Summertime. No childcare (in the form of school). We did three weeks of camp and now those are over. Mostly, the kids are around, reading, playing, fighting, bored, or on adventures with us—whether that’s playing ball in the field down the road or taking a road trip across the state. There’s a measure of chaos in summer, and it’s forced me to explore what in my writing habit is, well, habitual, a sacred part of my routine, and what has to go on vacation when we do. It’s forced me to go back to that old friend morning pages.
Morning pages (from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way) are three handwritten pages I fill up in my journal, writing anything and everything: my thoughts, fears, worries, delights, descriptions of the recent or long-ago past or the very room I am in. Word play. Thoughts about my current novel.
Although it doesn’t always happen this way, I try to do these pages right after I meditate, and I try to let much in before I do either of these activities. No email. No social media. Little in the way of reading, even—something inspiring but nothing distracting, nothing that makes me want to be someone other than me.
I get up early, before everyone else, shower, dress, meditate and write. But this ability to sneak in some writing early in the morning fluctuates in summer, too. It depends on what time the kids get up and how hungry they are and what else I have going on and how much I prepared the night before.
What it and mediation do not depend on is my mood. If I feel like it. That’s a path it does me no good to go down. Whether I feel like it is irrelevant. I can write about not feeling like it when I write. I can notice and breathe through not feeling like it when I meditate. And as with all feelings, it runs away as soon as I refuse to give it all my attention. Another feeling surfaces and another.
It’s summer. The days unfold in a leisure that delights us right up until it frustrates us, when luxury suddenly becomes boredom. And for me, it’s going with the flow until I realize that the flow is just a flood on a plane and I need some kind of groove to keep moving in any direction.
How are summer or other shifts in schedule and demands impacting your writing these days? What do you do to stay connected to your projects? To find balance? Post below; let’s talk.
Luckily I have a deadline which is foremost in my mind. 11 days to go.
Just back from L. A. That squirrely feeling is emerging because I haven’t written in a bit. Two days is about my limit. With three I’m off into the mental hinterland and not a part of myself –if that makes any sense. I love what I call my journaling, an evolution from those morning pages.. It’s a gradual entry back into the world of Rehab and writing and once again getting acquainted with my writerly self.
What you say makes total sense, Bree, and is such a wonderful articulation of that uncomfortable state of not writing. Deadlines are so helpful, aren’t they? And remembering that starting is the hardest part, and when we step away, we have to start again, sometimes again and again, especially in this summer season. Journaling our way in–like tunneling our way in–can be so helpful. Thanks!