I've recently been given new impetus to write, and to run.

Back in 2003, I began following ‘The Artist’s Way’, by Julia Cameron.
I felt at the time that an aspect of my personality was not being freely expressed, and luckily I was recommended this book. Listening to an interview with the author recently reminded me why reading it was the very first incubationary step to writing my own book.

Cameron addresses blocks to allowing yourself even imagining being an artist; the heart of which, for me, was the idea of saying out loud, “I am a writer.” It sounded so pompous and arrogant that I could never imagine doing it. But the book suggests that being a writer is not about great art or presenting yourself as some supreme being with grander ideas than others: it simply means you write stuff down. Any stuff.

At the core of the book’s concept is Morning Pages. First thing in the morning, you take a notepad and force yourself to fill three full pages with writing. It doesn’t matter what you write: it could be complaints about the neighbour, moans about being too fat or skinny, or comments on the weather. But by doing this every morning, when your mind is fresh and ready to exercise, eventually you find some creative substance in your mind and heart that needs to come out.

The clincher for me about the value of this book has been this: what you create doesn’t have to be good, and you don’t have to make money from it. Cameron urges not to focus on getting published or making the best novel, song or painting ever. Just concentrate on the process; the pure joy of getting words down on the page, seeing how the colours come together, or the feeling of just playing your heart out. Yes, it’s great to be published, but isn’t life just a bit more fun when you let yourself play, simply for the hell of it?

What you create doesn’t have to be good, and you don’t have to make money from it 

It took me years to believe that I had it in me to write a book. It was a long process of scribbles, a few short stories and most of all, Morning Pages – I have a dozen notebooks from the last decade, full of nonsense, complaints and dreams. There’s nothing in them worth publishing, but they helped me allow my words to extract themselves from my head and get transferred to the page. They also helped me allow myself to believe I am a writer.

Nevertheless, when I sat down to write any part of ‘Amsterdam… The Essence’, I felt completely insecure and my mind replayed numerous threatening mantras; How can I write? How on earth can I make this any good? Who the hell am I kidding? But I kept at hand an all-conquering message from my first reading of Julia Cameron all those years ago, that I have quoted dozens of times;

“Art is not about making things up. It’s about getting things down.”

It enabled me to focus on getting started and overcoming all the demons that told me I couldn’t do it. That didn’t matter. All I had to do was get the words down.

As I work towards the end of my next book, ‘The Three Minute Presentation,’ I find myself needing an extra push to have the mental stamina needed to finish it off. And that’s where Haruki Murakami’s book about writing and running comes in.

Read part two here