I got an editing lull for an early Christmas present–a week where the manuscripts were all with other people–and so a chance to get some other kinds of jobs done. I finished the shopping and the wrapping, baked some treats, and knocked back some home repair projects that had been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for uninterrupted blocks of time in which to do them. The result was extra space and new brain waves–it was refreshing to work on a different kind of problem, and to exert different muscles.
Also on the to-do list: address the hall table.
The lull is over, though: the work is back and it’s time for me to get back to my own writing. But, ahh, the rust! It has caked onto the joints during this break! Netflix is frighteningly close to the top of the frequently viewed pages list. The clothes I wear to the gym are at the bottom of the laundry pile. And writing . . . why, yes, I’ve heard of writing. A year (or maybe two) ago, I launched the year with a new notebook and a commitment to try morning pages. I’ve gotten frustrated with other attempts at journaling–the entries feel like an ever-more-petulant whine away from a very real list of duties that gives even the Inner Critic a craving for tropical getaways.
Morning pages worked for me, though, because they don’t have to be about anything. Sure, you can document the events of the day or the color of your mood ring, but the point is to shift from some other brain state into verbal, writing gear. And slowly but surely, whatever it is that you didn’t want to write about, or couldn’t think of what to write about, comes closer to the top and you’ve got the muscles flexed and ready to grab it.
This time in, I’m trying a digital version called 750 words–absolutely not impulsive enough for some practitioners, but the site generates all kinds of statistics from the text you type (one handy one: how long did it take you to generate that number of words), and lordy, am I a sucker for the web badges. I don’t have to keep track of the notebook and I can work on my typing speed, if I need a dose of pragmatism to get the exercise going. Today, the writing was mostly about menu planning and to-do lists, but as our back-to-school gets sorted out, I’ll start being verbal about other things. By this time next month, the sideways glances at the folder containing my work-in-supposed-progress will be a distant memory.
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- Julia Cameron on morning pages
- Jennifer Blanchard experiments with morning pages
