Customer Reviews

Coaching the Artist Within: Advice for Writers, Actors, Visual Artists, and Musicians from America's Foremost Creativity Coach

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Artists often find themselves dissatisfied with their creativity. Sometimes this is caused by a failure to articulate a satisfactory vision in their work. At other times, it is due to psychological factors that somehow prevent them from creating. It is to this latter condition that this book is addressed.

The author is a psychologist who bills himself as a creativity coach, and has written well over a dozen books about the subject. He says that creativity coaches "help clients to make and sustain meaning. They help creators deal with blockage, self-doubt, anxiety, fear of failure, worries about mistakes, and other issues that deal with creating."

After urging each artist to become his own self-coach in creativity, Maisel urges artists to develop a number of skills, each in a separate chapter, including passionately making meaning, eliminating dualistic thinking, generating mental energy, and achieving a centered presence. After describing the skill, he suggests tools for developing and enforcing the skills. For example, in the chapter on achieving a centered presence, he suggests deep breathing, while uttering mantra-like affirmations. Maisel finishes each chapter with a self-congratulatory story that shows how he helped someone develop the skill he has discussed.

Although the tools may seem a little touchy-feely to some, there is little doubt that some of the tools he suggests work in many cases. For example, many cognitive therapists now recognize the importance of affirmations.

On the other hand, the author isn't always able to provide clear help for dealing with a problem. For example, one of the skills he urges is creating in the middle of things. Most therapists and artists agree that you have to continue at your art, even though there are crises continually occurring. But it's hard to drain the swamp when you are surrounded by alligators. Maisel essentially says, "Suck it up". But if we were able to persevere through difficulties, we wouldn't be looking at this book.

One of the problems with this book is that it makes it seem simple to overcome the psychological barriers to creativeness. It would be quite an accomplishment if that could be done with the help of a book of about 200 pages with plenty of white space and anecdotes. There probably are people out there who can read this little book and overcome the obstacles they face. It is more likely that the artist blocked by psychological factors may, if he or she is prepared to take the book to heart, uncover what his or her problems are. However, it seems to me, the task of solving those problems will probably require a lot more work and help than this book can provide on its own.

Finally, one should understand that nothing in this book will tell you how to develop your vision as an artist.

This book is amazing. I'm not halfway done and it's aready changed my worldview in significant ways. For most of my life I've been a blocked artist suffering from depression. Other creativity books emphasize the usual: become confortable with making mistakes, be disciplined and persistent, we could all create freely if we could just let go of our fear of judging ourselves and being judged by others. This book goes much deeper, to the very root of the issue: meaningfulness and meaning-making. The "why bother?" of the creative process. The incredibly subtle ways you might be justifying your own lack of productivity in the name of some lofty ideal. The psychology of creativity. For some of us the creative process in the only true form of therapy, and we figure out sooner or later that our happiness depends on our ability to harness our creativity. What's more, we come to realize the deep connection between creating and living. You might start seeing many other (non-art-related) personal issues become resolved as you embrace the holistic path that Maisel proposes. This book can do for you as much as expensive psychotherapy, and could in fact be a good complement to it. This is not a self-help book--it's much smarter and deeper than that--and devoid of the usual motivational fluff. No you-can-do-its here. No certainties, no happy endings. Only the recognition that you, the creator, have no other choice but to create, why you keep shying away from it, how the creative mind works, what pitfalls to look out for.

Eric Maisel's newest is a gem. I read it all at one sitting - I couldn't put it down. I don't consider myself "blocked" as a writer, but I learned how to be even more open creatively through his techniques and stories. It was so encouraging to find out how many other people shy away from their own potential, and that by acknowledging what we are doing we can overcome our own blind spots. Maisel teaches us to coach ourselves through the blocks to greater success.

I've read almost a dozen books by Eric Maisel about writing, the arts, and the psychology of creativity, and though it seems impossible, each new book is better than the last. Maisel's latest, COACHING THE ARTIST WITHIN, is no exception. Drawing on his experience as a psychotherapist, author, and creativity coach, Maisel has developed a book that creative people from all realms can use.

From the first examples in the Introduction through the twelve chapters of advice and information, anyone practicing an art will find solid help and inspiration. Chapters on self-coaching, creating while in the middle of things, dealing with anxiety, achieving balance and centeredness, and maintaining a creative life are particularly excellent. Maisel also provides the reader with 22 exercises, all of which provide food for thought and could easily jumpstart authors or artists who are blocked or at a crossroads with their work.

