After lingering on my to-read list for years, I finally checked Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way out from the library last week.
Right away, I encountered a core idea of her creativity practice that I rebelled against: the morning pages.
What are morning pages? Put simply, the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness: “Oh, god, another morning, I have NOTHING to say. I need to wash the curtains. Did I get my laundry yesterday? Blah, blah, blah…” They might also, more ingloriously, be called brain drain, since that is one of their main functions.
See, I already write every day—I write a draft entry of a blog post, edit the previous day’s blog post (this one!), and a diary entry.
Did I really need to do more?
But I had to give Cameron some credit: she cornered me.
Often, the students most resistant to morning pages come to love them the best In fact, hating the morning pages is a very good sign.
She saw that resistance coming, huh?
So: I wrote three pages yesterday morning. (And three more pages this morning that I’m editing this draft.)
These six pages were…more difficult than I thought they’d be. Three pages is long—my hand was cramping after just a single page. But…I did feel somewhat clearer after writing them. So, I remain a little resistant, but I’m curious to see where these morning pages take me.
Taylor Coe 