Morning Pages. No, not a queenly greeting to you, but the subject I want to talk about. I’ve been away for a few days. The weather has been lovely (sunny and hot), and though not exactly a holiday, it has been a nice break. I have been posting without pictures, with limited opportunity to tweet or follow Good Reads or fiddle on Facebook. So, I’ve been pottering around, breaking from the usual routine, doing little and writing less. I’ve been busy, just not with writing. We drove back yesterday, hence no post at all.
My head should be full of little snippets that I’m dying to tell you. But it isn’t. And the reason?
I think it’s because I haven’t been doing my Morning Pages. That muscle that drives all my writing has had a holiday too and it’s become a little stiff through lack of use. Rusty even. In just a few days.
I love Morning Pages. Julia Cameron in ‘The Artist’s Way’ introduced me to them some years ago, and I adopted them with delight. There are times when I lapse – such as these last few days – and I always end up missing them. What do I write in there? Mostly rubbish. Sun shining/not shining/last night lovely/sociable/vile. If I’ve heard a joke I might write it down, even if I can’t remember the punch line. Maybe because I can’t remember the punch line. Bits of overheard conversation or the previous night’s dream sequences. I might write a haiku or two if they pop into my head, or a few lines about someone or somewhere I visited, or the first few paragraphs of something that is itching to be scribbled down. A few rude words about someone who’s upset me might go in there too, so they can be forgotten, so I can move on. I say thank you for nice things that have happened and scribble hopes for the days or weeks to come.
But this week, using someone else’s computer, wandering around shops, eating out, being sociable, delightful though it has been, I have missed my Morning Pages.
Will you please excuse me while I get back in the swing of things? A few Morning Pages will soon sort me out.
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