The pages 'develop our creativity and encourage belief in our potential,' she says. Her 'bedrock of creative recovery' prescription is to write 'morning pages' – three pages of stream-of-consciousness longhand writing accomplished on rising, 'when our rational, self-editing mind gets out of the way of intuitive inclination'. 'Many blocked people are very powerful and creative personalities who have been made to feel guilty about their own strengths and gifts,' she says. And while she began life as a scriptwriter – and continues to write novels, poetry and songs – it has become her life's work to teach the many thousands from all creative fields who come to her artistically hampered by the demons of self-doubt and self-criticism, or claiming lack of time or talent. For Cameron, there is no 'creative elite' we are all creative, she says. It is subtitled A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity because, she tells BBC Culture, 'creativity is, to my eye, a spiritual experience'. Life is energy – pure creative energy,' is the first of 10 basic principles to be found in Julia Cameron's bestselling creative guide, The Artist's Way. 'Creativity is the natural order of life.

Three ideas for how to live your best life But the word – which derives from the Latin creare, to make – is most often associated with the arts and culture, and is believed to have first appeared in the 14th-Century literary work, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. We know creativity is alive in all fields of life, from medicine to business and agriculture. While advertising supremo David Ogilvy came at it from a business perspective: 'If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative'. 'Creativity is intelligence having fun,' is a phrase often attributed to Einstein.

Creativity, according to Maya Angelou, is a bottomless pit: 'The more you use it, the more you have,' said the novelist.

Creativity by mihaly csikszentmihalyi