How to Empower Your Writing Acumen with ‘Morning Pages’

“The morning pages will teach you to stop judging and just let yourself write. So what if you’re tired, crabby, distracted, stressed? Your artist is a child, and it needs to be fed. Morning pages feed your artist child. So write your morning pages.” ― Julia Cameron

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Around 2011, an actress client of mine gifted me a book written by Julia Cameron, titled The Artist’s Way. My client's generous intentions rekindled my creative spark, and later, when I looked through the book, I knew it was something special. I’ve dipped in and out of it for years, and will do forevermore.

The concept of Cameron’s book was born from the AA’s 12 Steps program, in which she embodies a theme of recovering and discovering your inner creativity. Throughout the twelve-week course — and, of course, if you choose to stick with this discipline — you are required to carry out a morning or 'first activity' daily practice of writing in a stream of consciousness—in which Cameron coined: Morning pages.

Morning pages is the practise of completing three pages, no matter what page size, with your interior dialogue, about absolutely nothing in particular. This must be done in longhand (never typed) and done first thing in the morning (or whichever time you get up), before you start the rest of your day.

I remember years ago, some days I would simply write, “I am a writer,” line after line, throughout my three pages. You can write anything, as long as you don’t correct it, read it back, and definitely don’t overthink any of it. The rules are: there are no rules, even if you wish to repeat one sentence, over and over again.

Cameron talks in more detail about the morning page’s practice via her web page. Cameron claims that writing in a stream of consciousness every morning is a bit like a dust buster, clearing the corners of your mind and the corners of your consciousness.

She invites you to write down your 'whiny', 'grumpy', and 'whatever you are feeling' thoughts. Write down all those cloud thoughts, as in, whatever thoughts are crossing your consciousness, just as in meditation.

Cameron feels that becoming acquainted with all the dark corners of your psyche, in Jungian style, is meeting your shadow and taking it out for a cup of coffee. Accomplishing this task each morning is a ‘clearing it from your day’, to give you more self-awareness as you pass through the rest of your day.

When you have completed your three pages, fold back the papers and close the book, or if loose pages, pop them into an envelope and store somewhere safe, and refrain from taking them back out to read, for at least a minimum of eight weeks.

I have often enjoyed taking out my old journals and reading back on the thoughts I planted in my morning pages dumpster, and even surprised myself on how far I have grown and/or moved on.

You will discover that this meditative writing practice will gradually help create the space for you to identify your inner critic, at the same time as recovering your inner creativity.

The concept of Cameron's morning pages touched me in deep ways, and so I decided to create a journal with cream-lined pages and added the details below:

Softcover journal

Hardcover journal

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