The first day I did my morning pages, three pages of longhand stream-of-consciousness, my hand started cramping up. It was the first time I had written more than a sentence, a page, in probably over 10 years. Over my mid twenties and early thirties, I had dabbled. A notebook here, a 7 minute writing sprint there. But never with such consistency that my hand got used to holding a pen. I started to doubt myself.
The Artist Way starts out with a few chapters before you get to Chapter 1. The introduction, a basic principles review of Spiritual Elasticity, and a chapter about the basic tools, where you learn about your Artist Dates and Morning Pages. I’ve read these chapters many times with good intentions to complete the whole course. This is the farthest I’ve gotten.
The first chapter’s focus is this - Recovering a Sense of Safety. I won’t cliff notes the entire thing for you, but basically the idea is this. If you feel you’re an artist, you’re a little scared to be an artist. The world, or someone in it, or your Censor (the part of your brain that tells you horrible things) has told you it’s really not a good idea to become one. And the focus is, to discover what it means to be safe when creating. There are a few writing prompts and tasks, but the main focus is to complete your morning pages, and take yourself on an artists date.
I was first introduced to The Artist’s Way in a poetry course during college. Taught by one of the most influential college professors I had during my time in higher ed, Diana Goetsch. This was a real life poet, who made their living off living and teaching poetry. And to me, a 21 year old liberal arts major, that was the dream.
We started the class every session with a 7 minute writing sprint, meant to mirror the morning pages. Sometimes things came of it, that turned into poems or a release or something else, and sometimes it was just writing just to fill time. So I was familiar with the concept and I actually loved doing it. I remember taking it further into my life, and doing writing sprints throughout my twenties.
Sunday morning I woke up, ready to start my morning pages. I felt optimistic and ready to begin. I prepared my seat at the kitchen table, with my coffee, and my fresh new notebook and pen. I started to write, nothing notable, and my hand started to cramp. It made me realize that I hadn’t written more than a page in years. This is when the doubt started to creep in. I felt like an imposter. Here I am, launching this Substack, going on this 12 week journey and I can’t even get 3 pages out. After a few pauses and hand massages (lol) I finished the three pages. And kept writing every morning for a week after that.
My morning pages, are honestly kind of dull, and they feel like a struggle every time I do them. Mostly lists of personal things I need to do, like make the dog a vet appointment, check the credit card balance and schedule a payment, things to do at work, what the weather like is that day. Where I’m sitting. What I’m making for dinner. How I feel that day. What I’m excited about. How I’m feeling about any given friendship or why my husband annoyed me last Thursday.
Sometimes I’m writing “I don’t want to write this” over and over again (Jack Torrence coded). Sometimes I’m asking myself what am I actually doing this for. Sometimes I’m just waiting for that spiritual elasticity, to be channeled through, for my next great project or story. But that hasn’t come yet.
Sometimes I’m writing out my dreams, which come quick and easily to the page. I have always been a dreamer, with vivid dreams every night that I always remember. One in particular, me standing in a hilltop chalet, while giants lead a shackled yeti through the valley. I must have had ice cream before bed.
I think that the scary thing about morning pages, the thing that makes me feel unsafe, is the fact that anything can come through on the page. I could decide I want to uproot my life, or that I’m not happy with something, and that would require me to feel and actually maybe do something about it. No thanks, I’ve spent the past 10 years scrolling on my phone to try to avoid that feeling.
The morning pages are there to make sure all the feelings are out, so ideas can flow in. And I feel optimistic, impatient, frustrated all at the same time. Which I guess is the point, to actually feel.
See you next week,
Mal xoxo
Mine are coming along about the same. I am surprisingly looking forward to them each morning. I’ve had a couple cool insights, and some stream of consciousness stuff that felt like a door was starting to crack open. My intention is to begin to channel messages meant for the community to hear. This feels like a good exploration tool. It might not be the one I land on...I’m wondering if I might do better as a morning pages “talker” hahaha and then I transcribe?