Morning Pages

For those of you who read the blog regularly you may have noticed that my posts have thinned out of late. This happens from time to time, the blog seems to be an ebbing and flowing thing. Facebook and Twitter seem to satisfy my need to send short quips out into the world without much thought. Sometime in the beginning of April I was reminded of the exercise—made popular by Julia Cameron in the Artists Way—of writing morning pages. I had hit a bad spot and realized a lot of what I needed to get out wasn't useful as content for the blog. So I started writing 3 ages each morning in a spiral notebook. I do it as soon as I wake up, before I have spoken to anyone or have begun thinking about the day. Coincidentally I have the book the Artists Way, it was in my mothers collection, she too was a diligent morning pages writer and I have in my possession many of her notebooks which are handwritten, singlespaced, on both sides of the page. I read the book briefly just to get a few pointers on what to do on these pages and set off. I have missed a few days since I started but not so many. The book suggests that you don't go back and read what you have written, it also suggests you keep the notebook private and even validates burning pages when neccessary. So far I am just writing and moving on and doing it again the next day.

Without going all gospel on you dear reader I just have to say that this activity has been extremely useful to me. The first few days I wrote exclusively about a certain person who's life has intersected mine for the last 2 decades, I got that out of my system, no harm to you my kind readers. Next I wrote about daily activities and sometimes I have just written some statement over and over to get to the end of the third page. The book encourages this too, moving your hand across the page, leaving a mark, regardless of what it says, pushing ink. Eventually though ideas have begun to rise up and beneath those ideas is the reaquaintance with my creative self that for whatever reason I had lost sight of. I am not sure if it's just the effect of spring in the air or the writing but I have been feeling renewed, hopeful and yes creative, a word I used dodge like one instinctively dodges bullets.

As with every process I enter into in this life I have no idea where it is all leading but it feels good to be on top of what I once felt crushed by. So I will keep at it and hopefully it will help this writing to be more interesting and focused. If you want the quick quips, check my twitter feeds here and always feel free to leave a comment, they keep me going too.