What Are Morning Pages & Am I Seriously Missing Out By Not Doing Them?
It’s no secret that here at Derbyshire Writing School, we love to take part in morning pages – Julia Cameron’s infamous writing tool. But as writers so often we hear about these tools and ‘tips’, yet we don’t really know how they can help us and why we should engage in them.
We’ve looked at why it’s essential for rest to be a part of our writer’s toolbox, and how developing a writing mindset can help us. We’ve talked about why productivity is important, and how play can spark creativity let’s add another tool this week: Morning Pages.
Let’s explore how morning pages can help you and why you should start writing them today!
What are Morning Pages?
Julia Cameron made this tool famous in her book called ‘The Artist’s Way’. Cameron’s book is built on the work of Peter Elbow and Dorothea Brande. In her book, Cameron defines morning pages and their purpose:
“In order to retrieve your creativity, you’ll need to find it. I ask you to do this by an apparently pointless process I call the morning pages… Pages are meant to be, simply the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind.”
Cameron says every morning, to beat writer’s block, stimulate ideas, and nurture our creative self, we should write by hand three A4 pages, and do this as quickly as possible. We mustn’t stop or daydream or scroll Facebook until it’s done. Just write.
Why are Morning Pages important?
This consistent act teaches us so many things and it can be a really important tool:
1. It teaches us persistence.
You can power through. Writing is hard, it takes dedication to show up, even when we might not feel like it. That’s why persistence is important, and the best news is it can be learnt, and morning pages can be a brilliant teacher. When you show up, day after day, your consistency is rewarded. When you show up and persist, you develop momentum. You can take this through to your writing projects. It also teaches us that how we feel doesn’t matter. We show up and write, anyway. No excuses.
2. It teaches us how to beat writer’s block.
You can fill a blank page. It doesn’t matter what you write. You are in training. You are learning to trust the process. You are learning to fill in the blank page. Even if you write three pages of the words ‘I don’t know what to write’, you’ve shown up, you’ve persisted and you’ve filled the page. You’ve beaten the first block – showing up. You can’t write ‘I don’t know what to say’ forever, eventually, new words will come, and you’ll be ready to catch them.
3. It teaches us to stop procrastinating.
When we write our morning pages in the morning, we rarely have all day to write those words. We’ve got to get on with our day, work is waiting for us. This time pressure acts in our favour, forcing us to write quickly. Instead of allowing distractions to interrupt our tasks. We then learn this skill in all our writing.
4. It teaches us to stop judging ourselves (and our ideas) before they’ve even had to chance to hit the page. When we lay it all out on the page, we are not judging what’s good and bad, we’re just learning to write, to beat that internal editor in our heads.
How do I start writing my Morning Pages?
Often, we worry about what to write; we don’t know what to say, and this fear can stop us from starting. Writing three A4 pages can seem like it’s easier said than done, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. The first day you start, it might feel strange, but soon you’ll wonder what you did before this practice.
We’ve listed some tips to help you write your morning pages regularly.
1. Buy the cheapest notebook you can.
Whilst we all love a nice notebook, spending lots of money on a fancy notebook can be another reason to stop you from writing. If you’ve ever worried about ‘ruining’ a notebook or if you’ve waited until you’ve got something ‘good to say’, you’ll know what we mean. To solve this problem, buy a cheap lined notebook, one you can rip pages out of if needed. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Morning pages were made for mistakes. Allow yourself to fill the blank page with bad ideas and spelling errors. Give yourself permission to make a mess.
2. Know where to start.
Sometimes knowing where to start can be hard, try these writing prompts:
How do I feel today?
What am I worried about?
What am I grateful for?
What else?
What next?
How did you yesterday go?
What stories can you write about from the past week?
Who do you want to be today?
3. Track the days you write and reward your progress.
Building a new habit is hard, but tracking your progress can help you stay motivated. A simple wall calendar or a tick chart can help you see how one-day compounds, a week and a month, you won’t want to break the chain.
4. Don’t reread what you write.
Morning pages are a space to be raw and vulnerable. Reading back your words can stop us from writing more as we may feel we should edit or change how we felt and what we wrote. Burn your words or shred them if you are worried someone might read them. Knowing you aren’t going back on your work to improve it, gives you the freedom to write anything. That’s the whole point of Morning Pages.
Do I have to follow set rules for Morning Pages?
There isn’t really a right or a wrong way to take part in morning pages. It’s now morphed into an extension of freewriting and journaling.
You don’t need to write three pages. You don’t need to do it every day. But you need to know it doesn’t matter if you what you write feels like nonsense. It matters that you have filled the blank pages. It matters that you are writing. It matters that you are creating space.
Adapt this writing practice and ‘tool’ to suit you and your life. You could write in the evening; you could type the words out on your phone. The key part of the process is emptying your mind, it’s about writing without letting that internal editor stop and judge you. It’s about freeing up space in your head for creativity flow.
“Why do we write morning pages? To get to the other side.” – Julia Cameron.
If you’d like to find out more about Morning Pages, you can read Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. It’s a wonderful toolbook for any writer, and it will help you develop your creativity.
Morning pages are an essential writing tool, don’t forget to use them. We’d love to know how you got on. Email us and let us know info@derbyshirewritingschool.com
