PROFILE: JULIA CAMERON THE WAY OF ALCOHOLISM. A TURBULENT HOLLYWOOD MARRIAGE. WRITER’S BLOCK. FOR THE AUTHOR OF THE ARTIST’S WAY, THE PATH OF THE WRITER HAS NEVER BEEN A WALK IN THE PARK. BY ZACHARY PETIT “It’s a sunny day. Cold, but sunny.” Like in her books, Julia Cameron begins our interview with a descrip- tion of the weather. To paraphrase agents and writing teachers galore, many quoted in this very magazine: Never start your story with a dream; never start with an alarm clock ring- ing; and never, under any circum- stances, start with the weather. She starts with the weather. And that’s OK. Cameron, 63, has a history of going against convention: She first self-published her famous creativ- ity guide The Artist’s Way, which became a bestseller; she has written MARK STEPHEN KORNBLUTH more than 30 books spanning various genres, refusing to be pigeonholed PHOTO © 46 I WRITER’S DIGEST I July/August 2011 into any one; she battled mental ill- of many she’d face in her journey to “It was probably perfect,” she says. ness and alcoholism without letting become a writer. Cameron had come “Because if you’re trying to write and her struggles define her; and, despite in as an Italian major, but she wanted you have unlimited time, you can being one of the most lauded, read to switch to English—and when procrastinate an unlimited account, and respected writing and creativ- she consulted one of the people in but if you have limited time, you ity self-help gurus, she’s occasionally charge, she didn’t exactly get the help rush to the page trying to get some- haunted by self-doubt and bur- she was looking for. thing down in the little bit of frag- dened by writer’s block. And, she “Boys become writers,” she recalls ment of time that you have, and you has her detractors—and isn’t entirely being told. “Girls become wives.” may write a great deal that way.” immune to their words. Especially And then there was the time she And so she did. On the recom- bad is her own inner critic, who is so tried to get on the school’s newspaper. mendation of a friend, she got the real to her, she’s named him Nigel. “I remember being asked, ‘Can you subsequent novel into the hands of Cameron’s latest book, The bake cookies?’ ” she says. “I some- Emily Hahn at The New Yorker. Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration times think that my subsequent, uh, “Emily Hahn sent me back a little is a sort of eclectic diary geared acclaim, if you will, is nothing but a note and said, ‘Divide the number of toward artists of all kinds, document- vendetta at Georgetown: You’ll see. flowers and sunsets by two and pub- ing the ups and downs of a year in I’ll show you.” lish.’ And I thought she was being her working life, and her own adher- So Cameron transferred to very critical, and I was extremely ence to the methods she popularized Fordham in New York City. She embarrassed and I thought, How in 1992’s The Artist’s Way. drank, heavily. She submitted and could I not have realized I was a sen- And, as always, Nigel hated it. published her first pieces—poems— timental fool?” “He attacks each book specifically, and eventually, she found herself Cameron now knows that Hahn personally,” she says. “So when he back at Georgetown. She continued was just being encouraging. But the was attacking The Creative Life, he to drink. One particularly bad night, self-doubt took over, the force of kept saying, ‘The sentences are too she had more than her fair share of surly Nigel, and the novel found its short and stubby, it’s too autobio- Scotch and slit her wrist. Her father way into a drawer, where it’s stayed. graphical, everyone’s going to hate got her a therapist. Cameron told the Still, the girl who’d always longed you if you write this book.’ ” therapist she wanted to be a writer. for a literary life was about to get But she wrote it anyway. “Don’t you think it might be more one. When her parents recovered, And this is perhaps one of the sensible to be a secretary?” he asked. she went back to Washington, D.C., most important things about Julia And so it went. Eventually, around and got a call from The Washington Cameron: None of it stops her. It 21, Cameron got word that her par- Post. They wanted to know if she was never has. ents had suffered simultaneous break- interested in a job opening letters. downs, and she had to step in and “When I went in, my editor said, ‘I J&B on the rocks. Scotch take care of her younger siblings. She hope you don’t think you’re a writer.’ was Cameron’s early drink of choice. went home to Libertyville, and there, And I said, ‘I hope you don’t think And the fact that she had a drink of posted at an Olympia typewriter on I’m a journalist.’ And, uh, turned out choice at all was a tad surprising: a regimen of cheddar cheese, apples we were both right.” She was from Libertyville, a suburb and Scotch—“I don’t recommend this of Chicago, and drinking was taboo diet”—she worked on her first novel The Post soon took notice of in her household, something done while assuming the role of caretaker. Cameron’s natural abilities, and she quietly by adults. But Cameron took naturally to alcohol when she was a freshman at Georgetown University. She’d always longed to be a bit of a lit- erary femme fatale, and writing and drinking seemed to go hand in hand. MARK STEPHEN KORNBLUTH Scotch aside, there were other PHOTO © problems at Georgetown, the first WritersDigest.com I 47 PROFILE: JULIA CAMERON found herself writing features for the she says. “They just believed that my Eventually, neither did Cameron. paper, then freelancing for Rolling husband would have too much sway And so, in 1978, she finally quit. Stone and, as things fell into place, over my literary opinions.”) One edi- “Of course the big question was, many other outlets. With her well- tor went so far as to tell Cameron now that I’m sober, can I write?” she received articles, her writing life was that to get hired again, she’d have to says. “And the answer was, fortunately, finally hitting its stride—despite the get divorced. yes, you can. And I was told to try fact that she continued to drink, now So rather than being discour- letting something write through me, downing booze with the likes of aged from writing entirely, Cameron rather than just my ego. Before that I Hunter S. Thompson. shifted her focus and flexed her ver- had always had to have perfect prose. One day, she got what was to satility by writing for Scorsese’s films. But after that I began to relax a little be a life-changing assignment (Cameron and Scorsese also had a bit, and I found that when I did, my from Playboy: Write about a young daughter, Domenica, who is now a prose actually became better; it wasn’t director named Martin Scorsese, filmmaker.) One of the movies the so tricky.” who’s working on a movie called two collaborated on was New York, The business part of writing, though, Taxi Driver. New York—which starred a young wasn’t as easy; Cameron was becoming She waited for him at the St. Liza Minnelli. Cameron later found frustrated by the difficulties of getting Regis Hotel in New York. She drank Minnelli’s clothes in Scorsese’s closet, her screenplays made. Moving away a double Scotch. He arrived late. and the marriage was over. from her works-in-progress, she began Immediately, the two clicked. The Still, she wrote. Things were unrav- a practice of simply starting each day interview went on for hours. He gave eling, but Cameron says her liter- by writing freely, producing what she her the Taxi Driver script, and she ary friends’ faith in her writing kept called “morning pages.” They would suggested tweaks. It wasn’t long before it going. “It never occurred to me to later become a key element in her they moved in together, and eventu- stop,” she says. “I never wanted to be, seminal book, The Artist’s Way—and ally, they got married during a snow- quote, ‘just a wife.’ I wanted to be Cameron’s fans would come to swear storm in front of the Christmas tree at a writer.” by them. Cameron’s parents’ house. She took her typewriter and “I started writing morning pages “It was wonderful,” she says. “It was a her daughter and set up shop on just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn’t know what else to do but write,” she “It was sort of a love letter written says. “And then one day as I was writ- to, I thought, about 10 people ing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don’t who were my friends, who were have to be just a screenwriter. I can having trouble with blocks.” write novels.” Thus, she embarked upon a new path, practicing what she’d soon be little bit like Christmas in Connecticut, Hollywood Boulevard.