Before I report on my Morning Pages, I want to let you all know that I plan to attend the Pennwriters Conference May 14-16. It looks like a great writer's conference that covers a wide range of genres (including Fantasy, YA, mystery, horror, sci-fi, thrillers, etc...) and it fits in with my schedule. (Or I'll make it fit!) Plus, some top agents will be there. It'd be great to see some of you there, if you can make it.
Now. The Morning Pages. Two weeks ago, I blogged about a technique that could cure writers block called Morning Pages. I tried it.
For 14 days, the very first thing I did when I woke up was write three pages of whatever popped into my head. I'll admit, some days were hard. If my little girl woke up early, I had to fight her while I wrote. But most days, I woke up (on my own!) early enough to get my pages done before anyone else woke up. (Let me tell you, for me, that's a miracle.)
The result: Wow.
Writing those pages relieved so much stress. Anything that was on my mind, all those little oh-no-I-have-to-do-this things floating around in my head suddenly seemed like nothing to worry about. I remembered to do them. And I didn't worry about them. So pluses for memory and stress reduction.
As for getting up early, I'm not sure how I did it. I think the memory pages must have helped. I'm wondering if maybe the morning pages helped me to wake up 15-30 minutes earlier than usual without an alarm. And I haven't been as tired during the day. There are a number of factors that could have helped with this, but it all began when I started morning pages, so I thought I'd mention it.
I got more creative work done. I was less stressed, less tired, and so I was more motivated to get work done. And the quality of work wasn't too bad, if I may say so. I wrote out some new scenes for my book (by hand) and I was impressed. Setting, character development, and voice improved without me giving much thought to it.
Cons?? 3 pages seemed to take a long time on some days. It never took more than 15 minutes, but sometimes if felt like a lot longer. And then the thing with my daughter. That was a little difficult. But it only happened twice. There was one day when I had to take care of her first and then write my pages, but I still got them done before 8am. Overall, not too bad.
I'll definitely keep this habit going. :)
Rachelle Gardner had a recent guest post on journaling and unlocking creative thinking.
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2 comments:
Thank you so much for posting about this! I started Morning Pages four days ago and I've started to notice some of the things you mentioned. I have noticed some non-fiction writing related tasks being so much easier than they have been in so long. I am still a little reserved because it has only been four days but I'm very hopeful.
You're welcome!
Isn't it amazing the difference it makes? Honestly, I expected a little positive energy or something like that, but this... this needs to be shouted from the rooftops!
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