Why I'll probably never write morning pages

I prefer whenever-the-fuck-you-want pages

I do not write morning pages.

I feel like I should. It would probably be very good for me if I did.

Yet I do not write them, nor do I wish to.

Does that make me a bad artist? Flaky? Undisciplined? A mere dilettante who will never take her art seriously enough to be a Real Artist?

Actual morning pages I once wrote… ending with how glad I was that I took the time to write morning pages! I didn’t journal again for three months. 😛

If so, at least I’m in good company. Virtually everyone I know has tried morning pages at some point. And when — not if — most of us fail to stick with it, we blame ourselves for being weak and undisciplined. Not serious enough. Bad artists.

Maybe it’s not us.

I’ve got nothing against morning pages. I actually think they’re pretty great. Every time I’ve written them, I’ve gotten a lot out of the practice. Maybe they really would be transformative and life-changing if I wrote them every day. And maybe a practice can be really valuable and also too challenging for most people to sustain. And maybe that says more about the practice (and, perhaps, the demands of surviving in our late-stage capitalist society) than it does about our talents, our discipline, or our inherent worth as artists.

TL;DR Morning pages aren’t for me. I am, however, a big fan of whenever-the-fuck-you-want pages.

They’re just like morning pages, except — wait for it — you write them whenever the fuck you want.

Stuck on a tricky plot point? Confused about your emotions? Had a flash of inspiration you don’t want to forget? Bad day and need to vent? Those are all great times for whenever-the-fuck-you-want pages. Or not, because you’re in charge.

And that, I guess, is the real point of today’s letter:

You are in charge of your creative process. You’re in charge of how you create. You’re in charge of when you create. You’re in charge of whether you create.

And whether you write morning pages, midnight pages, whenever-the-fuck-you-want pages, or no pages at all, you’re doing it right.

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