THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY

One of the great revelations of my life came when I discovered Joseph Campbell and his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I read it while studying films and screenplays and trying to understand what makes a great story. And I read it while in the middle of a divorce and unsure I would survive the trauma of that.

While challenging to read, I found one idea that stuck with me and resonated so completely that it’s still a rare month that I haven’t gone back to it, to sift through the paradigm and find meaning. That idea is the Hero’s Journey—the idea that in the mythology of every culture through time there are common elements in the stories that give our lives meaning. Books like The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler ...

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