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Are you a hand-writter or a typer?

I started working through The Artist's Way this week, part of which involves doing what is called "Morning Pages". Basically what you do is, first thing every morning, you hand-write three pages. No more, no less. It's supposed to like... unblock your creativity... or something.

Although... as a card-carrying night owl, this totally terrifies me. How can I do anything first thing in the morning before my coffee, let alone write three pages long-hand? While I appreciate the novelty of such things, it's been awhile since I've actually hand-written anything.

(Thank you, Internet).

I thought maybe doing my Morning Pages on the computer instead of hand-writing might work better for me. I made the mistake of mentioning this idea to someone who's been doing Artist's Way off and on for decades. Apparently this is NOT the way "real" Artist's Way students are supposed to do their Morning Pages. It's like... a rule... or something. Which got me thinking... does it really matter to the creative process whether you hand-write or type?

After discussing this with one of my blog friends, I'm starting to think that maybe it really does matter. Maybe that's the whole point... getting in touch with physically creating something again, even if it's just three pages of pre-coffee scribbles. So I'm going to try it. At least for a week.

I know, I know, I'm supposed to commit to it for the full 12-weeks that the book outlines, but I need to trick my Internet-shortened attention span. Lol. Chances are it'll be awesome and I'll keep doing it. ;)

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What about you - are you a hand-writer or a typer? Have you ever worked through The Artist's Way? Did it help your creative process?

Comments

  1. As that aforementioned blog friend *cough* I figure I'll weigh in officially and publicly on the highly debated Morning Pages practice.

    I'm a big believer in if something isn't working for you as prescribed, it's better to make the necessary modifications to your process so you'll do it than to get obsessed with perfection and not do it at all.

    While I certainly understand the arguments as to why it might be optimal to do morning pages first thing after you wake up and handwritten, I can see perfectly valid arguments for not wanting to do them that way as well.

    For me personally, morning pages are something I hate doing first thing after waking up. The internal voice I tap into at that time of day is cranky and persuasive. She does not want to be doing morning pages. She does not want to be awake. I don't know how many times I've woken up, gotten to my desk to write my morning pages and immediately upon finishing crawled right back into bed and slept for another 3 or 4 hours that I probably wouldn't have slept if I'd let my brain warm up on it's own. I think it's important that I give that part of myself a voice every now and then, but since waking up in the morning is such a struggle... I don't really like getting into an internal fight with myself over whether or not I should be awake, my gut says that it's not helpful.

    I find I get a lot more out of bedtime pages instead... I've got a similarly cranky internal voice when I'm ready to go to bed, but unlike my morning voice, my bedtime voice wants to talk.

    I think in general, changing up time of day and changing up medium mixes things up... I come up with such vastly different things in the morning than in the evening, when I'm typing vs when I'm writing in my paper journal...

    I think what's most important is you just write and go with your gut... Be damned what anyone else thinks.

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