Inspiring, challenging, and entertaining, the book is compulsively easy to read and jam-packed full of the kind of teaching and coaching that every creative person needs. I can't recommend it highly enough. Maisel includes an Appendix for anyone interested in becoming a Creativity Coach. At the end he also lists a Resource section of all of his own writings that support the teachings within this book. Taken all together, this volume is a wonderful addition to the library of anyone interested in furthering their creativity. ~Lori L. Lake, reviewer for The Independent Gay Writer and Midwest Book Review

I read this small book in a few sittings and found there was a lot to chew on. I thought the basic ideas were quite powerful. It's easy for instance to love/hate the process of creating or to love/hate the finished product but one of the points is that you can come to grips and accept the duality of many things like this. Learning to commit to the ideas and activities that are important to you (after you figure out what they are and how to accomplish them) is crucial; sticking with it, no easy task. Mr. Maisel draws on his experience of coaching himself and others to help you understand how you can support your own best interests and achieve what you want.

I enjoyed the personal stories and anecdotes in the book, they put a more concrete wrap on some pretty abstract concepts. I do wish that the exercises, which he stresses are important to do, were a little more directed or fleshed out. For several of them I felt that I needed an in-real-life coach there to help me with them. Perhaps they'll become clearer on the second read.

Overall I think this book would benefit many people no matter their medium.

The whole idea of slowing down and quieting myself as very foreign. Maisel gently introduces the idea of meditation with a genius breathing technique that also employs powerful words. I can't say enough about this simple exercise called "centering" that has actually gotten me through some BIG anxious moments.

Coaching the Artist Within: Advice for Writers, Actors, Visual Artists, and Musicians by Eric Maisel, New World Library (February 9, 2005)

Have you ever been stuck in a time when you couldn't create anything? Or when what you were doing just wasn't what you felt you were capable of? It happens to everyone who is a creative, from artist to musician. Artists who are suffering from that dreaded white paper fear, can find the answers to the questions of how to get past creative blocks in this very informative and entertaining book.

I brought this book with me on a trip to the East Coast to read on the airplane. I figured I'd read a few pages and do what I usually do when I read a self-help book. I thought I'd read those few pages and end up nodding off until the plane landed. Not only didn't I fall asleep, I couldn't put this book down! The author takes his subject matter all over the world, with excepts from actual clients, workshop presentations and even the author's own life. It was more like reading a novel than a non-fiction how-to book.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, each called "Skill One," "Skill Two", etc. Later skills build on the life lessons learn in earlier chapters. Plus, the book really is for all types of creatives, unlike books that are written mainly for writers or actors or musicians, anyone can pick up this book and get a lot out of it.

The first sentence of Skill One says it all: "The ability to effectively coach yourself hinges on having enough space to positively influence yourself, to openly communicate with yourself, to carefully monitor yourself, and to regularly chat with yourself." The book teaches the artist within to be courageous in pursuit of his or her artistic vision, to set aside all the conscious and unconscious thoughts that halt us in our tracks. Solutions to the reasons that keep us from creating are carefully examined and examples from other creatives' lives are given to illustrate each skill.

I had more than one "aha" moment while reading this book. I came face to face with my biggest creativity gremlins and found the tools to work through them and eradicate them. I still struggle with my biggest one though. I just have a hard time getting the flow going and keeping it going. But now, with the kind words of the author in my head, I don't beat myself up nearly as badly when I haven't accomplished my daily, weekly or monthly goals.

In the end, this book teaches us to be more self-aware and along the way, we also learn how to be our own mentors and artistic best friends.

W. Lyon Martin author/illustrator "An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child"

With all the great reviews I thought this book would be something earth-shattering and contain things specifically for artists and other creatives. But it's really just your basic "positive thinking" stuff that's been in millions of other books, and which can be applied to any goal in life, not just artistic goals. It's a fine book if that's all you want. But if you are looking for something to really jolt your creativity this isn't it.

I was sort of burnt out on self-help books, having read about a zillion of them in my lifetime, but Eric Maisel was recommended to me by a writer whose work is spectacular (Brown-Davidson) and I trust her judgment and needed a push to break through some creative blocks I've been experiencing. I have to tell you, I was quite impressed and definitely moved to get back to my novel after reading this very intelligent, and well conceived book on coaching your own creativity. There are some very inspirational ideas, exercises, and concepts that actually work, and since I'm cynical about such rah rah stuff, I was quite taken that my mind acquiesced to trying them, and they worked. I'd recommend this to anyone who has need of a support system and someone in their corner to urge them on to creative productivity.

Eric Maisel's Coaching the Artist Within is designed to not only help you release what may be blocking your creativity, but also to teach you to become your own "self-coach" - as he calls it.

Maisel understands the anxieties that artists of all modalities experience and provides a series of lessons and exercises that make creating inspiring and fun. The aim of the book is to teach you to create habits that produce results by changing your relationship with the creative process.

After reading the book and putting into practice the suggestions and ideas Eric introduces, I've eliminated some of my own blockages and have learned to understand my personal creative flow in a way that makes my work enjoyable rather than frustrating and bothersome.