MORNING PAGES
The term and the practice was coined by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way. It requires you to write three A4 (or letter-size) pages in the morning before you get your day going. Of course, she says it's OK to have a coffee, but the idea is that these three pages must be done in the morning before you do anything else, and that they must be done longhand.
WHY
Quite frankly, I don't think there's any reason that wouldn't sound like woo-woo. Many have tried to explain the intellectual, creative, experiential reasons, but at the end of the day, at least for me, it comes down to doing something enjoyable. The rewards are difficult to articulate but not complicated. For me, it comes down to holding a fountain pen, felt tip pen, gel pen, and sometimes a ballpoint pen, and letting words come out even if they don't form complete ideas. It's not about the content, but more the context, the place and the act. Like putting on a jacket, stepping out to my backyard, and walking up and down aimlessly. It's not specifically for exercise, but that I like the motion, to keep moving, one step at a time. And so I do enjoy just writing, or drawing lines, or drawing shapes and seeing what will happen.
If you don't like it, don't do it. It's quite that simple. And when we explore some of the things that Julia asks you to do, it will apply there also. There are some things that the book tries to codify which isn't meaningful for everyone, but has utility in trying to understand what the action, or direction, is trying to achieve.
I enjoy journaling, writing on a piece of paper, notebook, with a pen and paper. And so the Morning Pages come naturally to me. The fact that they are in the morning is because I'm fresher. And it's super quiet, especially since I'm up at 5:00 am. There's nobody about and I can sit and think quietly. Not so quietly since I love to listen to instrumental LoFi or classical guitar strumming.
LONGHAND
Tricky question. Julia insists that you have to do this longhand, but I don't agree. I do it longhand, but I think that there are valid cases for enjoying the morning pages typed.
Here's why.
Julia says that there's a closer connection to the words when you handwrite them. And this may be true for some, and it may be the case, sometimes, for myself. I have since come to understand that I think on paper. Which means that I like the act of writing down something that I'm thinking of, and then looking at the same thought, but now on paper. And when I write things down on paper, they are part of the thinking process, not the result of the thinking process.
Here's an example of something that I could write.
... should leave early, say 7am, get on the highway, but last time I was on it, got stuck, so perhaps 6:30am may be better, I really should be keeping track of this traffic thing if I want to get anywhere, is there any rush to getting there early? Work backwards, let's see if wasting a couple of hours on the road ...
You can see from that blathering, it's something that could have been going on in my mind, didn't need to be written down at all, but I have notebooks upon notebooks with stuff like that, and sometimes, rarely though, I go back and I can now understand better my thinking process.
SPEED
This is the first consideration when handwriting. When I handwrite, it's slow. It's very deliberate, that's a good word to hold on to - deliberate. The act of putting each word down is very conscientious. There's no going back with backspacing, so there's a greater sense of commitment, of permanence. And of moving forward. But it is slow.
But the brain is fast. By the time I've finished handwriting the sentence, my brain has had a couple more thoughts which I've already forgotten.
FATIGUE
Handwriting is a physical exercise, so your hand gets more tired than when typing - for the same amount of text. Granted, if you type a lot for a living, then your hand will eventually get tired even typing and you may get to the point where you are making tons of mistakes. But typing Morning Pages isn't (or should not be) one of them. Even typing slowly, you can hit the mark of 750 words (which seems to be the consensus is 3 handwritten pages) fairly easily and quickly.
ART
Typed pages are uniform, sterile almost. Handwritten pages are artistic. The same handwritten word doesn't look the same anywhere on the page. And if you can get lost in the "craft" of handwriting, the feel of the pen in the hand and how each stroke is being made, then writing gets close to art.
TECHNOLOGY / TOOLS
Let's not forget that like a computer, the pen is a piece of technology that was also invented at a point in time. It's quite an amazing little thing that you can carry around an instrument, together with a parchment (paper) that you can record what is going on, for review later.
This is essentially what a tablet, or laptop, can do as well.
Those who say that writing is "more natural" aren't being honest. Writing is as natural as typing. The alphabet that we use, the letters that we make with a pen are all symbols created and when we use a brush to draw something, we are also using technology.
A pen, a computer, a piece of paper, a wall, the back of a napkin, it's all good.
It's all a learned skill and each generation comes up with tools to do things better. There are some novelists who find it more creative now to write their novels on the tiny keyboard of a smartphone. Go figure.
And so the directive to handwrite (or longhand as Julia refers to it) should not be an absolute must. Perhaps in your own way, you find that hitting each key on a keyboard gives you the same connection with the letters and words, that someone holding a fountain or ballpoint pen would.
THREE PAGES LONG
Finally, a word about quantity. I have a problem with this blog, I can normally get started on a piece, because I have something to say, and then get bogged down in the details of articulating it and never finish.
You'd be surprised at the number of drafts that I have started that have never been finished.
Julia says that 3 pages is about the right size. 3 A4, or letter size, pages. That's a lot of writing, that's a full article, every morning. Even though you're not really writing for publication, and content should not matter, it's difficult to write without thinking. You must think and so the inner voice must have some sort of content in mind.
Claims online that this should take 20 to 30 minutes seem exaggerated. Unless, of course, the handwriting is so big that you can whip off a page in 10 minutes. But writing a page of A4 is not so easy. I can manage close to 10 minutes on the paper size I use (possibly an A5 (10" x 7")) but that's in a real rush, and that's not enjoyable.
My own comfort zone is about 15 minutes per one page of roughly 10" x 7".
Someone online wrote that Julia's direction to write 3 pages equates to 750 words. Many people seem to think this is accurate, and so I counted some of my pages. I average about 320 words on a page (10" x 7") so 2.5 pages should do it for me. But there are some days I've gone to four, the most frequent though was 3. That's over 900 words.
Am I overdoing it? I don't think so. For the most part, I'm really not concentrating at all, I'm writing quite slowly, massaging each letter and word and feeling the stroke from the pen on the paper. I figured that trying to get to the end would spoil the enjoyment in the middle, so I really, really, really try very hard to simply concentrate on making the word that I'm writing count.
Count in terms of experiencing it. So when I write the word "actually" in longhand, each letter gets a musical expression, the a - the - c - the - t - the - u - the - a - the - double - l - and - the - y. By the time I finish writing the word "actually", I have had an "actually" experience.
It's slow.
It's purposeful.
It takes time.
And I don't watch the clock.
I think 2 pages is the right amount of time to get this right, and for it to mean something. Otherwise, it is possible to get to the end quite tired, and a little frustrated.
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