Morning pages
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Published: November 18, 2023
Tags: wordvomit
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The idea of Morning Pages has been floating around my internet-space for a while now. I've always been intrigued by it but for some reason I've never tried it, even though I've read that it has been a really useful practice for multiple people. After reading some new posts about it (one of them from tiramisu) I've decided it's finally time for me to give it a try!
The idea of *Morning Pages* was originally proposed by *Julia Cameron* and consists of sitting down every morning and writing three pages of text. As far as I understand it doesn't matter what you write about as long as you just **write**. The suggestion is to put things down in a sort of stream-of-conscious style.
A quick search on the internet reveals that *three pages* are *750 words*, but another page — by Julia Cameron herself — says one should write three *8.5x11* pages, which as far as I could understand is the same as an *A4* page. I'm not an expert, but I think that I can fit many more than *750* words in *3xA4* pages. I guess it would be easy to find out if I took the time.
Anyway, I'll stick to the 750 words mark since I feel it's good amount and I know I can comfortably reach it within an acceptable amount of time. Another thing Julia Cameron says is to make sure to do them in the morning — hence the name. This might be a bit of an issue for me considering I have a small baby with which I want to play with in the morning before work.
The exercise itself — I think — is not that of just writing crap, which I can easily do in my own work notes (in which I often write much more than 750 words a day). It's more that of just learning to sit with your stream of consciousness, learn how *not to get in the way* and in so doing get to know yourself. It's going to be interesting and hopefully I can stick with it. I also won't be doing *longform writing* because — even though I love to write with pen and paper — it is much slower AND I like the idea that whatever I make gets backed up in a digital medium, it feels safer somehow [1].
I think I'll write these notes mainly to myself. I kind of have the *itch* to write them in such a way that, if it is interesting, I can post it to my blog. But I don't think that will set the proper tone for me, since I'll try to — subtly — veer towards making *publishable* content. That is, it will likely impact how deep I'm willing to dig. On the other hand, that's exactly why I started blogging, as a motivation to write more and maybe share some of the stuff I feel. We'll see, I guess it's too soon to make a decision so I'll just do whatever feels right in the moment.
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Footnotes
- [1]: Even though my news-feed has been showing me lots of news about how a solar storm (that is expected to happen once every 100 years) could wipe out electronics (or will it just shut down the internet?) for a couple of months, so writing in an actual paper notebook is probably safer? Anyway, I don't expect anyone to read these notes, and I would also be surprised if I revisit them myself, so maybe the decision itself doesn't matter much.
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