One Year of Morning Pages

“This is a paradox to me: many of us start off worrying that we will ‘lack the discipline’ to do morning writing. When we are willing to try writing anyway, we find soon enough that morning writing does not take discipline-- but it does make discipline.”

- Julia Cameron

On Sunday, I completed one year of doing morning pages, the practice Julia Cameron introduced to the world in her book, The Artist’s Way. I wrote about morning pages, what they are, and why I started doing them, in July (see below).

On Morning Pages and Artist's Dates

To recap, morning pages are writing whatever you want to write, in longhand, on three letter-sized pages, in the morning. There are no rules, other than it’s three full sized pages, and they are written by hand. As to what to write, anything goes. It is a sort of stream of consciousness, or an unburdening of the soul, or writing “I don’t know what to write!” over and over. The point of doing these is to unblock you.

Last January, I read an interview of Julia Cameron in the New Yorker, and as she was describing the history of the morning pages and her process, I decided that I would do these every day for the rest of my life. And I just completed the first year, writing every day.

This interview was one of those things that hit you at the right time, and the right place. I am a dual-sided person. I am technical, and I am creative. Years ago, I did one of those HR-sponsored programs where they bring in testers to do things like Meyers-Briggs tests, different personality profiles, etc., in order to get coworkers to understand each other and appreciate the vast spectrum of personality and preference that is the human race. One of these tests was to see if you were “left-brained” or “right-brained.” Being left-brained is supposed to mean you are analytical, technical, mathematical, and precise, and being right-brained is supposed to mean you are artistic, creative, intuitive, and flighty. I measured dead in the center.

Being technical means I like to measure and quantify things. Technology is easy to quantify, but creativity and art are not. It was easy for me to see how being good at technology could translate into a career, whereas who in their right mind would tell anyone that the way to a stable income is to pursue the arts? Can you imagine anyone in the movie “The Graduate” telling Benjamin, “One word: writing?”

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a child. I remember in third grade the teacher showed us two paragraphs that described an overweight man. One paragraph described the man as a jovial fat man, whose kind, round face was welcoming, and whose amble belly showed his joie de vivre. The other paragraph described an obese, gross old man, whose folds of pale, white flesh hung like slabs off his body, and whose thick, grabbing, greasy fingers and porcine countenance spoke of his hideous appetites and gluttony. I discovered the power of writing. However, though I had the impulse to write, I put “real writers” on a pedestal. I took myself out of the game. Interestingly, I never felt that way about technical subjects - I knew I was the best in the class, and I knew no one could hold a candle to me. I had proof: I was in the 99th percentile on every standardized test I ever took. It’s easy to measure technical prowess. Not so easy to measure artistic prowess.

I wrote quite a bit, off and on, for decades. I even had some published articles. I wrote for work, and I wrote quite a bit on technology, and on religion, about life, and art. A number of people admired my writing, and finally I started thinking that I should be serious about it.

But I had a big problem: consistency. I was erratic as a writer: waiting for an elusive muse, having to be perfect, not having the right font - whatever. I did not write consistently. At all.

I knew it, and I really wanted to write steadily, but I had two drawbacks to contend with: a primal hatred of deadlines, and the will to actually sit down and write.

I hate deadlines. They are artificial, they are usually arbitrary. I naturally rebel at them. I hate them. I love to write, but it is hard to write something good. It is daunting to get the energy up to devote hours of time to create something worth reading.

But. But. Here’s the thing. Every writer I know, read, passed in the night, bumped into on a train, says the same thing: You need to get your butt in the chair and write, and you need a deadline.

Did I mention that I hate deadlines?

I finally realized, yes, I need a deadline. I need consistency. People who read me need consistency. Erratic schedules that range from a post every few days to a post every few years, and back, do not work. They just don’t.

So I resigned myself to the idea of deadlines and just writing, dammit! And then I came across the New Yorker interview. Morning pages. Three pages per day. Handwritten. No editing. No “writing is hard.” Just three pages of whatever comes to mind, regardless of grammar, spelling, logic, structure. It became crystal clear to me that this is doable.

And I thought to myself: “Yes! I can do that. And I will do that every day for the rest of my life.”

I would not be writing this newsletter and publishing it at 9am every Tuesday if I did not do this practice. I realized that I can actually write every day, and therefore, I knew that I could write something worth reading once per week. And so here we are.

I am amazed that I could do it, to tell the truth. I am happy about this. Three hundred sixty five consecutive days. Over nine 8.5” x 11” notebooks. Almost eleven hundred pages. Come to think of it, I need to bring out one of my better cigars! Quoting Vonnegut’s uncle Alex: “If this isn't nice, I don’t know what is!”

Let me tell you something: this was not hard to do. This is not writing in the sense that quality has anything to do with it. This is not crafting magnificent prose, nor spinning snowflakes of meter into poetry. There is no sorcery here. Flow ink on three pages. That’s it. And despite the simplicity, the result is profound. And not hard.

I tell you this because it is worth it to do something like this. It is worth the time and effort you dedicate to yourself. It is easy to be sidetracked by extremely urgent unimportant things. And the morning pages in particular are great because I know a lot of my readers are artists, and I tell you, these are magic for unleashing creativity. It is worth it to do this. I hope you give it a try. If there is anything to be learned from my experience, it is that this can be done. It sounds trite to say, but truly, you can decide to do something, and then do it. Creative people are what make this world livable. We don’t have time to let bullshit keep us from our creativity. Feed yourselves. It’s worth it.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter, and please, like and share it if you do, and subscribe if you haven’t already. Please comment, and let me know the kinds of things you do to feed your creativity and to keep bright your spark of divine fire.