Do you consider morning pages/journaling "writing"?
I'm curious, if you do something like journaling or Morning Pages (as per Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way): What's your take on the relationship of that practice to your writing in general?
Do you consider journaling/MPs "writing"? If yes, or no, why or why not?
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8 comments
• Jul '24
I'm happy to start:
I've been doing Morning Pages most days for about eight years now. They have become a key practice for my mental and emotional well-being and a prerequisite for "proper" writing most days.
Morning Pages keep my writing muscles limber and "floss my brain" so that the writing that's intended for publication can flow better. But in my mind, because they're not meant to be edited, or seen by anyone but myself, MPs don't "count" as writing. I don't include the word count for those in my tracking. They're written, for sure, and they ARE writing in that I feel "off" if I don't do them several days in a row, (I'm a writer, after all), but in my mind, they're kind of their own thing.
And I'm really curious about how others here feel about their practices.
2
• Aug '24
I believe them to be - anytime you put words on the page, you are writing. It doesn’t need to be a story.
Thinking about your writing also counts
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• Aug '24
As a single mother of two young children, I oscillate from needing morning pages to vent and needing the time that doing my morning pages would take to actually "write" so in that sense, I don't really consider them writing, no...
But maybe seeds of writing emerge there (which hasn't happened to me yet)
1
• Aug '24
Oh my, hard relate on the venting!
Hang in there! I found that parenting *did* get easier when mine got older. Different needs, sure, new learning, but they don't need me as 24/7 anymore as they used to.
0
• Sep '24
why not find a mentorship that can help you on writing and publishing your book
I think that will be easy way for you
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• Sep '24
Generally I believe all writing counts as writing. And if the content of your morning pages is something you want to write about, all the better. I am not a good candidate for Morning Pages. I tried it for years but some combination of rumination and an inability to stop after 10 minutes (bipolar 2) meant I was just indulging my worst anxiety and most negative thoughts and fears first thing in the morning. I became frozen before I even started the day. I do better with a standard journaling practice - anytime of day when I need to vent or find an answer about why I feel what I’m feeling. Those journals have been useful in memoir writing. (I suppose my Morning Pages might be useful for fiction? A horror short story?) If you’re a word count kinda person, I think Cameron’s original intentions was that MP do not go to word count, but it’s your life - you make your own rules.
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• Nov '24
I count it as writing, but not writing writing. It's part of my process and poems do come out of ideas and phrases I've journaled, but if that's all I do then I'm not happy with my writing progress.
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I’m too tired for that. I work a lot, and I dream of starting to do journaling or Morning Pages and enjoying it.
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Rebecca Erlewein
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Do you consider morning pages/journaling "writing"?
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