My friends, it had to happen. I was at the library this morning and as always went over to the New Books display section. And there it was, a new book by Julia Cameron, famous author of The Artists’ Way and inventor of the famous Morning Pages now scribbled by countless fans of hers – three stream-of-consciousness pages every morning.
Now Julia has written The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size.
I got it out. There’s no doubt it has a sensible message – write instead of snacking, keep a journal, take long walks etc. But it follows that for her readers, writing becomes not creative self-expression and exploration of the world, not even therapy, but self-help with over-eating, that particularly Western obsession. I wonder what Virginia Woolf would have thought of the Writing Diet, or Jane Austen. Writing is writing and eating is eating, different activities, not much related. Some of us write about food, and some of us write to earn our daily bread and eat it too, larded with carbs though it be.
This past Sunday, for lunch at the garden writing workshop, we had my daughter’s delicious rich quiches and potato salad. Maybe next time we could, as Julia suggests, have diet Jell-O instead, and instead of exploring the heart and soul, we could write about melting away fat. Visualise a new, slimmer you, she says. You’ll be more creative when you’re thin, she says. Instead of sitting still, we could jog up and down the garden. There is money to be made.
