One Day Writing Morning Pages
It seems to be a wonderful day to try and write morning pages. I love writing them. One good thing almost always leads to another and then you realize that you have reached the end of the morning pages…perhaps you should write them too?
In the words of Elaine, the vlogger who created the youtube channel Lavendaire, morning pages are nothing but a stream of consciousness exercise. What is a stream of consciousness exercise?
A stream of consciousness exercise, is one in which you let your thoughts flow, from your mind onto the paper. Very literally almost, wherein you just free write, whatever is on your mind, typing/writing the thoughts as you go. The concept of Morning Pages as explained by Julia Cameron in her book the Artists Way require that the writer writes three whole pages whether in a book, or digitally as I have done.
A person who happens to be attempting to write morning pages, would probably experience feelings of nostalgia, because attempting a stream of consciousness often does that to people. Its such a long drawn out process, and many people say they feel nostalgic when attempting to journal, or even write an essay of any sort.
It could be that the person who is attempting to write the morning pages is like a diver who is diving into that self created feeling of nostalgia as a resource they use just to find things to write about in their morning pages, which is understandible, given that there are three whole pages of them to write.
Also keeping in mind that morning pages, in the words of the youtube vlogger I had mentioned before, i.e. Lavendaire, ‘do not ever have to make sense’, they could be about anything under the sun. They could be nothing more than copy pasting several times the words ‘I dont know what to write’ several times until the page is filled with the phrase repeating over and over just because they have nothing else to fill the pages with.
And so here is the writer of the morning pages trying to think good things and write even better ones in the morning pages. Sometimes free writing can be challenging, because as you can guess by the word free writing, that it involves writing freely about no theme in particular and that sometimes can be challenging.
But the fact is the writer of the morning pages said a little uplifting prayer in the morning before writing the morning pages, and also watched a magical law of assumption video in which they avidly described concepts like revision, affirming and believing that something is true even if it doesnt exactly reflect in the 3d. Maybe it helped.
The writer of the morning pages is trying to stick to the given criteria. They want their morning pages to sound good just so that they are inspired to keep up the good habit and do it again sometime soon. If its any reprieve, the concept of free writing can be done during any time slot during the day, it just doesnt have to be in the morning.
The more one writes positive things in the morning, the nicer the days prospects of turning out lovely are. Maybe thats part of the timeless but deeply meaning scripture which goes something like this ‘Work hard, as if for the Lord and not for people’.
Actually the writer of the morning pages takes all the trouble to do small and loving things like this throughout the day to try and re-inforce a sort of positive attitude. I know the scripture is in your face, and bland when you look at it like that, but like the one by Hemmingway ‘baby shoes, never worn’ it has a deep meaning when you consider the context in which that particular phrase was used. and then it changes peoples lives. Like it did for me. Go figure.
I remembered about how I need to be able to write something of any value which may seem more or less like empty words, and not well meaning ones. I fondly remember the thoughts of Eileen, from Lavendaire regarding the fact that the content of the morning pages never actually have to make sense, but then hey, just adding here, it would help if they did!
So here I go again filling the pages with words, words, and more words. Words about what, the writer of the morning pages is likely to wonder as they think about the awesome amount of blank space before one reaches the end.
The writer of the morning pages is sorta used to this, and how if they keep typing they might actually be able to fill all three pages with some kind of content, and if it sounds audibly interesting when you play it back with a text to speech later, before publishing it on some blog where other people will read your morning pages, they too might actually want to read it.
Given that most people dont read other people’s morning pages with any ferocity, they just might if the person writing the morning pages was a little bit smart, and wrote them in such a way that the reader of the writing might think that they were being encouraged to do some morning writing themselves.
And so, while it is a given that the writer of the morning pages has to fill the pages with something, it is also true that one is often engulfed by their nostalgic feelings during the writing of any lengthy free writing episode, because even when journaling a person usually does tend to think about their past.
And so whenever the writer of morning pages writes their morning pages they will talk about many things like what they have been watching on their phone, alongside what they are feeling at that precious moment etc., sitting there thinking of what to write.
At the moment it seems a little brave perhaps to say that the young writer has been trying to be very responsible. They have also been watching lots of inspiring prayer videos on their phone, and less often videos about the law of assumption but those do come in as well, perhaps not as often as one would like but still…there’s hope…
Then the writer of the morning pages remembers very suddenly that they do indeed face that dillemma of what to write, what words to choose to jot down when it comes to things related to their nostalgia, given that they are free writing.
It makes me think that here is the writer of the morning pages trying to be shakespeare of sorts, almost some modern day Elizabeth Darcy who is trying to fill the pages with words as though it were a high school assignment and wrote dozens of love letters and diary entries about interesting people they fancied.
And so without digressing too far from the point, the writer of the morning pages has managed to write more than a couple of words in their word processor. In a jiffy almost which was the point of the whole thing anyways, if thats any comfort. And if Im not mistaken it is around 1000 words. Almost. Which is as rewarding a feeling as the picture of gold coins I put here, upon finishing writing the morning pages.
The writer also managed to think positive thoughts and be grateful to God wishing and hoping that someone they love will reply to that wish they made in the wishing well of their own mind. Because writers tend to have entire conferences in their heads, that no one has ever watched.
Somehow these morning pages seem wonderful enough to be published, but as always will people on medium want to read them? The constant dillemma of the writer. But yes, I have published them in the past, and people liked them. If any of this is inspiring the writer in you, to also write/journal, go ahead. It almost always leads to good things.
