MORNING PAGES

The light through the window blinds is silver. It's 3:30 am and technically I have an hour before I have to wake up. Knowing I will be awake I shut off the alarm, as I do every day, so it doens't wake my husband. But this morning is a new story. I drift into a dream filled sleep and waken at 5:00 am. Very early for most, but for me it's late and I now have a decision to make. I only have enough time to either wash and blow dry my hair, or write my "morning pages." What will it be? While brushing my teeth I glance in the mirror. The hair will have to suffice for the day. I cannot give up my writing time.

Julia Cameron, in her book "The Artist's Way," recommends three longhand pages of writing each morning. I have been doing this for years. It's a mind dump and an entrance to my writing voice. It also gives me a chance to communicate with my gut and intuition and to resolve questions and issues. With few exceptions I do this every morning.

Cameron also suggests two other "tools" for connecting with our inner creative child. One is an artist's date, done weekly. You simply go off for an hour by yourself to a park, a book store, an art supply store, whatever you fancy, and spend time with yourself. The third tool is a daily 20 minute walk and an hour walk once a week.

Ah, to have time to do all that and still work full time, and be able to sleep and eat on a daily basis. And then---still have time to write. I guess I met up with my inner creative child this morning, choosing writing over vanity. But the morning pages work to get me focused on writing and that's worth that early morning wake up to silver lighting and my muse.

Comments

  1. TrillaJanuary 26, 2012 at 12:06 PM

    I've done Morning Pages in one guise or another for ages as well. One morning, early, my husband came in and found me in the kitchen. "Is something the matter? You are supposed to be on the couch writing!"
    Artist's Dates are worth the effort, but oh! how I let them slide.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ReneeJanuary 27, 2012 at 3:26 PM

    Trilla, maybe we just need to make each other accountable for a weekly artist date! I just bought Cameron's Artist's Way workbook to help make the process more real.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Story Behind Every Face

Writers are frequently asked where they get their ideas for stories or poems and the answers seem endless. Sources range from dreams, to news stories, to the ephemeral muse, to strange voices in the night. I never know the original source of my story ideas but I don't go looking for them, they seem to seek me out instead. They find me, grab me, reside in me, until I finally agree to write the story. I have notebooks filled with ideas for stories, poems, essays and art pages and if I had 24 hours a day, every day I'd never have enough time to write them all. Ideas are everywhere, at least for me. There are stories behind every face I see. Faces of family and friends. Faces of strangers in coffee shops and colleagues at work. No one is storyless. As the stories around me reveal themselves I see that this world is filled with stories. You never know what dramas--triumphs and defeats, joys and sorrows-- live behind the faces you see each day. Sometimes the stories come out of hid...
Read more

WRITING AT 30,000 FEET

I discovered a writing secret on my recent trip to LA. In the 757 aircraft the pressure equalizes, the lights dim, and the white noise of the engines is so loud it feels like it's coming from deep inside my own body. I've heard the safety instructions, eaten my take on board lunch, since sandwiches on the plane are too costly, and I've drunk enough water to keep me from getting a dehydration headache. I have also read several chapters in the novel I brought along on vacation and listened to Adele's album on my i-pod. There are several hours left of this cross country flight. I take out the spiral notebook I am using to write first draft chapters of my novel and here is where the secret reveals itself. Stuck in the plane at 35,000 feet about mountains and streams, nestled into the narrow, even for me, seat of the plane, strapped to my seat with few distractions, the story comes to me like a film on a 3-D screen. My characters' voices speak in my head, the movements...
Read more

CHALLENGE FAILED

No one likes to admit she failed, but in failure there always sleeps a lesson waiting to be aroused. I set out to post every day for the month of June based on one writing prompt or another. I wanted to write twenty minutes a day--a story, poem, or essay--and post it here. But as John Lennon said so well--life is what happens while you're making other plans. What lesson was asleep in this recent failed challenge of mine? Of course, the lesson is when you commit to something you need to follow through, but we all know that. And it is significant to the writer because you can't publish if you don't write. But there is another lesson that perhaps slept a little more deeply. The lesson, or question, of finding time to write so I can follow through on my commitments. I did find twenty minutes a day to write--exactly where I'd left them each morning. I've been a writer of "morning pages" a la Julia Cameron's suggestion in her book "The Artist's ...
Read more