Writing has been one of my favorite activities to do since I was about 9 years old. Whether it was by making up little stories in my bed at 12 A.M. or writing songs in my textbooks in the back of the classroom, I was constantly creating. As I grew older, however, and especially since starting college, I began to fall into what some might call a creative slump. Sitting down to write the simplest of sentences became a mental challenge. Looking back, this happened because the pressure to be better at writing mixed with an inferiority complex kicked in. So, apart from school papers and some articles I worked on, I slacked in my personal writing practice.
I discovered Morning Pages about a year ago. If you aren’t familiar with this concept, “Morning Pages” is a term coined by writer Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way, which provides a 12 week program that strives to help artists of all types reawaken their creative flow. Morning Pages is one of the techniques she introduces, and consists of “three pages of long-hand, stream of consciousness, done first thing in the morning.”Basically, it’s a space to channel all thoughts, ideas, or worries (anything that comes to mind, really) on a page, in order to then be able to clear the mind. It’s not supposed to be perfect, quite the contrary, they are usually chaotic, jumping from subject to subject without a care. So to get out of my troublesome creative slump, I decided to give Morning Pages a try for 21 days, and here’s how it went!
Being consistent
They say that it takes 21 days to form a habit, which is why I decided on this specific timeframe to try this challenge out. One of the most important things when having creative pursuits is being consistent, which is a quality I’ve struggled with greatly throughout the years, and writing Morning Pages helped me with it quite a bit. Truth is, some days I didn’t have time to write the 3 longhand pages, so I would write 2, and on the worst days sometimes 1 and a half, but jotting down something day after day made me feel accomplished enough. Not only because the act of doing them was, in itself, a feat of consistency, but also because, most times after writing these pages, I’dinstantly be in the mood to work on my art.
Losing fear of imperfection
My biggest struggle as a creative person has been pushing back against perfectionism. It’s incredible how the thought of not being good enough at what you’re doing can be so paralyzing you’d rather not do anything at all. Part of writing Morning Pages is that you’re allowed to put anything on that paper, so it won’t really matter if words are written correctly, if you’re using the right syntax, or following a certain format. This really helped me out when I sat down to work on my own projects because instead of trying to filter everything as it came out, I’d try to keep up the flow, and then go over it with a more analytical eye.
Managing anxiety
I have a lot of anxiety, like, a lot. This sort of goes hand in hand with my perfectionism. Having an outlet to express all my worries allowed me to take these thoughts and analyze them from a bird’s-eye view. Soon enough I came to find that my fear of never sharing my work with people was worse than embarrassing myself or making something “bad.” Also, it helped out a lot in my personal life. I would often write down things that made me nervous, like upcoming events, and after jotting them down I’d realize how silly most of my worries actually were.
Improving motivation
I’ve heard that action leads to motivation, instead of the other way around. After this challenge, I’ve learned that it is true. There would be days that my excitement to get to work on personal projects wouldn’t develop until I wrote that first Morning Page. Having a habit like that, something that seems small and doable, but gives you instant gratification is so helpful when trying to keep excitement for our projects. I’ve also noticed that a lot of the projects or ideas I wanted to develop in the past don’t really align with what I want for myself at the moment, and having a space in which I could safely come to terms with those things helped me refocus on what is relevant to me now.
After having tried out this method, I 100% recommend it to anyone who is struggling with their creativity, because it’s truly worked wonders for me. In fact, I’d advise it to just about anyone, since it makes for an incredible outlet that allows introspection in a way that we might not get on the day to day. To anyone who tries it, I’d say not to put so much weight on the time period they write the pages or how many they get to write that day. As long as every day you manage to at least once put your pen to paper, the rest will come naturally.