Write for Life / Week 1 (digging in)

Reflection and discussion of Week 1 of Julia Cameron's Write for Life

“Writing is powerful. It is an act of bravery. As we write, we tell ourselves the truth about how we are—and how we feel. We give the universe our coordinates. ‘I am precisely here.’ We give the universe permission to act on our behalf. When we write, we experience synchronicity. Our ‘luck’ improves. Writing is a spiritual path. With each word, we take another step forward. Writing has wisdom in it. It takes courage to see ourselves and our world more clearly. Writing is a commitment to honesty. On the page, in black and white, we see the variables we are dealing with. Writing is a lifeline.” (Julia Cameron, Write for Life)

Hello everyone! I am happy that a small handful of people have decided to read Julia Cameron’s Write for Life with me. I hope that your “week one” went well, that you started (or continued) your morning writing and tried adding in some of the other elements outlined in the first chapter (Week 1 of this 6-week process).

Week 1 and the "Elements" of the System

This week, five elements were introduced:

1. Morning Pages (3 pages a day)

2. Artist Date (1 x a week)

3. Walk (2 x a week)

4. Daily Quota (individual)

5. Writing Stations

My Morning Routine So Far

When I initially picked Write for Life up at the library, I decided to go ahead and start a morning free writing practice. I knew that such a practice would be very similar to how Julia Cameron describes Morning Pages, so I went ahead and started a morning free writing routine back in February. I didn’t read Write for Life at that point, but knowing that Cameron’s Morning Pages are prescribed as "3 handwritten pages," I followed that approach (even though doing this by hand is not my preferred approach.)

The morning routine I started quickly became a small habit stack and has become incredibly important in the last 50+ days. 

So I started my official reading of Write for Life already buoyed and excited by my morning routine. I don't know that anything transformational (or magical or brilliant) has transpired simply because I am writing these “deliberate" three pages a day. I haven't experienced synchronicity related to journaling each morning. But, I have been amazed at how this habit has easily slid into my day.

(Note: I talk about this as a habit stack, a phrase you may know from James Clear's Atomic Habits or from other productivity and habit sources. I use the phrase a bit differently here, but the overall idea is similar. The main difference is that I wasn’t "stacking” morning writing onto another established habit. Instead, I created a new stack, a series of small details, that helps define the contours of this new routine.)

I started my morning writing routine as a blank canvas, one I knew would delay my logging in for work by a few minutes. The only existing domino in the stack was making my first cup of coffee. I now have a small sequence that unfolds, start to finish. Writing the morning pages are the foundation of the routine, but I find the whole stack integral to how this works for me, from the music I turn on to when I snap a photo, what I write at the top of the first page, and what I do after I finish the pages. 

When writing out the steps, I think there are ten or so, each quite small, but each deliberate and intentional. Each plays a part in the holistic feel of this morning habit. I didn't start out with all ten (or so). As I repeated the process each day, I added a few things, attuned to things that organically seemed to grow out of the process and carefully making decisions as I crafted what feels like an easy, simple, mindful, and balanced routine, one I now do automatically.  

Enjoying my morning process greatly so far, and not finding it difficult to maintain, finding, instead, that I look forward to it, it surprises me that I still have resistance to Cameron’s words. When I first stuck my toe into chapter 1, I thought I was beyond this resistance. Reassured, I invited others to read with me. Then I finished chapter 1 and found myself feeling skeptical and stubborn.

I think part of it is that she positions everything as an absolute, not something that she acknowledges might work one way for some and another for someone else. 

My Thoughts on Week 1

Overall, I enjoyed the elements. I did my Morning Pages (e.g., continued my morning writing habit stack), took a trip to the library (which serves the same purpose as how she conceptualizes the Artist Date, took at least two walks, and kept the daily quota in mind. 

I enjoyed many of the "quotable" lines. For example:

“We can become inspired by our daily lives. As we write Morning Pages, we connect to the many details—like the roses—that spell inspiration and expansion. Writing our daily pages, we find ourselves interested by the flow of our own lives. Many small details capture our attention. We do not need high drama or foreign locale high stakes. A bouquet of roses, or lilies, or even daisies, can turn the gears of inspiration.”  - Julia Cameron, Write for Life

I think much of what she says is empowering. That doesn’t mean I buy into all of these things as “the way it should be.” After all, why three pages? My three pages and your three pages will likely not be the same.

I was surprised, in fact, that there is very little instruction from her about how to write during this span of time. Maybe there is more of that in the original The Artist's Way. I don't need that instruction, but it surprised me how little she says about the actual writing of Morning Pages, which are a central part of this book. I know from doing (and teaching) free writing that many people new to this process find it difficult. Learning to keep the pen moving is very important. 

