Full disclosure; I was going to write about something completely different today. Jorge (he’s my cousin) if you are reading this you’d remember. I had a change of heart last minute partly because I spent the week preparing a grant application. And then I felt so disconnected from the topic that I decided to switch gears.
About two weeks ago, I started writing three pages long hand in the morning before I am out and about metaphorically and literally. Though I heard about the morning pages, I never engaged in it. I was indifferent. But, my niece and I read books together and we recently finished The Notebook: The History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. The book is well researched and really traces the chronology and tangents of how notebooks came about, how they were used by different people, the different purposes, and it also provided contemporary examples. One of these contemporary examples is found in The Artist Way by Julia Cameron.
The discussion in the book about the morning pages surfaced after Allen explained the patient journals and expressive writing. The patient journals are notebooks that sometimes nurses and family keep for a patient who has been in a coma or unconscious for months. It is a way to provide these patients a glimpse of the life they did have while they were unconscious. I think this is a beautiful thing to do though I imagine it can be painful to read detailed accounts of the medical interventions. Allen also discusses how the expressive writing therapy has been scientifically proven to help people that have gone through trauma— specially sexual trauma— or experience chronic pain illnesses. Right after or around the same cluster of chapters, he talks about the morning pages by Julia Cameron. I decided I would give it a try.
I am on Day 14—actually it is a little more but there are a few days I did not get to it or did not have enough time in the morning for them. But, the majority of the time, I have done my three pages.
Some of you might be familiar with the idea of the morning pages. When I read about it I thought it was a burden. One more thing to do and same amount of time in a day. If I did this, I worried I would not be able to keep up with them. They actually do not take that much time if you do it the way it is intended. Write about whatever comes to your mind in the precise moment you put the pen to paper. Even if that is to say that you have no idea what to write, or you are skeptical this practice will help with anything or even if you think it is a waste of that. The point is to write whatever comes to your mind: negative or positive. Here are some things I have half learned so far with the morning pages practice:
Pretty notebooks are not necessary. Yes, I know, they make you feel—so much better. I have been using a Moleskine hard cover in red with blank pages. I got it on a sale long time ago. I have a Baron Fig on queue waiting. Use whichever notebook is close by and keep it with you.
Pretty pens or pencils are not necessary. Oh, I can write on a crappy notebook but a pen??? Nope. So, this is a lesson I have not learned well. I use a Lamy fountain pen my son brought me from Germany. But, really, you can use any pen or pencil to start with.
Starting is better than the tools. This is true. I just refuse to give in to use lesser tools.
Really, it is better to start with anything than wait for precious tools and notebooks. I know I am talking half way here but one has to start with what one has.
There are no rules in the morning pages. That said there are two rules you must follow: NO ONE should see these pages. NO ONE. And grammar, punctuation, spelling DO NOT COUNT. I repeat, DO NOT COUNT.
The morning pages are a place of non judgement vomit of words and thoughts. The idea is to lighten yourself a bit from whatever is keeping you from creating. This applies to anyone: lawyers trying to make a solid argument, poets, homemakers, even writers needed. Your notebook is not a coffee table book. It is in a way the mirror to your soul.
The burdens are left on the page each day. The morning pages are not intended to be masterpieces or win awards. Rather they are for you to externalize thoughts that are creating a barrier each day.
You can change topics back and forth in the writing. One sentence might change mid way to another thought and that is okay.
No pretty handwriting. Again this is a nonjudgmental word vomit place. Caring about your handwriting does not belong here. Write however it comes to you and in whatever order it comes to you.
Cameron advises to never go back to read these pages. It is best to leave them aside and revisit them in a very long time. In my case, even if wanted to, I could not because I have a hard time understanding my own handwriting.
Burn them if you are afraid someone will read them when you are not around or gone, as in well, you know, deceased.
What have I gotten from the morning pages? I’ve gotten a quiet and faithful friend that understands what I need to do and realizes he might be disposed of in the near future.
Love,
Alma