I’m new to the practice of morning pages (from reading The Artist’s Way), but I talk about them a lot. A friend asked me to write about my morning pages routine. Like not the actual practice which is from the book, but the details of what it’s like for me to write them. So here it is!
If I wake up before my alarm, I start writing right after I wake up. I usually have some coffee nearby, and I sit either at my kitchen table with this view
or on my couch. If I wake up with the alarm, then I walk Sailor and feed him and the kitties before I write. I like when I wake up before my alarm because then there’s no temptation to even look at my phone until I’m done writing. Most times I’m able to leave it on the nightstand while I write but sometimes I cave and look at stuff before I write. This always leaves me distracted and distractable when I’d rather be focused.
There have been a few times where I had a busy morning and didn’t get up early enough, but I still did the pages, just later in the day.
The goal is three pages. Page size matters!
The first journal I used was a great size and three pages was easy.
After I filled that I grabbed a journal I had on hand with slightly larger pages, so suddenly three pages became nearly impossible. Also it was hard-bound which was uncomfortable for writing.
I started fudging, writing less, so I stopped using that journal long before I finished it and just got a moleskine for consistency.
I like lined paper and a Pilot Precise pen because they’re lightweight for my feeble hand and they don’t bleed. Black ink.
What I write is usually some variation on what I did the previous day, dreams that seem important, synchronicities, patterns. Sometimes I drift off and start daydreaming so I get back on track by just writing what I had been thinking about, which is fun and difficult to narrate but it always leads somewhere interesting. Sometimes I’ll hit that page-and-a-half sweet spot where something just clicks and then I’m writing some huge realization or big exciting idea. It doesn’t happen every day but I pay attention when it does. Yesterday it hit right at the end of page 3 so I kept going so I could finish the thought, which was a very important one.
I try really hard not to let it turn into a list of things I need to do, so I’ve been writing the to-dos elsewhere.
Sometimes I throw tantrums on the page. Sometimes I don’t want to write and I just write about why I don’t want to for 1 page then it turns into something else. I complain a lot in the pages but I try not to end on that note. I mean, I don’t always try to find a silver lining either, I just try to find a way to comfort myself if I need it.
Other things that I write in that journal are affirmations, chapter notes while I’m reading The Artist’s Way (I don’t want to make notes in the book bc I know I’ll be rereading it in the future and I don’t want my future self to be influenced by past notes), and the tasks/exercises from the end of each chapter.
I’m really protective of the journals I use for morning pages so I have other journals for different purposes. I have one same-size for my watercolors and one smaller one that I’m using for a bunch of things—collages, manifesting, audacious goals that are maybe too powerful to write anywhere else yet.
I only keep the small one with me at all times. I don’t know if I’ll let them merge into one book in the future. I will definitely keep writing morning pages every day even after I finish The Artist’s Way (I’m on the second to last chapter now). Next week makes three months and I think I’ve only missed two or three days (tantrum/avoidance related) in that time.
So in 3 months I’m on my 3rd journal (though I abandoned the second one) and I’ve used up like 4 pens.
There’s the details!
