The Vein of Gold

Starred review from September 2, 1996
In her bestselling The Artist's Way (1992), Cameron offered a 12-week program aimed at recovering one's creativity. Each chapter ended with exercises designed to help a reader glimpse his or her inner artist, which, Cameron said, had been buried alive under a mountain of negative conditioning. Now Cameron urges readers to go deeper still. As before, she urges them to write three daily "morning pages" of stream-of-consciousness prose and to take themselves on a weekly "artist's date," a solo outing designed to help them get better acquainted with their inner selves. But here, Cameron gives new emphasis to her advice about the value of a daily 20-minute walk: "The job of your adult self, for the course of this book, will be to walk your creative child back to health." All the exercises here--from the considerable task of writing one's narrative history to doll-making; from creating collages representing difficult relationships and mulling over the common themes of favorite movies--are intended to make readers feel deeply. "A pilgrimage is a physical process," writes Cameron. "What this means is that the tools of The Vein of Gold will be more deeply felt, and therefore more deeply resisted, than the tools of The Artist's Way." The book is divided into "kingdoms"--of sight, story, sound, attitude, relationship and spirituality. Each leads readers closer to their own "vein of gold"--to that territory of experience and possibility that, Cameron says, is indelibly theirs. For those seeking the wellsprings of creativity, this book, like its predecessor, is a solid gold divining rod. 125,000 first printing; major ad/promo; BOMC and QPB featured alternates, One Spirit main selection; simultaneous Putnam Berkley audio; author tour.