Hi writer,

I’m the journaling type. I always have been, ever since I got my first, pink, lockable diary. (My sister broke the lock and read it! I can’t blame her—that was literally in the little sister job description.)

Decades later, there’s still nothing I love better than working out my problems on the page. But even so, I’ve never journaled exactly the way I want to.

Here’s how I want journaling to look:

I sit in a velvet-covered chaise longue. I’m wrapped in a rose-colored silk robe, my diary resting on an antique lap desk that perches comfortably on my legs. A cup of lapsang souchong steams near my elbow on the windowsill. The window is open to let in the colors of the sun rising over the sea, and my hair moves gently in the soft breeze in time with the windchimes. I dip my fountain pen into a glass jar of purple ink and write, allowing my sentences to unfurl onto the page like streaming ribbons. This is my journal, yes, but I know if anyone read it, they would be moved. They would be transformed.

Here’s how it looks in reality:

1. I can’t find my current journal.

2. Oh, yeah, it’s that tiny one I got in Muji for like two dollars that’s the size of a small envelope. It’s in the bottom of my purse, full of crumbs.

3. Pen? Pen! Sheesh. Why is this so hard?

4. Write the date. What IS the date. Can that really be the date?

5. Make a list of what I need to do.

6. Complain a little about something.

7. Complain more about something else.

8. Repeat 6 and 7 until a body part cramps.

9. Make a new list that will fix every one of these complaints.

10. Think, I wish my journals were gorgeous instead of full of crumbs. Sigh heavily.

11. Swear as the dog chases the cat across my thighs, spilling my now-cold tea in its chipped mug all over my whiny words.

A thing of transcendent beauty, my journaling.

By the number of journals I own, you’d think I wrote in them every day, but I don’t. I’m just like every other diarist—most of my notebooks are only half-full. Or less. Some only hold two or three entries before I abandoned journaling for another year or two, until I got so FULL UP that I had to have an outlet again.

Off to the stationery store we trot. New notebook, new pen, new me!

Fine, it never works like that.

But it helps.

Morning Pages

I love them! I’ve been doing them for years (from Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way).

And I totally cheat.

Julia says to write 3 pages by hand every morning. She says to write for 30 minutes.

But here’s how I do them, Bad-Girl style:

I write for as long as I need to, for a minimum of fifteen minutes. That could be one page in a big notebook or six pages in a tiny one.

30 minutes and 3 pages feels like a LOT for me in an already crowded life.

15 minutes, though? I can find that. It’s enough. (And it often goes longer because I’m not making myself write for longer.)

And Julia herself says: “Creative living requires the luxury of time, which we carve out for ourselves—even if it’s fifteen minutes for quick Morning Pages.” (p. 112)

See? Julia says 15 minutes is okay! (Wait. Do I still get credit for being a bad girl who breaks the rules?)

Her point: we must carve the time out for ourselves. No one else will do it for us.

My First Time

When I first did The Artist’s Way, I thought that:

• it would be impossible to find the time to do the morning pages and

• that doing them would take away all the time I planned to actually write.

Ironically, I was a person who wanted to be writing (but never actually wrote). It’s funny that I was worried about losing the time for the writing I wasn’t even doing.

But then I started doing them, and out of nowhere, I found more time to do my own writing, too! (At the time I was working four jobs and going to university full time.)

It was the frequency illusion in action. I was consciously looking for time to write my morning pages, so I also found even more time in my life to do the fiction writing.

Please, my dear writing pal. If you try one thing this year for your writing, consider trying daily-ish morning pages? 15-30 minutes, stream of consciousness babble on a page. It’s not for anyone but yourself. Use a computer if your hands won’t support hand-writing. Break the rules.

Carve out time to honor your creative self, and I promise that you’ll find even more time to use your creativity.

It doesn’t make sense. But it works.

Onward!

❤️ Rachael

Choose Your Own Rachael Adventure:

The Artist’s Way Club: Starts Aug 6th! You can do the whole book by yourself, of course! But if you want some friends along the way, it’s going to be so lovely to do it together! (And I’m going to write my pages daily, not daily-ish, for the time we’re together. 😂) All the info is HERE. Early bird pricing for 3 more days!

90 Days to Done / 90 Day Revision: The next session runs Oct 1 - Dec 31. Click above to get on the pre-alert list if you’re interested, as these often sell out quickly.

Ink Village: This is where we write together on Zoom (up to 14 hours a week). We chat in our private Slack about how and what we’re doing. Plus, you get a weekly Q and A (all questions are welcome!), and there are options for you to be edited or get coaching from me, one-on-one (limited availability). And Writing in the Junkyard is included!

Patreon: Each month, I write an exclusive essay about the creative life, and I pour my heart into each one. Just a buck a month! Binge all the past essays! (This is such a gorgeous way of showing support. Thank you.)

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PPS - As always, 100% human written, so please forgive the human typos! 🤦