First, let me say thanks to everybody who stuck with these blog posts through the serialization of The Artist’s Journey. And a special thanks to everybody who actually ordered the book. I hope it’s helpful. But let’s get to Good Will Hunting. I watched the movie for probably the tenth time on TV a few nights ago. I thought, Wow, this is the Hero’s Journey/Artist’s Journey exactly. Do you remember the movie? (It came out in 1997 and launched Matt Damon’s and Ben Affleck’s careers. As co-writers they won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay that year.) Here’s a quick…

Today is the final installment of The Artist’s Journey. Thanks again to everyone who stayed with us from the start. The book officially goes on sale today in all three formats—audiobook (read by me), eBook, and paperback. You can get the paperback from Amazon or other online booksellers. The ebook and audio are on sale now (in bundled version as well) at www.blackirishbooks.com. As I said a few episodes ago, the publication book is a bit different from this serialized version. Shawn came in and made it better. P.S. Are we crazy to serialize this book for free and then put…

We’re down now to the next-to-last installment of The Artist’s Journey. It’s getting heavy, I know. Stick with me. To catch up on any missed chapters, click here:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9. Part 10.Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14. Part 15. Part 16.Part 17. Part 18. Part 19. Part 20. P.S. Happy Fourth of July! 99. THE FALL OF MAN The following is from Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy: In the Hebrew-Christian tradition the Fall is subsequent to creation and is due exclusively to the egocentric use of a…

Only three more posts (including today’s) and this serialization of The Artist’s Journey will be complete. Thanks, everybody, for hanging in. I promise to get back to “regular” posts right away. One last peep re Tim Grahl of www.booklaunch.com, whom I’ve been telling you about for the past couple of weeks. Tim, remember, reached out to Shawn out of the blue, saying, “If you’ll help me organize and shape my novel (that I haven’t written yet), I’ll help you with your marketing.” What happened to that novel? It’s proceeding furiously apace under Shawn’s guidance. In the meantime Tim wrote a…

Last week I introduced Tim Grahl, the founder of booklaunch.com, who reached out to Shawn (whom he had never met) and asked for Shawn’s help as an editor, to mentor Tim in writing his first novel. If we look at this moment through the prism of the past eighteen weeks’ posts, we would say that Tim had reached the end of his Hero’s Journey. The act of reaching out to Shawn was the start of his Artist’s Journey. Tim was declaring, whether he thought of it in these terms or not, “I am a writer. I don’t care if I’ve…

There’s a guy named Tim Grahl. A real guy. A really good guy. He has a site called booklaunch.com, which is one of the best, if not the best, instructional site for writers at all levels who want to get their stuff out there in the most effective and high-exposure way. I’m a subscriber. The site is great. But Tim didn’t want to just help writers. He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to tell stories. He phoned Shawn and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: “If you’ll work with me as an editor and help me write…

The first stages of my own artist’s journey were lived out in a town called Carmel Valley, California. Carmel Valley is not far from Big Sur. The presence of Henry Miller was vivid there. I had friends who knew him (I never did myself). People told stories about him. He was in the air in that part of the state, as was John Steinbeck a few miles north, who came from and wrote often about Salinas and Monterey and Cannery Row. I’ve quoted Henry Miller three or four times in The Artist’s Journey because nobody I’ve ever read articulates so…

Now, at this sixteenth installment of The Artist’s Journey, we’ve left the Apollonian mind behind and have entered the Dionysian. Way fun! To catch up on any posts you might have missed, use these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14.  And Part 15. 76. WHAT IS THE ARTIST AFRAID OF? The artist is afraid of the unknown. She’s afraid of letting go. Afraid of finding out what’s “in there.” Or “out there.” I’m not speaking here of unearthing within ourselves heretofore-unknown sordid, depraved, vile,…

Here in our fifteenth week of this serialization of The Artist’s Journey, we’re finally getting into my favorite part—the airy-fairy part. I can make no scientific claim to anything put forward in “Book Six  The Artist and the Unconscious.” It’s all personal and idiosyncratic, just stuff that I believe is true (though I can’t prove it) from my own experience. From this point to the end of the book, that’s what’s coming. To catch up on any prior posts, click these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part…

Continuing this serialization of The Artist’s Journey. For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about the professional skills the writer, the painter, the actor, the filmmaker develop on her journey. Pretty soon we’ll be getting into my favorite part, the deep stuff, the crazy stuff, the stuff you can’t prove but that you know is true. If you’ve missed any of the prior posts in this series, catch up here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13.   62. THE ARTIST LEARNS HOW TO HANDLE…