The Morning Pages

If you're a writer who's blocked, or an actor who hasn't auditioned for anything for a while (I've been both), then I highly recommend the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. The last time I read the book, it resulted in an unpublished novel -- lost now, unfortunately -- which I really loved, called Porchlight's Travels. My writing career, such as it was, was de-railed by a whole host of realities, most of them happy ones, like marriage and career success and children. Now, years later, I have "picked up" the book again (in quotation marks because I picked it up virtually, by downloading it onto my Kindle). The book is full of great tidbits; I especially like all the inspirational quotations, perfect for tweets and FB status updates. But really the best, most useful aspect of the book is its simplest one, called "the morning pages." I hope I'm not infringing on any copyrights here; I really just want to sing Ms. Cameron's praises for putting down on paper something so obvious. If you're blocked (or even if you're not, eventually), make sure to sit down first thing in the morning, open up your journal and just write. Three pages, at least. And that's it. It's so simple, but I'll tell you something: It works. Those of you who have been tuning in to this blog have noticed it. I started reading the book at the beginning of this year, and my creative output has been, at the risk of overstating it, explosive. I'm coming up with ideas, writing every day, and going on auditions. (More on that later, as it develops.) Try it out if you don't believe me. Find the time in the morning, and see what happens. Then let me know.