Hello and welcome! I am Mel Parks and I run creative writing workshops in Sussex, UK as well as online. I began this Substack, Awen, in 2022 as a gathering place for my thoughts about the writing process and to share some stories and creative inspiration along the way. Awen is free to read and share.
Dear all
This summer, as part of my work figuring out how best to support writers, I decided to read a book by Julia Cameron: Write for Life: A Toolkit for Writers. This is based on her popular book: The Artist’s Way, which I followed 20 years ago in my early 30s when I was beginning to write. So much of her work has been influential in my life. When my son was a baby, following the 12-week programme of The Artist’s Way gave me the courage to leave my part-time job as a publications editor to become a freelance writer and editor, and I haven’t looked back since.
But after more than 20 years of writing and 10 years of teaching writing, how do Julia Cameron’s tools stack up for me?
She is confident that her way is the right way to artistic success and her books have sold millions over the years, so there has to be something in them. Right?
In this post, I will offer my thoughts on Julia Cameron’s morning pages as outlined in Write for Life, which is a six-week programme for writers based on The Artist’s Way.
Morning pages
Julia Cameron says: Morning pages are “three daily pages of longhand morning writing that is strictly stream of consciousness. The pages clear my head and prioritise my day. I think of them as a potent form of meditation. There is no wrong way to do the pages. You simply keep your hand moving across the page, writing down anything and everything that occurs to you.”
Do them as soon as you can after waking, recording your mood, your daily life.
What do I think?
I have done some version of morning pages for more than twenty years. BUT I don’t do them every day and I don’t always do the full three pages. The important thing, I think, is freewriting, which is a concept outlined by Peter Elbow in his book Writing Without Teachers in 1973.
I begin each workshop with five minutes freewriting and a lot of my writing exercises are based on writing what comes to mind in the moment without judgement. This is the single practice that helped opened up my writing and helped it flow.
I turn to freewriting when I’m stuck, when I want to explore a new idea or to play on the page. But morning pages can feel time consuming - they take me around half an hour if I write the full three pages without interruptions. And it often takes me longer than this as I get interrupted (either by others or my phone!). They can also sometimes feel like a distraction in themselves from the real writing.
At their best, morning pages can help me:
access my intuition (often the insights come on the third page once I’ve cleared space for them)
focus my mind for the day, sorting things to do and priorities
with space to work out what to do if I’m contemplating a decision
come up with new ideas and directions for work
write an initial draft so I’m ready to go when I open my computer
practice describing the moment and everyday life, record memories and conversations
give me plenty of opportunities for reflection.
At their worst, morning pages can:
give me too much time for rumination, going over and over the same thoughts I have in my head when I wake up
use up all the time I have available for writing in a day
make my morning very slow if I’m tired and sitting writing three pages takes a long time
give me too many things to do and too many ideas - this is probably the one danger I’ve only recently realised happens in my notebook! I love to have new ideas and there are ALWAYS many more things on my to do list than I can realistically accomplish, so giving myself space to write more and more things was making me more and more stressed.
At the end of the day, morning pages are a reflection of what’s happening in your head. It is useful to give yourself space to do this without direction or judgement, but sometimes a little shift if you find yourself going over the same things, or not feeling better afterwards can be helpful.
Some things I’ve changed with morning pages:
feelings check in - following CBT therapy last year, I realised that despite my many years and many, many pages of writing, I hardly ever write about my feelings. I know this is the opposite of some people. Instead, my default when stressed or when a difficult thing happened was to go into overdrive, with lists of many practical things I could do. So now, at the end of a morning pages session, when I remember, I will give myself a few minutes to write about my feelings in that moment.
using journalling tools - if I find myself ruminating, I will use journalling tools such as dialogue, unsent letters or questions and other prompts to shift myself out of it. Or I will write about a moment in the present tense, go into a memory in more detail or use grounding techniques such as describing the current moment with all of my senses.
swimming first - on Saturday mornings recently, I have been to an open water swimming session at my local reservoir, instead of giving myself more time with my notebook and cups of tea. This helped me feel so calm and uplifted, I found myself moving through the day with more ease, rather than with the weight of whatever thoughts I’d had first thing.
being kind to myself - morning pages are a habit for me now and I have found them so helpful over the years, but my life is full and my mornings can be busy (especially when the children were younger), so if I don’t manage them or I don’t manage three pages, it is okay. I don’t beat myself up for it. I usually write a few words or some kind of list to help me navigate the day. But that’s it.
