Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide To Starting and Completing Your Work of Art (Paperback)

by Eric Maisel (Author) "You are wishing to create..." (more)
Key Phrases: belligerent commitment, vivacious idea, coldness sets (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Besides being a writer himself, Eric Maisel is a therapist with a practice centered around artists, writers and performers and has seen many of the demons that haunt the creative life firsthand. In this inventive workbook, he comes up with many exercises designed to help you blast through your own inertia and fear, to get you back to the typewriter, the easel, or on the stage where you belong.

Product Description
The blank page, empty canvas, or uncarved stone will often fill artists with dread. But so may the thought of finishing, showing or even selling their work. Maisel guides the reader, whether an experienced artist or someone just starting out, past the pitfalls that appear in each stage of creation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (October 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874778050
• ISBN-13: 978-0874778052
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17,714 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #32 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Reference
  #33 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Self-Help > Creativity

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on the creative process!, May 1, 1999

By	Joan Mazza "Author, speaker, poet" (Mineral, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've read many books on creativity and Eric Maisel describes it as no one else has. FEARLESS CREATING takes you through the steps of the creative process, predicts the typical anxieties and pitfalls, and offers specific suggestions to get past them. I especially liked his explanation for attending to your rhythms as your work and distinguishing between needed quiet time and using quiet to avoid the inevitable anxiety of creating.

As an author, I found Maisel's principles and advice to resonate with my experience. Working on an outline for my next book as I read, I found the book inspirational and fun as well as reassuring. If you liked Julia Cameron's THE ARTIST'S WAY, you'll love this book as much as I did.

I am recommending it to all my creative friends.

58 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As a professor of creativity this has been 1 of 2 texts I have used for over 10 years., January 6, 2006

By	Performing Arts Prof (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews

I teach Creativity at a University so I am constantly on the lookout for new and improved texts to use in my courses. For over ten years I have used this same book because I have not found a better one.

I give the students a choice between this and Julia Cameron The Artist's Way. The latter is more "spiritual" in tone ("inner" this and "within" that, and let your "higher self" speak, etc.) and Fearless Craeting is more "secular" ( the occasional PG swear word, painting naked, etc.) so they appeal to different types of students. They are still the 2 best books I know to actually enhance your creativity. (Nor have the authors in my opinions, surpassed them in their subsequent books.)

The only drawback is that the student only have to pay $15.00 for this text. They are used to paying $95.00 so this can be upsetting to them.

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puts action in your creative traction, March 15, 2004

By	QuinnCreative "-Q" (Glendale, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews

Maisel knows artists, whether they are writers, painters, dancers, musicians. And he knows what makes us tick, get stuck, frightened and give up. And he won't let us use a shred of an excuse. Thank goodness. Here is a book for the artist who wants to make meaning in life, work deep and see results. And while we are getting real, Maisel is there helping us plan, sell, and make money at it as well. Not for the faint of heart, or those who expect to be told that everything we do is wonderful and we are misunderstood. Wait, I take some of that back. This IS a book for the faint of heart, but not if you want to stay that way. This is a book for artists who are serious, who want to grow, who want to move forward every day. Maisel is never cruel, never patronizing, never so tough that you want to give up. This is a wonderful supportive book that makes you glad you decided NOT to make art your hobby while you got a "real" job. Maisel's book is filled with steps and exercises you can use for years, appreciating their flexibility as you do so.