For as long as I can remember I have kept a journal, or at least attempted to keep a journal. For many years I collected beautiful cloth or leather bound books with satin ribbons that I truly intended to write in.
But they were just so beautiful and my handwriting is well, somewhat less than beautiful. And I never could quite figure out who I was writing to or for, what I wanted to say and just how honest I wanted to be.
So I went on like this for quite a while. Buying beautiful journals. Attempting to write something halfway intelligent and insightful in them and quickly abandoning them on my book shelf.
Until finally, through my wonderfully creative friend, Julianna Ricci, I found The Artist’s Way and the life-changing experience of morning pages.
Three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. Longhand. Every morning.
And Julianna, who led a small group of us on an amazing 12-week journey through The Artist’s Way two years ago, added two more elements that were pivotal for me:
Do them in a regular old notebook. And find a pen that you love to use.
I would like to say that I have been doing morning pages faithfully ever since. But I haven’t. Like everything else in my often-frazzled mama world my commitment to morning pages comes in waves.
But every time I do make the time and space for my pages, I remember just how good they make me feel and how much smoother my creative work, and life in general, flow.
How about you? Do you journal? Or do you have other daily rituals that help you to clear your mind and center yourself?
Oh and just in case anyone is curious, I like wide-ruled spiral-bound notebooks from Staples and my current favorite pen is a purple Pentel RSVP, which I just discovered now comes in an “eco-easy” recycled version!
Tags: artists way, morning pages
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I am just blown away. I used to do morning pages (inspired by Artist’s Way) every single day…then I had kids. I hardly ever (truthfully, never) do them anymore. I loved that routine. I miss that routine. I dream of the day I can return to the forgiving blank pages of a journal while watching the world wake around me and sipping hot coffee.
Still reeling….I too have stacks of half-filled beautiful journals, which I abandoned for plain-old composition books. And I’m currently writing with (I swear) a purple Papermate Profile that I love.
I feel like I really know you….
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Oh my gosh! I came here to review your post on Treasure Maps so I can do that, and here you are discussing morning pages. Morning pages never worked with my mornings, but they certainly do work, so I do them in bed before turning out the light. Besides clearing the brain clutter, morning pages have triggered long forgotten memories, inspired stories, and healed heartbreak for me.
I stock up on spiral notebooks when they are 5 or 10 cents each at Walmart, and write with my favorite pen – the freebie my bank gave me!
Thanks for the reminder to get back to this routine. Your site is just lovely.
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I also read The Artist’s Way a few years ago and managed (pre-baby) to fill a few notebooks with morning pages. At the time of writing them I thought, this is rubbish– writing about the coffee I was drinking, the bits of conversations I had, people I saw while out and about. But after I put them down for awhile and then came back to them, I found that embedded in the pages were actual poems that only needed line breaks and a small amount of reworking. I think I’ll get back to the morning pages now that my daughter is over two and can preoccupy herself with other things.
I love the 5×8 Moleskine’s with soft cover.
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I’ve never heard of morning pages, but will have to check it out. I do have a journal that I write in about once every six weeks, and catch up on all the happenings in my world. This has seen my through my dad’s death and the arrival of all three of my children. Looking back at them is priceless to me (& of course I have dreams of them being published posthumously – although they are “first drafts” all the way!)
I never seem to look forward to writing in my journal, but I feel COMPELLED to write in it. And it feels good afterwards.
Jamie
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I love the idea of morning pages– I’d never encountered it before.
I’ve always had the urge to write– when I was a melodramatic teen, I kept a diary, a poem journal, and a nature journal simultaneously. These days, I consider my blog to be my writing outlet, though it’s far, so far, from stream-of-consciousness. Something like morning pages must be so freeing. Thanks.
Kristina
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My journal, and on-and-off again morning pages are my Prozac. Writing raw is how I mediate. If I go too long between visits with my college-ruled composition book/therapist, I get kinda unhinged. I think of my journal as a net to catch all the stuff inside my head and heart. I have bits of novels and ideas for articles and lists of things that piss me off and things I want to scrapbook all mixed up in them. I also think of them as a gift to myself as I flip back through old ones. Without my journals, I wouldn’t be able to hang out with the me I used to be, and if we’re being honest here, there are other journals I’d prefer to burn because the me I used to be wasn’t always someone I’d want to hang out with. But, there’s a gift in remembering that as well, I think.
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Erin, thank you for this. I am not a writer, but this thought is so *appealing* to me! I would love to start this – I think it is such a good way to decompress and I found in the midst of the fog of postpartum depression that free-writing was about the only way to get the thoughts OUT and away from my brain. How I would love to get those books back and reread what I was writing. Yes nathalie, I might not have enjoyed that time very much or liked myself very much, but it is definitely a gift that I do not want to forget.
As always Erin, you are an inspiration.
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