Friday, October 10, 2008
Posts Tagged ‘morning pages’
I think you guys were an inspiration yesterday. For whatever reason, after I ranted about the pages, I went back, picked an idea and tried writing about it just to get something moving. I ended up with about a paragraph’s worth of “writing” (a real paragraph, not the two-sentence run-on that constitutes a paragraph in the mind of my 7th graders), and an urge to play with an idea for my heroine.
Twenty minutes later I reluctantly put away my notebook to head to school. Success!
Today while walking Omar (my girl dog with a boy’s name), I had a thought directly related to the heroine and something she said to the hero. Came home, grabbed the notebook and captured FIVE PAGES of writing. The first one is morning page stuff, dream notes, a song I woke up with in my head (do you ever do that?), and one line from my heroine to my hero in the first or second scene of the book: “Stop that! I hardly know you!”
Little does she know (time travel that it is) that they do, in fact, know each other. Quite well, as a matter of fact…lol.
Just stopping by to thank you and see how your writing is going today/this week. How’s the work coming?
Thursday, October 9, 2008
when morning pages are like pulling teeth
If you’re a writer, you’ve no doubt heard of Julia Cameron and her famous morning pages at some point or another. You know, those morning kick-starts where you sit down, half-sleepy and half-conscious and write out your soul on paper?
I did those for a while when the notion first came out. Did quite a bit, but decided I’d rather spend that time working on a novel or two. But in this last writing funk, I’ve gone back to the Beth-version of morning pages (after a walk with the dog so not true morning pages) and it’s gotten me back into writing.
Except for today.
I’ve written about half a page of MP so far, and not another word will squeeze out. And today, surprisingly, nothing about my story. Aggravating. Every other day, I’ll start by listing dreams or bits of whatever, and a story connection will somehow pop up, but today all I’m left with is a newly filled fountain pen and a half-blank sheet of paper. I know I’m supposed to just keep writing something, over and over, til I get where I want to be, but I can’t muster the energy.
What do you do when morning pages don’t work?! I’m open to all types of creativity-tappers. Not writing block-busters. I’m not there, yet. Just that bit of gas you need to get the brain synapses firing…help!
It's pretty simple, really. I'm a writer who loves writing about writing, and sharing all the tricks of the trade with other writers. And when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. I have a hunch you know what I mean :)