Do You Write Morning Pages?
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I’ve been cleaning out my office. While going through drawers and file cabinets I’ve found many spiral notebooks. (Have I told you that I love spiral notebooks and steno pads and all sorts of office supplies?)
I’ve found lot of notes from writing conferences, snippets of ideas and character sketches, and most of all, years and years of morning pages.
Morning Pages are Julia Cameron’s main tool for kick starting your creativity and moving you closer to your writing goals. Write three pages every day. She says to write them in longhand, which I usually do, and write them first thing in the morning, which I do some of the time.
I do understand that when you do them first, you can get all the chatter out of your mind and free up your creativity. When you do then toward the end of the day, you are rehashing the day. Either way, I find benefit in writing the pages.
As I’m reading back over them, I’m re-experiencing various phases of my life. Some remind me of good times. A lot are reminders to be grateful for all I have and have had. However, some remind me of the tough times I’ve been through (and survived).
Reading them over evokes a wide range of emotions. There’s joy when I read about trips I’ve taken and adventures I’ve had. There’s frustration when I see myself working too hard for someone else’s goals. There’ a sense of futility or triumph when I read about the trials of child rearing. (If we knew ahead of time what awaited us, would be ever have children?)
Now my biggest question is what to do with them.
Please leave a comment and answer these burning questions!
Do you or have you ever written morning pages?
Have they helped your creativity or your life?
How do you store your pages?
Do you ever re-read them?
What should I do with mine?
Write on,
Lynn
I have been doing morning pages for a couple of years now. However, I call them my morning papers for some strange reason! Most of my inspiration comes from my morning papers. I truly get fabulous ideas all the time while doing them. It’s sort of like a running conversation with God. I write mine on plain pages and label each month. I put each month’s in a different colored folder. Do I ever go back and read them? On occasion. I definitely keep them because who knows when I might like to read them. Good luck to you in your pursuit of creativity! #blog30
Hey Lynn, Saw your post retweeted by Martha. I am a morning pages regular, though I miss days and don’t always do them first thing. In fact, my entry on tonight’s post (Sunday’s #blog30) mentions Julia Cameron and The Artist’s Way. Even before AW &AM Pgs, I had notebooks full of journaling. Now I have nearly a decade of black bound sketchbooks with hand-numbered identification in gold pen. They are in a bookcase behind my computer screen. I have a whole basket of notebooks of evening gratitudes too. These notebooks are my constant companions, the concrete reminders of good habits put into action. The pages and gratitude combo have been absolutely crucial to my creative output, my sanity (such as it is), and capturing ideas for projects. I periodically go back through and “mine” the notebooks, flagging pages with color-coded post-it notes. I have a colored flag for entries that go towards fictions, other colors for marketing/biz building ideas, or other book ideas, or other writing projects. Sometimes just rereading helps me to get grounded. We see the waves and swells that we ride in our lives by looking at morning pages. Everyone has a different approach, but I don’t really have any advice on what to do with them…
Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru
Interesting post. I’ve never heard of morning pages. I must admit the morning is when I’m at my brightest and I’m able to think and write, but I’ve never thought to do this. I did find a whole bunch of seminar and conference notes once, and I just typed them up into a file and saved them. Actually I took 6 seminar notes I took, and I wrote 6 blogs about the talks called “Motivate Me”.
Hi Lynn,
A very wise woman once told me that “every story is a blog post”,
and she is also fond of saying “blog your book”.
Hey, maybe that was you! lol
You are the one who got me doing this, and I’m bummed to report
that I have not done it in a while. No worries, I can begin again
today and tomorrow morning …. first thing!
So glad I stopped by your blog today!
Write on ~!
Carrie
Hi Fiona,
A “Motivate Me” file, folder, or post is a great idea. I know I’ve been inspired by looking over my past conference notes.
Hi Bobbye,
I’m so glad you mentioned gratitude journals along with morning pages. They are a most powerful combination. I agree they are keys to keeping what sanity I have left.
I’m a page flagger as well. I’m not organized well enough to color-code them.
Hi Martha,
Morning papers are good too. I love the image of “a running conversation with God”. That is so true. A really haven’t found a better creativity tool.
I’ll probably end up putting the pages in folders, since I have them scattered across so many notebooks.