This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today.

In February of 2021, I picked up a new copy of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a 12-week “spiritual path to higher creativity” first published in 1992. I’d long heard this book’s praises sung on the internet, especially one of its main tenets: morning pages, which are supposed to be three pages of spontaneous writing you complete upon waking about whatever comes to mind. I only finished nine weeks; a common joke around the book is that almost no one finishes it the first time they try. Three years later, morning pages remain one of my life’s most fulfilling habits.

I’m just one of tens of thousands of people around the world who’ve picked up journaling as a mainstay of my mental health hygiene over the past few years (the search term “journaling” surged on Google Trends in April 2024). And although people have journaled about their lives for centuries, journaling is having a modern moment in the spotlight.

The Artist’s Way holds a ubiquitous presence not only in writing-centric hubs like Substack (a quick scroll of my recent feed brings up dozens of mentions of the book) but also in plenty of celebrities’ social media feeds. Singer Olivia Rodrigo says the book helped her make her sophomore album in 2023; entrepreneur and investor Tim Ferriss says it’s “the most cost-effective therapy I’ve ever found”; and Adriene of Yoga With Adriene YouTube fame invited her followers to join her to write morning pages in September. Thirty-three years after its publication, it’s sold 5 million copies and been translated into 40 languages, and as of this writing it’s currently No. 2 on Amazon’s “creativity” bestseller list and No. 48 on Barnes & Noble’s self-help list.

Then there’s The Shadow Work Journal, a wildly popular 2021 self-published book by author Keila Shaheen, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and marketing. She was only 24 when the book outsold Oprah’s latest book club release. The guide to confront the “shadow,” or unconscious, parts of yourself, based on concepts by psychiatrist Carl Jung, blew up on TikTok, where more than 29,000 videos can be found under........

© Vox