The creator of morning pages, Julia Cameron, states that you do this first thing in the morning. Dump everything in your head in a handwritten or electronic journal. Anything that comes to mind. The things that bother you, makes you cry, makes you laugh, makes you angry. The cat that didn’t want to eat dinner, the kids who are perpetually late for school. Anything and everything to clear your mind.
Lacking ideas? Feeling blocked? Do morning pages, and do it every day. Your life is full of issues, and morning pages will point you towards an idea for a story. Not sure if the idea is a good one? It doesn’t matter. You are writing. You are producing words on paper, the rest will follow.
If you are like me, there is no time to do my morning pages first thing. So I take a few minutes out of my day when I have a chance. While it might not be early morning pages, trust me, doing a brain dump does help to clear the mind. On Saturdays I usually visit my favourite coffee shop, park myself in a corner and do my morning pages. Also an excellent opportunity to observe people, and make a few notes or speculate on what ifs for story ideas.
Whatever time works for you, random thoughts, random words and ideas will flow if you don’t force it. Keep your notebook close to note a potential story idea to develop later. Morning pages are only to get the junk out of your head, not to develop or plan a story.
I can definitely recommend this exercise to keep my writing muscles fit!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for visiting my blog today. For more updates about the #CreativeLife, follow me on Twitter @LinzeBrandon, and remember to subscribe for more stories about the things that inspire me.