Morning Pages: The Secret to Better Writing

"If I want to be a writer, I need to write."

That's what I started writing in my morning pages after weeks of reflecting on my own aspirations. Every morning as I sat at my dining table writing in my composition notebook, I wrote about the day before, goals, and end it with gratitude or an affirmation to help me kick off my day on a positive, and confident, note.

I remember in psychology class we learned about internal and external locus of control. People who attribute their success and failures based on their efforts and abilities have an internal locus of control whereas people who attribute their success and failures based on external factors, such as luck or fate.

This concept I learned about 12 years ago has really stuck with me. I like to think of myself as a pragmatist and do-er and not so much of an idealist. I acknowledge that there are other external factors that are beyond my control. (I even included the saying "Luck is what happens with preparation meets opportunity" in my article for The Penny Hoarder.) However, if there is something that I can do myself to get me closer to what I want, I will do it.

I've spent the last six months getting back into the routine of writing every day. I can say that I do write nearly every single day, and it's because of morning pages.

What are morning pages?

I first learned about morning pages in a sketch class. The instructor often started the class with writing exercises, and he brought up the concept of morning pages from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, which is supposed to be a book on how to bolster the creative process. I hear it's great, but I haven't read it.

Morning pages are three handwritten pages of stream of consciousness writing done first thing in the morning. It's a judgment-free zone. I write whatever. Some days it can be more of a journal or diary, other days it might be random musings, and some days it's just a place where I can jot down all of my mental lists.

When I first started doing it, I got wide-ruled notebooks and worked up to filling those three pages. Writing by hand was literally painful; I hadn't written much on paper since high school and college. But each day I continued and eventually my hand stopped hurting. I filled up a notebook or two, and I was very proud of myself.

Then I bought college-ruled paper for my next notebook (because honestly I hadn't noticed that I was using wide-ruled paper before until I saw the college-ruled pages). Working up to writing three pages in college-ruled was also a process. It could take me up to an hour. I had to build even more endurance in my hand.

Now I can write five or six pages every morning with ease. I can write for so long that I have started setting a timer to stop me from writing for too long. Sometimes I wonder if I write too much as a way to procrastinate on starting the rest of my day.

I very much enjoy having this quiet time, often before sunrise, with a cup of coffee and a freshly washed face. As I write, I look out the window to my backyard which faces east, and I can watch the morning reds and oranges paint the sky. It's a wonderful way to start the day.

One of my cats loves my morning pages routine. He will sit on my lap and rest his head and arms on my writing hand as he purrs happily – so I have also had to learn how to write with a very fat cat on me.

The benefits of morning pages

I have literally done zero research on whether any data exists on the topic, so this is all based on my own personal experience.

Morning pages help with anxiety. 

I'm naturally a very anxious person. It runs in my family. There's no use fighting it. But I do find that writing about the things that are own my mind helps to clear any negative or racing thoughts, and it also allows for more creative space in my brain. 

Before morning pages, I couldn't remember the last time I had a "showerthought," the epiphany or aha moment that lathering and rinsing (and sometimes repeating) seems to generate. Now I get ideas in the shower, in the car, walking to my office building, and my interval jogs around the neighborhood. 

I carry a notebook with me where I write down things that come to me when I'm away from my computer, and if I don't have that notebook near me, I'll add them as a note on my phone.

Morning pages help with goal setting.

Depending on what you make of your morning pages, it can help you focus on your goals. For me, I found myself writing the same thing over and over again: I want to be a writer. Ok, so do it.

That's when I started writing my affirmation, "If I want to be a writer, I need to write." That actually made me confront my habit of procrastinating (I'm still a master procrastinator) and has forced me to make room for writing in my life. 

It's also made me realize that I want to write everything and anything. I want to write articles for online and print publications, screenplays, jokes, sketches, novels, short stories – anything that I am inspired to write. There are no limits to my creativity.

Morning pages reinforce the habit of writing.

When I don't get to write my morning pages for whatever reason, I have this nagging thought "I have to write!" throughout the day. I carry my notebook with me often, so if I get a chance, I can take a 20-minute break and write a couple of pages.

However, don't let this habit be your only writing. It's easy to think that this is enough and give yourself a pat on the back. Do you want to be a writer that only writes content that no one reads? Or do you want to write something for public eyes? If you're writing because of the latter, morning pages are not enough.

Morning pages have made me a better (and faster) writer.

Writer's block is a form of procrastination, and procrastination if a symptom of perfectionism. Forcing myself to write in the morning, even when I feel like I have nothing to write about, has helped me push through the toughest of writing times. 

For example, articles used to take me 4-8 hours, depending on the topic. I hate writing introductions, so I would get stuck on the first few sentences, complicating the writing process. Now I just outline, skip around, and fill in gaps as I write. I don't feel compelled to write chronologically now. I embrace my scattered brain and use it to write more interesting content. I even broke a new personal record recently when I wrote an article in an hour and a half, and the final published version didn't have too many edits either. I attribute this to my morning pages habit.

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So, back to the locus of control concept... I know I went on a tangent, but I'm tying it all together now. I promise!

Writing is often romanticized. A lot of people say that they'd love to write a book or a screenplay or start a blog, but they never do it. People think that they haven't experienced enough heartbreak or struggle to write anything of note, or that they need to be in the mood to write, or that they can only write with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

There is every excuse in the world to not write.

The truth is, everything about writing is within your control. You can write anywhere, on everything, at any time. It doesn't have to be great (or even good). It just needs to have been written.

So, stop procrastinating, and start writing. Your future self will thank you for it.