Sticking to and quitting a morning pages habit

Last year, I experimented with morning pages to creatively unblock. It was an interesting experiment. But, like Jennifer Tatroe, I finally realised morning pages does not work as a daily practice for me.

Before I go on: daily morning pages aren’t quite for me, but you may find morning pages work wonders for your life and creativity. If you do them and it helps, great! If you haven’t but sense it’ll be useful for you, find a way to try it for a month. It’s the only way you’ll find out whether it works for you or not. What follows is my experience and reflections of trying them. It may not be the same for you.

Why I tried doing morning pages

If you’ve ever tried to find solutions for a creative funk, you’ll likely come across stories about how miraculous morning pages is. People talk about how this practice changed their life and unlocked their creativity. Writing 3 pages of whatever is in your head to reclaim your creative mojo? Sounds like magic!

Now, I can get behind thinking of creativity as magic. But I am a bigger skeptic of the ‘this one thing will change your life’ genre of online article, because quick fixes rarely work. Changing your outlook and creative life is usually more like a series of small steps and minor adjustments that add up over time. Some things fail, some things stick.

Because of this skepticism, I never properly considered trying morning pages until my friend, Veronica, mentioned the Artist’s Way on a walk during the pandemic. As can happen, I sat on the idea for about a year or so (see also: mirror dress experiment). Eventually, when I felt like my creative block just wasn’t shifting, I thought I’d give it a go.

I first started trying morning pages in 2022. With some stop-starts, I did them with some regularity. First for about a month in Autumn 2022. Maybe a month in Spring 2023 too. Then I started doing morning pages almost daily from July 2023 for 3 months. The hardest part was getting myself to start, then stick with it.

Getting started with morning pages

In the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron describes morning pages as 3 pages of longhand stream of consciousness (free writing) journalling. And explains the pages should be done first thing in the morning – hence ‘morning pages’.

The practice is really that simple, and you really can’t go wrong. It is worth noting, in the Artist’s Way, she also emphasises that you do not need to be a writer to do morning pages, because it is not even really writing. She also suggests ending the practice with affirmations in chapter 1.

By and large I tried to stick to the given instructions, but I made a few adjustments that I’ll explain later in this post.

Here’s a quick rundown of how I approached morning pages:

I used B5 or A5 paper size, rather than the suggested A4 or US-letter size.
I allowed myself to do them anytime of day if I couldn’t do the mornings for whatever reason.
At first, I stuck with 3 pages (at the smaller paper size) and later adjusted to do whatever I could that day. This was typically 1-2 pages, but sometimes it was 1-2 paragraph-sized blocks.
Speaking of paragraphs, I typically wrote a long block of text without paragraph breaks for the whole journal session. Unless I got interrupted or distracted, then I might start a new paragraph when I returned to the page. This is not to say it’s the right or only way to do morning pages, just how I happened to approach it.
I did not set a timer or time myself at first. This unguarded approach to mornings was a luxury only possible by taking time off work last year, and having a flexible start time in my job the year before.
I did not do the affirmations at the end because I generally forgot about them.
I did try to make the experience feel pleasurable – dedicated notepad, nice fountain pen and a herbal tea alongside worked for me. I also tried writing in different spots in my house, though usually settled on the sofa. This isn’t needed really, but I had to encourage myself to do the pages.
The habit stuck better when I started tracking it.

Adjusting the morning pages practice

Some people are put off by Cameron’s ‘woo’ leanings in the Artist’s Way. This wasn’t a block for me as, while I’d don’t follow any religion, I am open-minded about spiritual practices. Instead, what bothered me about morning pages is more to do with specific challenges I face. And some specifics in the instructions, which set off perfectionist me.

Changing the paper size

First, the paper size. A4 paper was a big barrier for me starting morning pages for a long time because my handwriting is small. I spent a long time feeling overwhelmed about free writing for 3 pages of A4, and it seemed like a hard mountain to climb.

Giving myself permission to switch to a smaller size allowed me to get over this block to trying morning pages. Adjusting to around A5 helped me actually try morning pages. The smaller paper size felt like a hill rather than a mountain, and more doable with my handwriting size.

Changing the number of pages

But even with that, 3 pages still felt like a lot!

I totally get the idea that allowing blanks and boring thoughts to flow is training for creative work. The point of morning pages is to clear and allow things to surface. But sometimes you just don’t have anything to say, and shouldn’t that be fine too? I spent a long time wondering why the instructions are rigid about 3 pages and why.

So 3 pages became the next barrier. Eventually I just let myself write for however long I could do that day. Sometimes I stopped because I got interrupted or distracted by something. Sometimes I stopped because I was feeling moody and just didn’t have anything to write. Sometimes I skipped days altogether. And sometimes I felt like I could not stop the flow of words coming out.

It felt like cheating doing this, but the change helped me stick with the practice for the last 3 months.

Doing them anytime of day

Next, time of day. I am not a morning person at all, even though I can get myself up and I’ve had jobs that started at 8.30am before. I’ve realised I can do physical things or read or whatever, but I struggle to properly think before at least 10am. So I let go of this instruction and instead just did them when I could, which meant I actually could stick with the practice better.

Using a timer

No matter how much I tried, I did not feel excited for morning pages. It felt like a chore before my day began. Probably because of how long it took me to write them each day.

Most articles about morning pages say 3 pages should take 30-40 minutes. It took me double this – and that was on a smaller paper size!

Now, I don’t believe that everything in life needs to be streamlined and efficient. Sometimes the long way round is valuable. Especially creatively, you need to wander to wonder as it were.

But spending 1.5 hours every day clearing mental weeds was way too much. If nothing else, I ended up dwelling on the weeds and getting bogged down by them instead of feeling lighter. And I knew it was not a sustainable practice for the time I eventually would start working again.

So at some point I started setting a timer to end the practice, instead of going by number of pages. This made it feel a bit easier to stick with.

Abandoning morning pages

Maybe other people would’ve given up long before making that many adjustments. I guess I really wanted to give it a good effort and try. I really wanted to feel creatively unstuck again. I really wanted the magic of morning pages to work for me.

It took a chance google to Jennifer Tatroe’s articles to work out why they weren’t. In When morning pages are bad for you, she says:

When most people sit down to write those three pages each day, it’s a really useful and effective way of gaining some self-knowledge to start processing all those insidious thoughts and feelings that pop up to block creative confidence.

For some of us, though…we just have too much to be processed, so instead of healthily dealing with whatever is lurking under the surface of the ocean each day, our morning pages just serve to wake the sea monsters. They’re not a powerful enough weapon to deal with (for example) the unresolved trauma in our past, so they end up just exacerbating the situation. Sure, we managed to scratch the leviathan, but that just made it angry. Of course it did. We’re out there trying to use a fishing pole to take down a kraken.
– From Jenn

(I totally imagine bobbing up and down on a little rowing boat, while a sea monster lurks beneath the surface now.)

So yes, perhaps I am one of those people with too many things to process. I know journaling does help and free writing has its uses. But not everyday. And not as the only tool to tackle a kracken.

Funnily, the Artist’s Way had several other exercises that are useful starting points for structured journaling. I don’t know why they don’t get spoken about more. Those, along with some ideas from Struthless, Brianna Wiest and others, ended up helping way more in unlocking my creative courage again.