The Artist's Way: Now Officially An App (Which We'll Review For You Now)

Based on "The Artist's Way," the best-selling book by Julia Cameron, The Artist's Toolkit is an app designed to "unlock your creativity" and keep you "inspired all year long." (Yes, the implications of your smartphone doing this is eye-roll-worthy.) But before we roll them right out of our heads, let's lay what this app is all about. First, you create your customized artist's notebook, which basically means choosing the gridded paper or antiqued theme option for your notebook background. This is where you will "trace your creative process" as you "unblock your creativity." 

You start each morning with your Daily Meditation, designed to get you into that special, creative space. Each day you will receive Inspirations and Affirmations (their capitalization, not ours) and each week you'll be sent Artist's Date ideas. You can share your Daily Inspirations with your friends, listen to Creative Soundbites or do a few exercises, which are prompts like "If you have five other lives to lead, what would you do in each of them?"

After cruising around this app for a while (you can take a virtual tour) it seems best for those who've always wanted to try their hand at poetry but have never gotten around to it, or those looking for a guided, journaling experience--or those who've hit rock bottom and are desperate enough to try anything to crawl their way out again. Of course, all these daily tidbits of wisdom and the ability to organize your Post-It notes (aka Fleeting Moments of Creativity) don't come free. Yes, the app itself is free, but to actually use it you have to sign up for a $4.99/month membership.

Final say: Grab yourself a blank notebook, we think it just might do the trick.