National Bullshit Writing Month
I’m writing this instead of my self-mandated morning pages, which are what I’m here to write about, which I realize is ironic. But the real idea beneath all of this is to write, no matter what. Low stakes, no expectations. So I can’t even expect myself to stick to my goal of writing morning pages every weekday this month. But I’m writing, is what matters. And yes, it’s 3:47pm.
Have I written about morning pages here before? I’ll check once I’m back online, as I’m drafting this from a parking spot in front of the town library, the library where I planned to work between teaching and preschool pickup, because just as I can’t get myself to get out my notebook right now, I can’t get myself to get out of the car and walk across the lawn to the library. But I’m writing, is what matters.
Whether I’ve written about morning pages here before or not, I know I’ve written about them, fucking FIVE YEARS AGO, which does feel like eternity, for Lifehacker, and I stand by all of it:
Every morning—just about—I write three pages, stream-of-consciousness, longhand in a notebook. I sit down, I write for three pages, I stop. And I wholeheartedly believe it’s one of the best things I do for myself and my mental wellbeing.
Whether you call it journaling, freewriting, a brain-dump, or morning pages, it’s a powerful tool for cleaning your head, starting your day, and—dare I say it—living a creatively freer life.
2017 Jaime, god bless your creative routine. Your free time. Your no one else to feed and dress in the morning but yourself.
It was a lifetime ago but also, that was the foundation. Those months of writing morning pages daily built the mental muscle memory I needed to be able to slip back into the habit sometimes, and they taught me, as I wrote in that Lifehacker article, how useful this habit really can be. So when I’m stuck or lost or just need my brain to be clearer, that’s where I return.
Morning pages got back on my mind during my last Catapult writing process class, because I advocate there for daily or frequent free writing, and gosh, really, physician heal thyself. And I’ve needed to (heal myself) because I haven’t really written anything since I finished my book, which wouldn’t be a problem except I want to (write things), not least hopefully a clutch of thematically related essays and articles that when published in close proximity to my book's release will encourage people to buy and read my book, right? (Hi, preorder here.) Oh also, someday: another book. Which I have zero ideas for. So, before even writing, I want to be reminding my brain how to find ideas to write about. So: morning pages.
I decided to do them for the month of November. Because that's the month it happens to be, but also it;'s National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, which is very much my philosophy - write fast and dirty, make it good later - but I’m coming to terms with the fact that I do not have a fiction-writing brain. I love reading novels, love them so much, but my brain just doesn’t make them, despite the fact that I wrote my undergrad thesis in short stories. Or, as proven by that fact, because none of those stories had plots, just sublimated feelings about a big crush I had, except for the one story where my main character died. So NaNoWriMo would not be for me, but god I needed some writing structure, and something just for me - not even writing that anyone else might ever see. And whooboy is that what morning pages is. I don’t even go back and read them myself.
I don’t necessarily do them in the morning - on Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach in the morning, an hour from home, and there is that whole “getting a toddler out the door to preschool” thing (I guess he’s not a toddler anymore, full-on “kid,” did I mention he sort of thinks he’s learning how to play chess?), but that’s the key, low expectations. Low stakes, minimal rules. Any time of day. Don’t worry about weekends. Three pages longhand, except when it’s your newsletter instead (not that I would free-write brain-barf newsletter content!).
The awful thing is it works. I’ve been having ideas - no book idea yet, god help me, but essays and articles and let’s be real, I hadn't even sent a newsletter in a while! And after the first couple days, my handwriting stamina came back, and I no longer spend the second half of the first page complaining about my wrist pain. Now I can make it to the bottom of the third page, and by that point I’ve figured out what’s beneath the muck in my head - that’s where interesting stuff is, beneath the muck, and you get through the muck in the first page or two - and I have things to say other than “ugh, my hand hurts.”
But even then, sometimes you need to type instead, from the car instead of the library you’ve parked at. But it’s better than looking at your phone that entire time, and you’re writing, is what matters.