It’s definitely no secret that I’m a huge Julia Cameron fan. Cameron’s books have helped carry me through so many tides when no raft ever seemed to be in sight. I attribute The Artist’s Way as the thing that saved me from utter insanity and despair after losing a job, and have simply devoured many of her texts since.

That’s why I was a little surprised when I read Letters to a Young Artist. Cameron’s normally supportive yet firm voice seemed to be much firmer than normal, which left me feeling a little displaced. In the book, Cameron addresses a young artist (the reader) who is hypothetically sending her letters. She offers the artist advice, disrupts his/her complaints and excuses, and basically tells him/her to get to that page, already!

Essentially this is her core message, but it has a harsher feel. I think what really put me off was the assumptive nature. I realize that Cameron couldn’t attempt to answer all of the different kinds of correspondence she receives in one book, but I also didn’t like being addressed as this lazy, beer-drinking artist who doesn’t work at his/her art.

Following my first step into Cameron’s processes, I have met the page daily and have loved it—and I just thought that maybe this book would address more questions according to that nature rather than the excuses that we often bring with us to The Artist’s Way in the beginning of our recovery, as Cameron aptly calls it.

Cameron admits that she’s a bit of a curmudgeon in the book: “OK, I I will grant you that I am an old and crotchety bastard—your mother might have told you that much—but I also like to keep my eye on the ball.”  I also get that the book is supposed to be akin to Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, but I still sort of expected something like Heart Steps or Answered Prayers.

Still, as with all of Cameron’s works that I’ve worked through—and most of them are workbooks, not books to be merely read!—there is substance, good advice and lessons to be had here. Many artists will find similar situations they have been through—perceived blocks, excuses, ruts—only to realize that Cameron has seen them, experienced them, and knows just what to do to get out of them. Yes, she calls the petulant artist who is writing her on all of his/her justifications—which may not be the best approach—but it is like the advice of a seasoned, perhaps grumpy (think of Fishburne in Akeelah and the Bee—or Connery in Finding Forrester) mentor who has been there, done that and is willing to tell you how it is.