“The lat­est from Eric Maisel is an amaz­ing and won­der­ful book that any writer, musi­cian, artist, or per­former would ben­e­fit from read­ing. In Cre­ativ­ity for Life, Maisel brings together con­cepts and ideas he’s dis­cussed in pre­vi­ous books, but here every part is syn­the­sized and com­plete. It’s a smor­gas­bord of exam­ples and tac­tics. He breaks new ground in detail­ing the artist’s per­son­al­ity in ways that that the non-psychologist reader will instantly under­stand, and the book is highly acces­si­ble to any­one from begin­ner to master.

“In the intro­duc­tion he dis­tin­guishes between the ‘art­ful life,’ which is the way many peo­ple wish to live; the ‘art-filled life,’ which includes the joy that art brings; and an ‘art-committed life,’ the process of actively choos­ing to be cre­ative. It’s this lat­ter that’s the focus of the book. ‘As soon as you decide to be cre­ative in a par­tic­u­lar domain and that you mean to live as a nov­el­ist, bio­chemist, actor, or sculp­tor, you intro­duce a set of pro­found chal­lenges that you would not have con­fronted if you had ‘set­tled’ for art­ful liv­ing and an art-filled life’ (p. xii). In four major sec­tions, Maisel thor­oughly exam­ines the chal­lenges faced in seek­ing an art-committed life: The Chal­lenge of the Artis­tic Per­son­al­ity, The Chal­lenge of the Work, The Chal­lenge of Rela­tion­ships, and Strate­gies & Tac­tics. Each sec­tion is bril­liantly detailed and will make sense to any­one at any stage of inven­tion, inno­va­tion, or imagination.

“Because cre­ative folks face major obsta­cles that non-artists do not, Maisel spends a great deal of time giv­ing hints, ideas, and sug­ges­tions. Just a few include ways to silence neg­a­tive self-talk, using visu­al­iza­tion, focus­ing, and prac­tic­ing one’s craft while bring­ing to it skills such as reg­u­lar­ity, hon­esty, self-direction, inten­sity, joy, dis­ci­pline, and more. He tells us, ‘Cre­ativ­ity is the act of mak­ing one choice after another’ (p. 120). Liv­ing an art-committed life is the same. As Maisel says late in the book, ‘Life­long cre­ativ­ity isn’t given to you. You must earn it and attend to it every day… You will have to dig deep to find the req­ui­site hon­esty, courage, and resilience to live an art­ful, art-filled, art-committed life… You must really want it and really com­mit to it in order to have it… to crack through every­day resis­tance and cre­ate for a life­time’ (p. 319–320).

“I approach every new non­fic­tion book by Maisel with giddy excite­ment, won­der­ing what fresh aspect of the cre­ative process he’ll unearth, dust off, and show around. Some­times I feel like the man must per­son­ally know me and the chal­lenges I face in writ­ing — but we have, of course, never met. Maisel is just an amaz­ing cre­ativ­ity coach and coun­selor who knows the secrets and inse­cu­ri­ties, tri­umphs and tribu­la­tions of those who seek the cre­ative life. This book is the next best thing to per­son­ally expe­ri­enc­ing Maisel’s cre­ativ­ity coach­ing, and I highly rec­om­mend it. ~Lori L. Lake, Mid­west Book Review

“When I fin­ished read­ing your book Cre­ativ­ity for Life I wanted des­per­ately to be able to pick up the phone and call you. Then I noted your After­word and was deter­mined to write you. You have an incred­i­ble under­stand­ing of the inner nature of an artist and your book has become a great source of com­fort for me. I have referred to it count­less times as well as buy­ing it for many friends. I might as well have under­lined the entire book—I found so much truth in what you said, both the pos­i­tive and the neg­a­tive. Thank you for car­ing enough to write about us in such depth and with so much insight.”—B.C., Detroit, Michigan

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