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Morning Pages-A Writing Experiment



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Mon Aug 27, 2018 1:54 am
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niteowl says...



A while back, I read about the concept of morning pages from the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I haven't read the actual book, but I have read several articles about this journaling technique. I've decided to try it out for a week and report on the results here.

Basically, the idea is to write (by hand, not typed) three 8 1/2 by 11 pages first thing in the morning. These aren't supposed to be good--heck, you're not even supposed to go back and re-read them (though some proponents of the technique do). The purported benefits of this morning brain-dump range from jump-starting your creativity to reducing anxiety to improving productivity.

From the author herself: https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing,
done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*–
they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about
anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes
only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and
synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put
three pages of anything on the page...and then do three more pages tomorrow.


As you might guess from my username, I am not exactly a morning person. Getting up involves multiple alarms, falling back asleep, and then rushing to get dressed and out the door. Still, I've decided to try this technique for a couple reasons:

1) I miss longhand journaling. I have a regular journal, but I haven't written in it in ages. I end up typing my ideas out, which definitely has its benefits, but there's something about the pen and paper connection that I miss.

2) I'm an obsessive self-critic and editor. There's about a 95.7% chance that I will edit this article approximately 458 times before posting it. I will probably even change those completely made up numbers in the previous sentence. I am curious to see what happens when I turn that self-critic off and just write.

So I decided to try this for a week and see what happens. Do I expect it to be profoundly life-changing in such a short amount of time? No, but hopefully I will be able to see if this is worth continuing. I'll write about the process here. For this project, I've found a barely-used notebook that is smaller than the recommended 8/12 x 11, so I'll shoot for four pages instead of three.

Day 1-Monday

My alarm went off at its normal time. Usually, I turn it off and go back to sleep, but determined to start this experiment, I went to the bathroom and then got to writing. I started off okay, but soon enough I found that my brain was still moving faster than my pen and my eyes were struggling to stay open. I drifted in and out of sleep for about an hour and still didn't complete three pages (let alone four). Finally, at 7:30, I forced myself to stop and get ready so I wouldn't be late to work. Throughout the day, I still feel groggy and non-productive, but I did get this article started, so there's a point for the morning pages.

I think I need to change up my routine a little bit for this to work. Chris Winfield and others who have written about the technique write their pages after making their morning coffee. Perhaps I need to get up and start some coffee before writing or write somewhere other than my bed. I'm also going to aim to fall asleep earlier and see if that helps.

Day 2-Tuesday

As far as the actual morning page writing goes, today was much more successful. When my alarm went off, I headed to the kitchen, started the coffeemaker, then went out to write on the couch. I then wrote for about 45 minutes, stopping only to get some coffee. My writing touched on several topics, including some musing about this week's LMS edition, and I managed to write four whole pages (which I think is the equivalent of three 8/12 x 11 pages). Once I was finished, I made a decent breakfast.

My fatal mistake happened when I finished breakfast and crawled back into my bed to read an interesting article on my phone. This led to me drifting off again, then frantically getting dressed and arriving late to work. So the key seems to be not getting back into bed once I am out.

I do feel more energized and productive at work today, though that may be the extra coffee and not some magical afterglow of the morning pages. I will try to go to bed earlier again to see if that resolves the morning sleepiness issue, though that is easier said than done because it seems that I am more energized at night than during the day.

I also did do some regular journaling last night--a more focused free write than my morning pages. I did do a pretty good job of keeping my inner editor at bay. It would be awesome if this morning page habit leads to more writing throughout the day.

Day 3-Wednesday

This morning was an epic fail. Is epic fail even a term the kids use these days anymore? Anyway, I was wide awake last night and didn't get to sleep until after 1 am. I ignored my first alarm and didn't get up until the second. Then I made the mistake of attempting to write in bed again, which was somehow even worse than Monday. Almost nothing I wrote was legible, I accidentally wrote over lines I had already written, and my thoughts were so fragmented I'm not sure I wrote a single complete and coherent sentence. I'm not expecting Shakespearean work from this project, but it's hard to see the usefulness of writing like this. I kept drifting off and ended up writing less than two notebook pages. Then when I finally gave up, I fell back asleep again and next thing I know, it's 7:53 when I'm supposed to be at work at 8. Luckily, I live close so I was only about 10 minutes late.

I'm going to try to make up for this after work and write a few "Evening Pages". Perhaps it won't be as unfiltered as morning pages, but a daily freewrite is probably valuable no matter what time of day you write. I'm going to continue writing first thing in the morning for the rest of the week, but some mornings it's just not practical and today was one of those mornings.