My suggestions:
if you are new to writing, then daily freewriting is a really helpful practice. Making an effort to write first thing in the morning is a good idea. BUT whether you do three minutes or three pages, is up to you and what you can fit in. Start small, build up, notice the effect it has on you and your writing.
if freewriting has the potential to be emotionally triggering for you, then explore other methods of writing without censorship or judgement. For example, start each session with I notice… or write yourself into the moment by describing with all of your senses. Try haiku or lists.
if you have been writing for a while and you are jaded with writing the same things in your morning pages or freewriting session, try journalling exercises or any of my prompts in previous Awen newsletters.
even if you can’t manage morning pages, try freewriting for a few minutes at the start of a writing session, and then a few minutes freewriting at the end when you check in with yourself on how it went.
begin with movement. Take your notebook outside with you on an early morning walk, practice yoga or whatever it is you like to do to shift out of the sluggishness of sleep.
I was planning on this newsletter being my response to all of Julia Cameron’s tools but I didn’t realise I had so much to say about morning pages! So the other tools (artist dates, walks, daily quota) will have to wait.
Let me know whether you do morning pages and your experience of them in the comments below.
Creative Writing Workshops with me (Mel Parks)
Tuesday afternoons on Zoom (2-3pm UK time)
£8 per month or £80 per year with a paid Awen Substack subscription.
NEXT SESSION: New season begins on 10 September.
You can come to as many as you are able to.
If you are not able to subscribe (or don’t want to!), then please email me for alternative ways to join.
Becoming a Writer
Monthly Tuesday evenings in East Grinstead (7-9pm)
A monthly creative writing workshop for beginners. Plenty of fun writing prompts, games and activities to get your creative juices flowing.
The Writer’s Notebook
Thursday mornings in East Grinstead (10-12noon)
Series of five weeks beginning on 19 September (19 Sept; 26 Sept; 3 Oct; 10 Oct; 17 Oct)
If you attend my face-to-face groups regularly, you can also attend the Zoom group for no extra charge.
Until next time…
This newsletter was created by Mel Parks, a writer, researcher and workshop facilitator based in Sussex, UK. Mel runs writing workshops locally and on Zoom and researches creativity in midlife as well as her personal connection to nature. She has been widely published and is currently working on a series of moon and plant-inspired essays.
It is free to read and share, but if you value my work, please do stop by my virtual honesty box and leave a handful of loose change.
This newsletter may contain affiliate links.
I used to love morning pages and wrote them religiously but I found over time that if I was worried or upset, freewriting would spill my worries or upsets out and it colour my day and dominate my thoughts so I stopped doing them. I now write a daily journel but at night so I can just offload at night, then I do a 5min meditation to clear my mind before sleep. Instead, in the morning I open my shutters and shout "it's going to be such a wonderful day! thank you universe for keeping me alive and giving me this day to see this sky and the trees" and that positive thinking start really does set me up! I think the Morning Pages and The Artists Way was brilliant but I just couldn't freewrite in the morning without offloading my stresses or upset....
I appreciate your openness and honesty Mel, thank you, most reassuring. Like you I read The Artist's Way back in the day, and in the years since have embraced different morning rituals, none of which have been writing. But after my walk, or finding a poem I love, saying it aloud and writing it down longhand, *then* I'm ready to write. Interestingly, I love the free writing we do at the beginning of class but need the guidance and structure. I feel encouraged by your words today and perhaps now I can find a way to "just do a few minutes" on my own, I can really see the benefit. Thank you again.