Advocates of free writing might remind you that you should start writing and not stop, keep your hand moving even when you don’t know what to write about. Typically, when you free write, you write for a certain amount of time. That takes variables like how large you write or what size paper you use out of the equation. Simplifying to "three pages" feels random. (My guess is that three pages equates to 15-20 minutes of writing for most people if you write consistently and don't stop to think about what you are going to write.) 

Cameron does say, and this is the extent of her guidance about "how" to do Morning Pages: “There is no wrong way to do the pages. You simply keep your hand moving across the page, writing down anything and everything that occurs to you" (p 8). She goes on to characterize the tenor of the pages: “It is as though you are sending the universe a telegram: ‘This is what I like, this is what I don’t like’ — implicit in this, ‘Please help me.’ If the pages are meditation, they are also a potent form of prayer.” 

Breaking Down Week 1

Everything gets introduced in Week 1. Let's look at a few of the elements more closely.

Timing

She says that as soon as you wake up, you need to immediately do your morning pages. (I am going to guess Cameron doesn't linger in bed reading, playing a game, or scrolling on her phone the way I do. I enjoy that bit of wake-up time and am not concerned that delaying my pages a half hour or more until I actually decide to venture forth into the day (or until after I shower) will change what happens on the page.)

Writing by Hand

The Morning Pages are to be written by hand. I prefer to type. Always. I feel like I can keep up with my thoughts so much more easily with a keyboard. The slowness of writing by hand often makes me anxious. Despite that, I decided from the start to do this practice longhand. I wanted to follow the six weeks and really see how it feels. Plus, I spend most of every day at a computer, so doing this longhand clearly separates this routine from my work life and from my typical “turn on the computer while my coffee brews” pattern. (Note: for those of you who are typing because you need to, for any reason, you do you!) 

The first few days of doing the Morning Pages, my hand really bothered me. Like many others my age (and others who work at a computer all day), I have significant finger and joint issues, especially on my “mouse” hand (which is also my writing hand). I am used to a good bit of finger pain, but I was shocked at how my fingers hurt the first week, both during the writing and after. I draw and work in my sketchbook every single day with a pen and yet somehow writing longform, at relative speed, for the (short) time it takes to fill three pages took some getting used to. (I even found myself experimenting with different grips in the early days.) With repetition, this has gotten better. But I also don't try to write neatly. My goal with these pages has nothing to do with creating something for someone else to read. These pages do not need to be pretty or tidy. I accept that my writing is scrawled, with speed being more important to me than being able to clearly read anything back. Even with this loose approach (which is the only way I can do this as an alternative to a keyboard), I experienced majorly sore fingers. 

But I did get to put a number of fountain pens and a lot of ink to use!

Three Pages

The cornerstone of Morning Pages, other than that they are "first thing in the morning" and done by hand, is that they are three pages. As noted above, I do find this random. I'm exactly doing this, however. I'm filling three pages. My pages are not A4 (or printer paper sized). Instead, I'm working in a composition book, so the pages are a bit smaller (B5). I'm just going along with this and filling 3 pages. I time my writing. I stop at 3 and consider it a morning session done. (Again, these rules are very arbitrary.)

Enlightenment

I don’t know if I will experience any of what she suggests happens as a byproduct or benefit of Morning Pages. But I don’t know that I need that to happen either. The bit of writing each day is helping me simply get down the contours of the days in a tangible form. I like that every morning I can, in a few sentences or more, mention whatever happened the day before. I like that. I know those details would be lost otherwise. It’s a very simple facet of the Morning Pages that they invite you to record simple details from the day before.

Artist Date

It was a surprise for me to realize what Artist Dates are all about in the context of Cameron. Through the elementary school years, my son and I would go for artist dates together, and that usually involved a coffee shop and coffee for me, a warm drink and something sweet for him, and maybe even a scone for me all those years ago. (Coffee shops, in general, are something that were "all those years ago," a different lifetime in so many ways. But back then, we were able to, and we did.) We would take our art supplies (sketchbook and pen for me and sketchbook and Tombow markers for him) and draw. He often worked on scenes for a graphic novel or a comic, or whatever kind of drawing he was doing at the time. For me and my young artist, these were “artist dates.”

