I read this book without doing the exercises and in my opinion, SARK's books are best experienced by doing the exercises. I'm planning on re-reading it and doing the exercises. She recommends that you actually draw and cut from the book, which I ain't doing because I like my books intact.

Like other SARK books that I have read, it is inspirational, but it was too short and I wanted more. It's more a brief overview of ways to jumpstart your creativity and get inspiration, but it was short on actual, practical advice as to how to get from point A (having an idea) to point B (initiating a project and seeing it through to the end). She offers advice on "making a habit of completion," but to me, it was a little fuzzy and New Age-y, such as "I've learned to ask for whatever I want, and trusting that the Universe wants me to have it." (Page 29.) She has been fortunate enough to live a life (I suppose) where that philosophy works for her, but it doesn't work for everybody.

I had trouble suspending my disbelief and buying into the whole "You create your own reality" concept. However, I can see where the exercises in the book would be useful to helping an individual unblock her or his creativity in constructive ways, because they are rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy techniques (questioning why you have the beliefs about yourself that you do and getting to the root cause that spawned those beliefs and working to overcome them, replacing the negative thought patterns with positive thought patterns).

This was SARK's first book, and it offers an overview of her general philosophy. I found "Make Your Creative Dreams Real" to be more helpful when it came to figuring out what I wanted to do, and why the things I was doing weren't working anymore.

Overall, I recommend SARK's books on the creative process. To derive the most benefit from them, I recommend doing the exercises. ( )