I'd felt creatively flat and had recently returned to the wellspring -- Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way and its twin practices of Morning Pages and Artist Dates. So I was interested to see that Cameron has sliced her material in a new and accessible way in this collection of daily excerpts about the creative process. Might there be magic in her tiny inspirations, ingested every day?
I opened the book to that day's entry, November 14: "So often in a creative career, the magic that is required is quite simply the courage to go on. Singers must sing their scales. Actors must learn their monologues. Writers like myself must spend time at the keys. We would like a break in the weather. We would like a break, period, but the breaks, if they come, will not come today. Today is about keeping on."
Bingo.
A few notes. The excerpts range from a couple of sentences to a full page; most are a paragraph. (I uploaded a photo [under the book's cover image on the main page] to show a representative sample.) Though it's not a journal, there is room to make notes in the generous amount of white space. And to clarify the product description that this "little book can easily be carried along" -- it's a little chunk of a book, 400+ pages and sized between a mass-market and a trade paperback.
Highly recommended to inspire -- and ground :) -- anyone in creative pursuit.