– Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead.
And how true that is for me. I do enjoy various sensory experiences, watching a video or observing a painting or having a dance, but I think in words and enjoy speaking and listening and reading and writing more than my other sensory channels.
It’s through words that a lot of my understanding has developed and my day job is totally dependant on the use of literate communications.
But, it’s not me that I communicate but the ideas and views of others and that has left me jaded and wanting to do more to explore my own views on life.
Firstly about ten years ago I came on Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.
It is a useful book for any kind of artist but I think it’s a great motivator for the aspiring writer. The great tool it gives you is the idea of morning pages. Yes it’s been put forward by many other writers before Ms. Cameron, but I discovered her first.
Morning pages are three pages you hand write as soon as you get up in the morning and before you do anything else like listen to the radio or watch TV or make your breakfast or even just a cup of tea. You trying to use the quiet time when you first get up to bridge between the conscious world and the subconscious world and to let those thoughts come out on the page. What troubles you no matter how petty or how often the same thought comes up you just put down the words one after another. That’s writing; putting one word down after another on the page.
You don’t write these pages to be read. You can read them but distance is needed, weeks, months, or years. They may produce usable snips, but that’s not why you do them. You write every day and you can call yourself a writer.
Don’t worry about the size of these pages. I find that it takes me thirty minutes to fill three pages regardless of the page size. Just write without stopping, judging, or analysing the writing. It’s the process that’s important in this exercise, not the product.
I’ve been doing, on and off, morning pages for almost ten years, producing millions of words. When I let my morning pages lapse I find writing harder at other time. The catharsis that comes from doing morning pages helps me be a more productive writer.
It might work for you
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