meet and share stories of... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) artistic striving, sounded hokey beyond words to me, but an acquaintance of mine insisted we do it. Our group has lasted almost 12 years now and seen us through death and disease and even considerable artistic triumph. It has become another family for all of us, and we have Julia Cameron to thank for that. So to read this 'creative memoir' is both interesting beyond words and a little troubling. Inadvertently, the memoir brings up questions about Cameron's method itself. Maybe just showing up and trusting the universe to provide you with material isn't enough. And maybe living your life by catchwords, even if they are the very best catchwords ('Just don't drink,' or 'Let go and let God') might not be quite enough to live a healthy, grounded life either. The first half of 'Floor Sample' is intense, incident-filled, journalistic, engrossing. Cameron is an immensely sympathetic narrator; the reader roots for her all the way. She grew up in Libertyville, Ill., in 'an oversized, overstuffed English cottage.' Her siblings were nice, her parents devoted. She was comfortingly surrounded by her mother's home-baked pastries and with walls lined with wonderful books. Her Catholic education was full of rules, guilt and the aesthetic pleasures of ritual. 'I was so sheltered,' she writes, 'I didn't know I was sheltered.' The '60s were happening, but they were happening someplace else. When Cameron got to college, all that changed: 'My favorite drink was scotch: J&B on the rocks. The third one always hit like a spiritual experience, transfusing me with benevolence.' A twin yearning — Alcoholics Anonymous would call it an obsession of the mind coupled with an allergy of the body — soon turned her into a heavy, heavy drinker. She was beautiful — she doesn't say that, I've seen her — blond and charming, and she wanted more than anything to write. After college, she wrote free-lance magazine pieces and then did an interview with Martin Scorsese, just an eye-blink before he became brilliantly famous. It led to romance, which led to a very short marriage and then divorce. Cameron was left with an infant daughter, an addiction to alcohol and an increasing fondness for cocaine and heroin. She called AA. 'Twenty-seven years and half a lifetime later, I see that everything changed on the day I committed myself to staying sober,' she writes. In the cherished tradition of AA, she began the search for her own higher power. This, in turn, led her away from the thought that she did her own writing: 'It was suggested that I post a sign in my writing area, 'OK, God, you take care of the quality. I will take care of the quantity.'' The question then arises: If God is always directing you, are you always right? Here is where the memoir becomes disturbing and sad. Cameron yearns to settle down and make a home, but God is always telling her to move. She marries a nice man who loves cities and big business and then drags him to the boondocks of Taos, N.M., because she feels, knows, that's what God wants. When her husband leaves, she adds fasts to her spiritual regimen and winds up compulsively walking, moving from one place to another. She travels alone to London, still fasting, composing music and, literally, hearing voices. She has a serious breakdown and is hospitalized. In the second half of 'Floor Sample,' Cameron wanders far from what some of us generally perceive as reality, and her prose suffers from it. On a personal level, it made me think: What if we let God or the Muse be responsible for our first drafts and then took responsibility for our own revisions? And on a spiritual plane, shouldn't we think closely and yes, soberly, about each and every whim or urge we experience? Shouldn't we remember that God gave us minds to think with? Maybe I'm all wrong about this. But it broke my heart to watch Julia Cameron so shattered in her search for spirituality, for creativity, for God. Because so many of us owe her so very much." Reviewed by Carolyn See, who may be reached at www.carolynsee.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Synopsis:
The author of "The Artist's Way" weaves an honest and moving portrayal of her life. From her early career as a writer for "Rolling Stone" magazine and marriage to Martin Scorsese to her tortured experiences with alcohol, Cameron reflects on her life.
Award-winning writer Julia Cameron is the author of twenty-two books, fiction and nonfiction, including The Artist's Way, The Vein of Gold, Walking in This World, The Right to Write, and The Sound of Paper. A novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet, she has extensive credits in theater, film, and television.
Martha, October 25, 2006 (view all comments by Martha)
A fascinating mess. Like Carolyn See, I've been won over by Cameron's tools, brilliantly simple, and irritated by some of the New Age language that pervades her writing. She is a cracking good storyteller, and, true to her 12-step tradition, honest about her flaws. What's profoundly disturbing about this story is how easily Cameron seems to mistake mental illness with creative inspirations. (I'm reminded of Alice Flaherty's work about hypergraphia.) Cameron experiences what can only be called breakdowns that endanger her life, and the lives of her loved ones--yet she clings to the idea that as long as she's productive and physically sober, she's okay. (Cameron does eventually go to conventional doctors who help treat her depression, but less patient readers may give up on her before that occurs.) I found this book haunting, maddening, and very sad. 12-step programs remind us that just because you're sober, it's no guarantee you're sane. Sadly, Cameron's book suggests that just because you're profoundly productive and sober is no guarantee that anything else in your mental health will stay nailed down.
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Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir
Used Hardcover
Julia Cameron
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416 pages
Jeremy P. Tarcher -
English9781585424948
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The author of "The Artist's Way" weaves an honest and moving portrayal of her life. From her early career as a writer for "Rolling Stone" magazine and marriage to Martin Scorsese to her tortured experiences with alcohol, Cameron reflects on her life.
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