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How Routine Fuels Creativity—And So Does Breaking The Routine
Guest post from Kelly Morgan, reposted from her substack with permission
For over thirty years, I’ve written morning pages, a form of journaling made famous by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Your Higher Creativity.
Julia’s guidelines for the morning pages? As soon as you wake up, hand-write three 8×11 pages, stream of consciousness, every single day. Seven days a week. I even heard a rumor Julia used to roll over in bed and start writing.
So, I’ll admit it: I’ve cheated with the morning pages. A lot. Long before I met my husband.
Instead of writing in bed or jumping straight into writing the pages, I’d get dressed, drive to the coffee shop, order my café au lait and chocolate muffin, chat with people, and only then start writing—about an hour later than Julia’s guidelines suggested.
When it came to size of the journal, I played around there too. Some days I wrote in my 5×7 notebooks, or on a napkin. On other days, I doodled, wrote big, and allowed a single word to take up an entire line. Occasionally, I double-spaced my handwritten lines — just for fun.
And some days, instead of stream-of-consciousness, I wrote poems. Sometimes, I didn’t write at all.
But here’s the thing: Julia gives us guidelines, not rules.
Over the years, my relationship with the guidelines has changed. When I deviated from them, at first, my Perfectionist wasn’t happy. She turned them into RULES instead of guidelines. She can be a real piece of work when it comes to rules—but hey, she helped me get good grades in college
When I first began to write the pages, she bossed me around, and I tried to listen.
But then she nagged me for being a “bad” morning page writer. When I still didn’t do what she wanted, she shamed me, claiming I was a bad person that nobody loved or would ever love.
Ohhh. My perfectionist can be nasty. I vented about her in the morning pages. That quieted her down. Still, she jabbered on, day after day.
That’s when my Inner Rebel kicked in. And she likes it when I cheat.
Now, I don’t rebel by cheating on my husband, but in creativity, cheating is healthy. It’s called experimentation, play, spontaneity.
Julia gave us guidelines for a reason, but sometimes, the inner perfectionist turns the guidelines into rules that act like overbearing bosses.
Sure, sometimes I need to be bossed around. That way, structure AND creativity, which need room to breathe, make mistakes, or politically incorrect jokes, balance each other out.
Allowing the Perfectionist and the Rebel to duke it out in my morning pages has been a gift. It breaks through the fear, so I can both jump-start my creativity and finish what I start. That way, I can follow the rules AND trust myself enough to break them when I need to.
What about you? Have you written the morning pages, and just as importantly, have you cheated on them? If so, how so. Have you done them perfectly? What’s working or not working for you? This inquiring mind would love to know.
Before I Leave to Eat Lunch — The Conclusion:
It’s okay to cheat on your morning pages. In fact, I encourage it.
Julia’s guidelines are great for getting started, but they’re not rules. The real goal is to free yourself from perfectionism. To give yourself permission to be a Rebel.
So follow Julia’s suggestions AND trust yourself enough to follow your own.
As for my husband? I plan on staying faithful.
But the morning pages? Well, we’ve learned to live with each other’s cheating.
Kelly Morgan is a journalist, and poet who facilitates creativity and writing workshops for those who are in search of meaning and a blissful, well-lived life.
You can find more of her writing at https://kellymmorgan.substack.com/
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