Eric Maisel - Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artists Personality, and Career from Americas Foremost Creativity Coach

Eric Maisel has taught me more about the creative life and how to live it successfully than any other author. Creativity for Life is for anyone who has ever dared to live an extraordinary and fully exposed life.

Sharon Lebell, author of
The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness

Using simple and straightforward principles, Eric Maisel offers an inspiring guide to living an artful, art-filled, and art-committed life.

Kari L. Pope, coordinator, Arts and Disability Network for California

Creativity for Life offers an insiders journey into the marvels of creative expression. Read it, and personal clarity and commitment will be your gifts!

Gail McMeekin, LICSW, author of
The Twelve Secrets of Highly Creative Women

Creativity for Life helps readers who are regularly in contact with artists and creative persons develop a deeper understanding of them. And for those who are already art-committed, this book is recommended for the nightstand.

Martine Vanremoortele, president,
Centre for the Development of Creative Thinking (COCD), Belgium

Creativity for Life goes far beyond typical surface discussions on the act of creativity. It is a serious investigation into all aspects of being and functioning as a working artist.

Nancy Fletcher Cassell, visual artist and writer

Maisels work has changed the way I work. His methods and strategies are sensible, crystal clear, and completely un-goofy. No other writer-psychologist practicing today gets artists as purely and wholly as Eric Maisel does.

Heather Sellers, PhD, author of Georgia Under Water and Page After Page

Creativity for Life offers wise and life-changing advice for anyone who wants to be more creative. Maisels innovative approach illuminates the way toward finding the courage and resilience to make magic with your art.

John Moir, author of Return of the Condor

Both creative and practical, Creativity for Life is an exciting, engagingly written book. I immediately appreciated its value and utility for my clients, my colleagues, and myself.

Kate F. Hays, PhD, author of Youre On!: Consulting for Peak Performance

If you are an artist who wants to get a project finished, read this book. It gave me new understanding of my artist personality and why I put things off. Most important, it gave me new courage to forge the path I know I have to take.

Coleen Rajotte, documentary filmmaker

This is the most comprehensive book on creativity that I have encountered. I will make this book required reading for the students in my creativity coaching training as well as for clients embarking upon a creative path.

Jill Badonsky, MEd, creativity coaching trainer and author of
The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard)

Eric Maisel warrants special praise. He demonstrates unique sensitivity to the issues artists face and provides practical guidelines for artists whose mental health and creative outputs must be protected and promoted.

Richard Lippin, founding president, International Arts-Medicine Association

This is an ideal guide and companion for all artists. It describes the artists struggle for expression, recognition, and survival with singular tenderness and depth.

Peggy Salkind, pianist and piano department chair,
San Francisco Conservatory of Music

At last, a book that does justice to the ambitions, conflicts, struggles, frustrations, and achievements of creative and performing artists.

Peter Ostwald, former director,
UCSF Medical Center Health Program for Performing Artists

Eric Maisel speaks as the artists friend and ally. His book will serve as a powerful encouragement for people who undertake the courageous and often lonely adventure of finding, protecting, and nourishing their creative voice.

Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of
Free Play: The Power of Improvisation in Life and the Arts

New World Library
Novato, California

Copyright 2007 by Eric Maisel

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Parts of this work were originally published as A Life in the Arts (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1994).

Author photograph on page 347 by Tim Porter
Text design and typography by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maisel, Eric.

Creativity for life : practical advice on the artists personality and career from Americas foremost creativity coach / Eric Maisel, PhD.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-57731-558-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Creative ability. 2. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) I. Title.

BF408.M2324 2007

153.35 dc22

2006101775

First printing, April 2007

ISBN-10: 1-57731-558-8

ISBN-13: 978-1-57731-558-2

Printed in Canada on acid-free, partially recycled paper

Distributed by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1