In Defense of Morning Pages

My mother-in-law once leant me the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. In essence, the book is "a course in discovering and recovering your creative self." I must admit that I never got around to reading beyond the first two chapters. It's not that I didn't want to, mind you, it's just that I never finish books on writing. Oh, I'll buy them and come home all excited because I'm going to learn how to be a better writer. Writing, after all, is a craft that must be practiced and refined. It's just that mid-way through the first few pages I'd realize that I should spend less time reading about writing and more time, you know, writing.

The point, I promise I have one, is that I don't need to read the rest of Julia's book to "discover my creative self" (though I probably will because it's an excellent book), I did that by just sticking to one of the most essential tools she gives you--the morning pages. What are said pages? They are just a few pages (she suggests three) of longhand writing that you do in a journal, every morning upon waking up. It's completely stream-of-consciousness such as: "I've got to do laundry and take the car for an oil change and I can't believe that jackass the other night. I should have slapped him." In other words, Word Vomit. It's just you spewing out whatever is in your mind so that you can make room for all the creative stuff that's in there somewhere.

Now, I tried this a few years back but couldn't stick to it. Maybe it was the morning part of it. I had to wake up and write crap down before I got around to doing anything else. My life didn't work that way. This summer I vowed I'd give it another shot if only because I've got so much stuff going on in this brain, it's a wonder I can sleep at night. Seriously, the gerbil never sleeps. He just goes on and on spinning his little wheel. So on my first day of summer vaca. (big ups to being a teacher!), I got started. 65 days later, I do my morning pages religiously. Not only have I been able to get farther in my writing projects than ever before but (and I strongly believe this), I've been able to get better at photography.

So there. My suggestion is you give it a shot. It doesn't have to be three pages. It's all about getting whatever is in your brain on the paper so that it's not in your brain anymore. It's good even if you don't want to be creative and just want a little more room in the noggin'.

What about you? What do you do to help let loose your creativity? Are there other tools that you use that might be cool to know? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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Today's picture-of-the-day is brought to you by the letter M for Manny. He comes from my first batch of kids. This picture was a surprise and we both love it. If Manny's art could be painted on the walls of every building, the world would be a better place.