Discover more from Put The Kettle On
You’ve no doubt heard of ‘Morning Pages’: the classic task from Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way. The gospel according to Julia is that you must write three full pages of longhand stream-of-consciousness, first thing in the morning, and it will transform your creative practice. I have been doing a bastardised version of morning pages for a couple of years now, and while I’m no posterchild for The Artist’s Way (there’s a bit too much mention of god in there for me), I do think it’s a useful tool for a number of reasons.
It’s a way to empty the brain of noise, to skim off the scum on top of your thoughts and get to some clarity. Often my pages turn into to-do lists and 'don't forget to...' notes to feel in control of the day ahead. Occasionally they turn into rants. But usually there’s some spark of an idea or phrase I can make use of in my work.
Anyone with a small child will know that mornings are not always a part of the day you have much control over. I have learned to be zen about whether I actually do morning pages in the morning. There is something special about starting scribbling before you've had any inputs — when the membrane between dream/subconscious and consciousness is thin and permeable. I think this was a big part of why I found my writing fellowship so wonderful.
But I find writing longhand a really good way to start a writing session, whatever the time of day. Once I get down anything distracting me, I will try to frame what I want to write that day. Ideally that will help me start drafting some dialogue or blocking, phrases of description, or thoughts around character motivation.
From there I transcribe anything worth keeping from morning pages into my old buddy 750words.com. I used to sporadically go through my books of morning pages every few weeks or months, and try to pick out anything useful, but now I do it daily. It helps me generate some momentum — if I started a scrawling a scene, when I'm typing it out the character might take over and I can keep going from there.
Any useable prose then goes into my draft manuscript in Scrivener. Or, if it's more process / background / planning, I'll paste it into my ‘project journal’. This is an idea I've stolen from Kate Mildenhall, and it's simple but super useful. You start a new document for each writing project and that's where you record every scrap of planning, random ideas, links to research, questions, etc. This is the place I can search back through for breakthroughs, 'what was that idea?', who did I need to contact for an interview, what was I thinking with X character… It's also interesting to read over it like a diary and see how a project evolves over time.
Early birds vs night owls
In the past I've usually fallen back on late nights to get things done, but this year I'm trying to retrain myself as a morning person. To do my writing first thing, so that no matter what the day holds I've made some progress. The routine itself is still a work in progress, but in an ideal world here’s what a good morning looks like:
The routine starts with no phone in the bedroom. I put it on the charger in the kitchen and have alarms set on the sonos speaker in our bedroom.
My husband gets up for work at 5am and a gentle classical piano playlist comes on at 5.10am. This took some trial and error, and terrifying mornings awakened by hard-brass marching music on ABC Classic FM. I have a candle and lighter on the bedside table, along with my morning pages journal and a pen, placed there the night before so there’s no barriers to get started. (I liked Mia Freedman's advice talking to Katharine Collette, about making habits something you don't need to make a decision about, like brushing your teeth).
It's nice to get up and make a cup of green tea, but I am often so scared of waking my child I won't move from the bed. At 5.59 another alarm comes on with the news on 2SER and that's my cue to get up. All of this is predicated on the futile hope that my kid doesn’t wake up before then. Sometimes (lately) she seems to just know I’m trying to do something and has to join me. Sometimes she’s content to crawl in the big bed and snuggle or even sleep more while I write; other times she’s cranky, or wants to play, or asks important questions like ‘what do sharks drink?’.
After we get her off to daycare (four days a week) I eat breakfast and try to get my 750 words typed up before the day goes any further. Sometimes I'll use a playlist on that run/bike ride home to try to get my head into the space of a certain story, but often I'm just catching up on podcasts.
I try to touch the manuscript each day, even if it's just to reread part of it and move a comma around. I also try not to get hung up on word count. It's so nice to see that quantifiable progress, but sometimes what I need isn't adding random words for the hell of it but editing and cutting back a chapter to make it stronger. I learned both of these lessons the hard way, growing word count but distancing myself from the bones of the story.
The great irony here is that I sketched out this essay a while ago when my routine was strong. Then we had a lot of travel, a daylight savings time change, and so currently I’ve fallen out of my morning routine. Actually I’m trying to finish writing this very late at night!
I know I will eventually get back to a healthier morning routine, but things don’t always go to plan. And when they do fall apart, beating yourself up about not getting it perfect every day doesn’t help much. I’ll probably never manage to write every single day, or do morning pages every day, and that’s fine. Take the good days and take what works, don’t stress about the rest.
Do you do morning pages, or have a morning routine you love? Let me know!
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Waking up to classical piano music sounds divine. I’m going to check out that Sonos speaker you mentioned and give it a go.
Love the idea of writing first thing as soon as you wake up. I'm on a retreat now so can acutally try it!