avatarAmy Sea

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Writing tips

Add Medium to your Morning Pages

Part One Julia Cameron, Part Two Medium

Photo by Keren Fedida on Unsplash

I’m sure you’ve heard about morning pages, but have you heard about Medium Pages?

Morning pages, made famous by Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing. They are seen as essential to harnessing your most creative self. Morning pages spiritually clean out your closet, remove those nagging spider webs, and wipe the shit off your proverbial shoes.

Julia Cameron calls them “The bedrock tool of a creative recovery.”

Let’s face it, creative people are always in recovery. Recovery from the world that we act out through our creations. I love morning pages. They’re awesome, but they’re only the beginning.

What do you do after you’ve accomplished step one, cleaned up your muddy mind, and you’re ready for creative action? Where to now? Where’s the party?

I say, let Medium be your part two!

PART TWO

  1. Refill your coffee
  2. Open your Medium
  3. Click on your face
3. Click on your face

4. Click on Write a Story

4. Click on Write a story

5. First thing that comes to mind, make it a title. I don’t care if the title is “Dan’s didn’t wash the dishes last night.” Might be Comedy. Might be Feminism. Might be a Relationship. Might be an Open Letter. Keep at it.

5. You can change the title, the kicker, and the subtitle later. You’re still brainstorming

6. Done with Dan? Exhausted that topic? While your writing, it’s inevitable, something else will come up for you. Awesome. More material! Make sure your work is saved and move on.

6. see the Saved button next to your name on left.

7. Open a new Write a Story. Maybe while you were writing about Dan not doing the dishes, you started thinking about how baseball and Georgia. Title that Story whatever comes to mind. Don’t overthink the title. Think of the title as a post-it note, a place saver. You can change it later. Write this piece until something else comes up for you.

7. Keep making temporary titles as placeholders.

8. Repeat starting new stories three to five times. You can also set a timer for five to ten minutes per idea, depending on how much time you have to write. If you have half an hour, set the timer for five minute increments. Spend five minutes on each new idea.

8. Now you have three to five new drafts that you can play with when you’re brain is blank. Think of your drafts as your writer’s prompts.

I have 961 ideas I can sift through on a day my brain refuses to work for me. It’s like an idea photo album.

8. You can always clean out your drafts later, if you’re inner Marie Kondo is flinching.

But, if you’re like me, all those drafts remind you that there’s a lot of goodies up in the attic, and you’re never going to run out of material.

Writing Advice
Julia Cameron
Morning Routines
Writing
Morning Pages
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