Morning Pages...?!

In THE MIRACLE OF THE MORNING PAGES JOURNAL, Julia Camera answers some of the most commonly asked questions about her famous "Morning Pages."  I was able to zip through the book in just a little more than an hour, so it's a nice, quick, easy read.

I have known about Morning Pages for several years now and I've gone through periods of time, mostly in the summer months, when I've done them consistently.  But I haven't been able to keep them going.

Why?

Because I'm just not a morning person.  Once I get up, I have to get my son ready for school as well as myself.  I sleep until the last possible second.  I really hate getting up early.  I am NOT a morning person.

I do agree with Julia Cameron's premise of the Morning Pages.  She makes a lot of sense and I do agree that when I did them, great things happened.  Everything Cameron talks about in explaining Morning Pages makes perfect sense and I want to get started writing Morning Pages, again, every single day.

But there's that nagging fact that I'm just NOT a morning person.

One thing that kind of bothers me a little about Cameron's thorough discussion of the Morning Pages is that over and over again she states that "there are no rules" to Morning Pages.  Yet, she states several rules within her question/answer session in this book:  it must be 3 pages--no more or less; it must be long-hand; an 8-1/2 x 11-sized notebook must be used (yet she doesn't specify wide or college-ruled); and, most importantly, they must be written in the Morning, first thing.

In theory, I agree wholeheartedly with everything Cameron says about doing Morning Pages in the morning.  She makes perfect sense when she talks about how at the beginning of the day, we have a blank slate--nothing has happened yet, but anything can happen--we can CHANGE our future because we're purposeful about it.  But if we write at night, we're writing about what's already happened and what can't change.

I wish it wasn't just theory for me.  I WANT to do Morning Pages in the morning.  But apparently I don't want to do them bad enough.....

Dark Chocolate

Mari McCarthy's DARK CHOCOLATE FOR THE JOURNALER'S SOUL is exactly what it says it is....dark chocolate for the journaler.  Personally, I love to journal.  I've been doing it for so long, I have no real idea when I actually first started.  I have a large number of hand-written journals (notebooks, actual journals, notepads, etc.) that I've used over the years as well as digital journals I started in approximately 2009 or 2010.  I write in my journals A LOT.  A lot of journalers have been introduced to Julia Cameron's THE ARTIST'S WAY where she talks about doing Morning Pages--every day--3 full pages of freewriting that the journaler does first thing in the morning.

I have tried Morning Pages and liked them, very much.  The problem, though, is that I have never been much of a morning person.  I like to sleep until the last possible second.  So no matter how good my intentions, my Morning Pages typically were either Afternoon or Evening Pages instead.

In McCarthy's book, one of the contributors feels the same as I do about mornings and has taken to using Mari's suggestion of writing Night Notes instead.  While I've been reading through and working on a number of Mari's journals, blogs, etc., I had not yet heard or read about Night Notes.  But as soon as I read about them in DARK CHOCOLATE, I knew I'd hit on exactly what I was looking for as my alternative to Morning Pages--with no self-guilt!  (I felt guilty because I loved doing Morning Pages and I REALLY wanted to do them--I just didn't want to do them bad enough to get up a little earlier every day!) 

I am again inspired to get journaling.......