of weight loss and weight loss products, one of those individuals who commented on my weight recommended this book, The Writing Diet, by writing guru/creativity coach, Julia Cameron (better known as Martin Scorcese’s ex — and, gee, having glimpsed her writing and watched many of his films, I wonder why that relationship didn’t work). Well, you know how I feel about writing gurus and creativity coaches. But, what the hell, I skimmed through the book. It was pretty much what I expected it to be. She basically applies her Artist’s Way bullshit to the subject of weight loss. If you’ve read the Artist’s Way, you know that it’s pretty much the same as every other book on the subject of creative writing. In fact, if you’ve read Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, you read The Artist’s Way. The only difference is that Cameron replaces Zen Buddhism with a New Age God/12-step program, but the lingo is the same. Like most self-proclaimed creativity experts, she advocates “free-writing” as a way to stir the creative juices. She calls her version, “Morning Pages.” Like a lot of creative writing instructors, She confuses free-writing with stream-of-consciousness.
What really irks me is this new application of her recycled creative writing garbage. Creative Writing as a dietary aid? Are you kidding me? In the book she writes about people who use her methods. One guy says something like, he didn’t know he was a nervous eater until he started doing Morning Pages. How clueless can a person be? What, you’re chowing down on leftover pizza in the middle of the night, but you aren’t aware that you’re doing it or that it’s a bad thing until you write about it in a journal? Really? Maybe if I write about how unhappy I am to be broke and million dollars will fall from the sky?
My sister started journaling recently to help her deal with stress and migraine headaches — probably not because of Julia Cameron, directly, but she probably got the idea from someone who’s read Julia Cameron. Anyway, I asked my sister if keeping the journal helped (as journaling had never done anything for me but fill a notebook with words). My sister replied that it really didn’t help at all, just that it had become a habit when she was bored and had time on her hands. That’s about the size of it.
So, I’m taking Julia Cameron’s writing diet with a very fine grain of salt even though, I’m sure that lots of people who’ve bought her books swear by her musings. Of course, those people probably watch Oprah too.
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