EVERY MORNING for the last nine weeks I have sat at the dining table, lit a candle, played some reflective music and written three sides of A4, know as ‘Morning Pages’.
Inspired by The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a 12 week self-help programme for ‘creative recovery’, Morning Pages clear the mind at the start of the day. Julia explains how they are intended to work here.
Here’s how they are working for me:
The daily discipline has given me space for reflection which I have found difficult in the past. It seems to be helping – my partner tells me I seem less pressured and more passionate about my work. Stretching my writing muscles has helped me to make more time for my writing – I am blogging regularly and taking a ‘Life Lines’ course in how to tell your life story. I am enjoying both very much, though I feel frustrated in busy weeks like this when there isn’t much space for creativity. Yet I find it so enjoyable and energising that I no longer consider it selfish to make the time, as it helps me to feel more inspired and motivated, and less preoccupied with worries and daily grind. Getting them out of my head and onto the page is making space for greater positivity and creativity to flourish.
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A friend of mine loved the artist’s way too. I’ll have to check it out.
I’ve experiend the frustration of creativity being sidelined by busy-ness too. For me, the answer was to diarise it. Now, for me, Friday is the day I write (the morning) and progress my next album (the afternoon).
I found that, if creating really is important to me -and it is – then I have to accord it the same status as everything else that competes for my time and put it sacred in the diary.