Morning Story / April 9-15, 2023

A compilation of morning stories, originally posted on Instagram

The final step in a morning habit stack I’ve been cultivating, practicing, and enjoying involves posting a “story” at Instagram. The step was initially just a photo, but it has morphed into a bit of extra writing, reflection, and philosophy that rounds out the span of morning.

I recently decided to start posting weekly compilations of these “Morning Stories” here, to bring them out of the Instagram story (or highlight) into a standalone space. They are simple in nature…. a photo of my journal, pen for the morning, and coffee…. and some on-the-spot composition. (The image is created in the moment and can’t be edited later, which adds a layer of both transience and permanence to the process.) I’ve been writing and sharing these since February at Instagram. To view previous batches on the substack, see March 19-April 1 and April 2-8.

Morning Stories from this past week:

These Have Legs

I write these in the moment for my daily story, but I don’t consider them necessarily finished pieces. At the same time, I don’t feel that I necessarily have to continue working on them. They are a journal log of their own but also poems in the moment and poems in the making. One of the Morning Stories from this week immediately captured my attention, and I continued to work on it outside of the story frame as a longer poem. (I don’t know that I’m brave enough to post a poem that looks like a poem here. Posting these images is a leap of its own.)

I am really enjoying the morning vignette.

Answers to a few questions:

• Yes, I randomly choose a different fountain pen each morning from what I have inked. My collection isn’t super fancy, but I use and love my pens! Favorite pens for drawing are not necessarily favorites for writing.

• Some of my favorite and most-used pens are always filled with carbon black, and that isn’t an ink I’m using for my morning pages, so those pens don’t make an appearance in my Morning Stories.

• The inks are random. In the past, I inked pens based on what I wanted to use in my illustrated journal each week. Now that I’m doing more longform writing, I’m looking at my inks differently. A few have resulted in quite a bit of ghosting, but for the most part, everything has been okay. There are a few pens and/or pen-and-ink combos that I probably won’t continue to use for this purpose, but overall, it is always smile-worthy to grab a new pen as part of my morning routine.

• Best add-on tool to this setup, hands down, is a sheet of blotter paper. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do, blots wet ink so I can turn the page without risk of smearing and without needing to wait for ink to dry. It’s fantastic!

• Yes, the composition book cover is homemade. I made this one several years ago.

(Full Instagram highlight)

Thank you for reading.

If we are not already connected at Instagram, I hope you’ll consider following @oamyoamy there.