Day 4-Thursday

Given how tired I was Wednesday, I slept for a couple hours after work, woke up and ate something, squeezed out a couple Evening Pages, and then went back to bed. I woke up before my alarm feeling pretty well-rested. I thought this would be a good thing for the morning pages, but it was sort of mixed. At some point while writing, my energy slumped and coffee didn't really help. Neither did moving from the bed to the couch. I got through the three pages, but it was slow going. I was really tired afterward and yet again struggled to get to work on time. I'm wondering if these morning pages are using up what little energy I have. Nonetheless, I will continue with this experiment at least until Sunday.

Day 5-Friday

Today was more successful. I woke up right before my alarm, started some coffee and then got to writing. That initial energy burst did wear off again, but I got my three pages in and actually explored some interesting topics. I've decided to stick with three pages rather than four even though my notebook is small because otherwise it's just too time-consuming. I struggled again with staying awake after I finished the pages and getting ready for work, but I did make it in on time.

I'm curious about what will happen over the weekend when I don't have a set wake-up time. Usually I wake up, have some breakfast, and then fall back asleep for a few hours. I also struggle with motivation to do much of anything on the weekends. Will the morning pages influence this routine? I guess we'll find out.

Day 6-Saturday

This day was the most productive, writing-wise. I read an article a few days ago about possible life in oceans trapped beneath a rocky or icy surface: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billretherford/2018/08/22/an-answer-to-fermis-paradox/#75b3b96a4aed/. I've been toying with the idea of how complex life might work in such a world and how they might react if they found out somehow that they weren't alone. I freewrote a sort of beginning to a story with this premise. I don't know if it's worth continuing, but I really enjoyed it and I don't know if it would have come about without the morning pages.

Day 7-Sunday

Despite not having an alarm and having nowhere to be this morning, I felt somewhat stuck in what to write about. I did fill up three pages, but barely. Still, I hit on some interesting topics and I think this exercise has its benefits. I still fell back asleep afterward and struggled with being productive the rest of the day, but that is hardly surprising for me on a Sunday.

What I liked

-I was actually pretty successful at turning off my self-editor. Though I crossed a couple things out, I mostly let it stand, grammar errors and all.
-The idea of "creating for creating's sake", as stated here: https://medium.com/the-mission/3-pages-every-morning-why-i-started-a-daily-ritual-and-how-i-stuck-with-it-b19f7c659fd7 (some mild language).
-Though forcing myself to do this every morning wasn't easy, it was a great way to make my morning routine reflect what's actually important to me. If writing and creating is important, I will make time for it.
-Writing first thing in the morning is a different beast. The haze of thoughts that swirl around when I first wake up may not seem worth capturing, but I've gotten some interesting insights from this practice already.
-Longhand writing is fun and I'm glad I'm making a daily habit of it now. My freewrite on Sunday was especially cool.

What I need to change

-It seems like the original goal of three 8/12 by 11 pages is often too time-consuming for me, so I modified it to three of my smaller notebook pages. If you struggle with having enough time for morning pages, I think having a time limit of 15-20 minutes and writing as much as you can within this time, even if you don't hit the three pages, is still beneficial.

-Having to wake up early to do this. Most mornings, it was worthwhile, but on Wednesday, I probably should have gone for the extra sleep. In the future, I may modify some days to write in the evening instead, though I will continue to try to write in the morning as prescribed.

-I still struggled with falling back asleep, so I need to find a solution to that. Some of the articles I read (see below) mention using music, so perhaps I could find some upbeat instrumental music to help with keeping me awake.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think this is an experiment worth continuing. I wouldn't say this has changed my life yet, but I do feel more creative overall. I've heard that it takes 21 days to establish a habit, so I hope to continue down this path and incorporating it into my routine. I would recommend trying it out if you want to write daily, if you're struggling with your inner editor, or if you want to feel more creative.

Some other articles on morning pages:

"You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand." Leonardo Da Vinci

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Mon Aug 27, 2018 5:33 am
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Rook says...



Reading this felt very scientific, like you were using the scientific method somehow to do this. Very interesting to read your article :) I hope if you keep it up, it helps you and stuff! :D
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger.
To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!

-Elena Passarello, Animals Strike Curious Poses
  





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Mon Aug 27, 2018 5:56 am
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Rosendorn says...



I keep wanting to do this, because I'm a night owl and I feel so much better when I brain dump whatever anxiety is eating me alive and it's happened multiple times where I put off work for a few hours to vent to a friend because I woke up after, say, a nightmare and just couldn't get it out of my head until I explored it all in full.

Thanks for the insight!
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  








I don't do time.
— Liberty