Cameron’s Artist Dates are solo excursions, and they are a way to fuel and rekindle your supply of inspiration. It was interesting for me to read her summary of the Artist Date and realize that is, by and large, what I am doing when I go and deliberately wander at the library. (Many of you have heard me talk about this through the years and recently.) It was nice to see from someone else’s vantage how this kind of simple change of scene can be important. The place you go may be very different. Maybe you have a museum or a favorite bookstore or a coffee shop or a local garden or botanical garden. For me, the key to doing this is to make it super simple and free. While there are some places I might go that would really offer extra inspiration, I can't always work that into my week. I will mostly be looking at the Artist Date as something very simple I can do without really "going out of my way" to do it.

Daily Quota

Cameron advocates a daily quota, time spent writing “on a project," separate from the writing you do for your Morning Pages. Unless you are a working writer, I hope you don't overthink this.

As someone working on a wide range of writing projects in my off-time, including this newsletter, I know that a quota, target, goal, or some other accountability system can sometimes be helpful. This is why NaNoWriMo works so well for many people (myself included).  What I found surprising in Write for Life is how small the suggested "daily quota" is and the insistence on limiting yourself to that. She suggests two or three pages, depending on the kind of project you are writing. Two or three pages sounds like a very light goal. It might be enough for some, and you are to set your own quota, but to me, this idea of a "daily quota" didn’t seem like a challenge.

That you are to limit yourself to the quota was really off-putting for me:

”Restless? Feeling you could do more? Resist the temptation. Slow and steady wins the race” (p14). 

Writing Stations 

I didn’t explore this. For the moment, the place I do my morning writing has become very set. Since I don't plan to write anything else by hand, other than a daily list, I do a lot of writing at my computer. I also write in other places with a small keyboard and my phone. But I didn't go down the path of writing stations at this point.

Inner Writer and Adult Self

If you have thoughts on this section, feel free to leave them in the comments.

My adult self is the one writing my pages.

Yes and No

“Writing is powerful. It is an act of bravery. As we write, we tell ourselves the truth about how we are—and how we feel. We give the universe our coordinates. ‘I am precisely here.’ We give the universe permission to act on our behalf. When we write, we experience synchronicity. Our ‘luck’ improves. Writing is a spiritual path. With each word, we take another step forward. Writing has wisdom in it. It takes courage to see ourselves and our world more clearly. Writing is a commitment to honesty. On the page, in black and white, we see the variables we are dealing with. Writing is a lifeline" (p 8-9).

There are a lot of good things in that paragraph. I loved the "give the universe our coordinates" idea when I first ran into it in this paragraph. It appears again here: “Writing Morning Pages is like sending a telegram to the universe. We give our precise coordinates: here, and how, I am. The universe, in response, acts on our behalf. Although we may not call it that, we have sent a prayer. Implicit in each day’s pages is the request ‘please help me,’ and the universe does” (p 27).

This second quote was off-putting for me and gets a mental warning flag.

And, again, in case you missed it: "Pages tutor us in courage. They change the trajectory of our lives to one of daring. My pages are a telegram to the universe. I know from years of morning writing that these telegrams do not go unanswered” (p 12).

Ultimately

Again, I don’t know that I would say I have had any amazing revelations so far, but the habit itself, and the sense that I am again simply journaling in a way that I haven’t consistently in a while, has been empowering. Reclaiming a bit of my morning (before work) has also been really important (and probably really healthy) for me. Overall, I simply feel really good to be doing this again and to be both writing down things I would otherwise forget and looking at each day, around me, and out the window with open eyes.

There were some things in chapter 1 that I really didn't like (and didn't talk about here). But, I am ready to read chapter 2. I look forward to seeing what you thought and felt this week.

How Did Your Week Go?

• How did you feel about the things you tried this week?

• Did you do all four things: Morning Pages, Daily Quota, two or more walks, and at least one Artist Date?

• Did having a structure for these things, a sense of needing to weave them into the week and check them off, feel comfortable to you? Was this framework helpful?

• How did you fulfill the Artist Date? She asks in the “Check In” questions: “Did you experience synchronicity, optimism, or a sense of a benevolent higher power?” (p 31).

• Are you working on an additional project that you will be tracking for the “Daily Quota”? What quota did you set for yourself, and did you find it helpful this week?

• Where do you write? Did you find a primary writing station for your morning pages, or did you move around day to day? Did you also write in other spaces this week?

• What do you hope to get out of this book?

Feel free to comment below in response to any of these questions or anything you read.

Into Week 2 we go!

Aside: I had dictated some of my notes, and I ran across this funny typo when I went back to review: “Increased productivity is a common fruit of mourning peaches." 

(As a reminder, the discussion is not a forum for advertising or marketing your writing projects.)