A Five Star Filled with Morning Pages

The last page of my morning pages notebook.

On a rainy Thursday morning, I finished my first morning pages notebook.

”Morning pages” is a practice for artists recommended in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (available on Amazon). I have my writing partner Jordan Bianchi to thank for turning me on to The Artist’s Way, which is a self-guided course for artists to reconnect with their creativity while healing their inner artist/child. Morning pages is one of the two main tools recommended in the course.

Morning pages are three hand-written, stream-of-consciousness pages you write every morning. They are intended to reconnect you with your creativity, act as a brain dump so you can clear your mind for the day ahead, and get you used to writing long enough and often enough that you become accustomed to ignoring the “censor”—Julia Cameron’s name for that voice in your head that tells you what you’re doing isn’t good enough. The censor slows you down, makes you doubt your instincts. It doesn’t allow you to play, or make mistakes, or learn as you go. It tells you every word, every stroke has to be perfect—otherwise it’s not worth doing.

I resisted the pages for months. I started them last November, back when I first cracked open my copy of The Artist’s Way, in an old Five Star notebook I bought for work and never used. I struggled to write them for three days, sleepy and unmotivated and annoyed, my hand cramping from its unfamiliarity with drawing pen across page for so long. After three days, I stopped. I didn’t have time, I told myself. I couldn’t wake up early enough. It was too much. And what was the point, anyway?

Picked them up again in late February of this year and haven’t put them down since. Yes I have to wake up earlier and yes it kind of sucks, but it’s also nice. I’ve also gotten better at literally w r i t i n g: my handwriting has improved. The pages have made it easier for me to write regularly, improved my mental health, and made me feel more confident in my creativity. They have served as a reminder of how a little each day really does add up, even if it doesn’t feel like much—write three pages a day, every day, and in three months you’ll fill 200 pages.

Now, to be clear, I don’t actually do the pages every morning. I do them every morning I can, but I try to go easy on myself; to not allow a pursuit of perfection to get in the way of “good enough.” “Good enough” is progress, and progress is better than perfection. I often don’t do the pages on weekends. If I don’t get to them in the morning, they become afternoon pages, evening pages, before-bed pages. Sticking with them more often than not, I’ve filled a whole notebook. That’s progress.

Note: This personal essay originally appeared on my Instagram, here.