The Sound of Paper

[pegkerr]

kijjohnson gave me Julie Cameron's The Sound of Paper for my birthday. It seems to be a book about regenerating the creative process if you've been blocked, and god knows, that is up my alley. I started reading it and did the first exercise tonight.

I have mixed feelings about Julie Cameron. I read The Artist's Way and there were parts of that book that really spoke to me. But I cannot get her conception of the morning pages to work for me. (Write three pages longhand every morning, before you get out of bed, about anything, no matter what). She swears that it will Unlock the Font of Creativity within you. I tried, I really did. I did them religiously for months. But as you'll remember, I've been doing a daily journal every night (one page) for going on thirty years. Three pages in the morning seemed redundant (especially since I was doing LiveJournal, too), and I didn't have time. And I couldn't understand what was so magical about them, when I've been doing practically the same thing at night. I wasn't getting the Magical Unlocking of Your Creativity that she swore would happen, and I kept wondering "What's wrong with me?"

Finally, it occurred to me that I had written two perfectly good novels that sold without doing morning pages. (Well, duh.) I stopped doing them immediately and have never resumed, although I still do the night (paper) journal and LiveJournal. I don't miss the morning pages, and it was a relief to cut one other source of guilt out of my life. However, I still remain blocked.

I like her idea of the artist date, though, and I did really like some of the exercises in The Artist's Way. I really must scan the collage I made and post it. She suggested taking pictures and phrases from magazines and pasting them on a page for about an hour. I really got into it and worked on it for about a week. I liked the result so much that I laminated it when I was through. I'm really quite proud of it, and it's still up where I can see it in my office.

So anyway, I'll read and try the exercises in this new book, and try to be open and hopeful.

But no morning pages, dammit.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Are there books that have exercises on figuring out what comes next? You seem to have interesting situations and characters, and go mad trying to figure out the story. I'm rather thoroughly unable to do this, which is why I don't write fiction.

Seems to me that the act of writing isn't where you're blocked. You write interesting stuff every day.

K.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that the act of writing isn't where you're blocked. You write interesting stuff every day.

And I wholeheartedly second this.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Write three pages longhand every morning, before you get out of bed, about anything, no matter what

This reminds me of an exercise one of my high school English teachers had us do one semester. The first 10 minutes were spent writing as much as we possibly could (longhand, of course), about anything that came to mind. I can only assume it was for a similar purpose. He'd put a phrase, question or keyword on the board at the start of each period, and we could (but weren't obliged to) use it as a jumping off point. I stumbled across that notebook a few years back, and what was immediately noticeable was that I was using that time to write things like "I wonder how much time is left?" and "This is stupid" and "Hmm, what can I say about today's keyword?" and minor things about the day. Very amusing in retrospect, but hardly profound, nor did it have any impact that I could see on my creativity or ability to write something else. Now, granted, that was a time limit, not a page limit, and we were encouraged to write constantly in that time, not sit and think a lot, but still - I can see how the forced "write about anything" time doesn't work for everyone.

A more helpful bit of advice for specific writing projects came from heinous_bitca, who suggested that if I was struggling with a story, to write at least three sentences every day for it, even if they sucked. Something about how, once you get three sentences in, your brain often writes one more, and one more, and soon you have two paragraphs. Sometimes I got more and sometimes it was only the three sentences, but at least it was forward progress of some sort.

[cheshyre]

Did you guys see yesterday's Dilbert?

[aome.livejournal.com]

*laughs* No, I didn't. Our paper recently moved Dilbert to the Business section, which I tend not to read on Mondays (no fund updates). Thanks for pointing it out.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

I have the first three of Cameron's books, and I agree with you about the morning pages. I have done variants (she insists they have to be three 8.5 by 11 pages; given the size of my handwriting, that's almost six pages by someone else, so I've used smaller books), but they really haven't been as effective as the artist date, or, as you point out, some of the other exercises.

I must say, though, that her description of "crazymakers" helped clarify a lot in my life. Being able to read that someone else recognized those patterns and that I wasn't naturally crazy... wow.

[charlietudor.livejournal.com]

I end up skipping huge hunks of Cameron because of all the religious claptrap in them. Those books would be a helluva lot stronger without all that, IMHO, because I find it deeply off-putting. I'm willing to admit, though, that that might just be me, and I know some folks who find the spirituality aspect valuable. I just find it a huge waste of my reading and thinking time.

So....might LJ count as morning pages? I realized about a year ago that a lot of what I'm doing here on line is really warming up for what needs to go onto the page, and days when I don't post, I often don't write as much.

[odyssea.livejournal.com]

I agree about those types of writing exercises. My playwriting professor loved Natalie Goldberg's idea of "practice writing", which amounts to just about the same thing. I never bothered to do it, because I cannot stand useless writing. I always felt that I should save my time, energy and creativity to write on something worthwhile.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

I still strongly suspect that doing morning pages was what caused my going-on-four-years writer's block -- because morning was the only time I could count on for fiction writing. Morning pages ate the time I would've otherwise used for my own stories, and I ended up out of the habit of writing fiction and still haven't been able to get back into it.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The idea of being awake enough in the morning to handle a pen or keyboard, much less write anything, doesn't work with my metabolism; unless she meand "stay in bed until noon and then write something", which would be murder on the day job.

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

I tried doing the morning pages, too, and also found them to be mostly redundant for someone keeping a paper journal plus an online blog. I think it helped me occasionally to get out some of the overwhelming stress about work that I was dealing with in the mornings, but I have since gotten a new job that does not cause me to almost cry in the shower every morning, which seems like a better solution than writing about the stress. I also thought a lot of her ideas (especially in the introductory chapter rang true but some of the exercises she proscribed were more frustrating than anything else. I quite fairly early, after trying to not read anything at all for a week as proscribed. Feh. Life without reading is not life and I'm not giving it up just because a book from the self help section tells me to. *sulks*

[tiellan.livejournal.com]

I read TAW too, with mixed results -- partly due to mixed effort, admittedly. I had a hard time with Morning Pages too, but I wasn't journalling anywhere except for LJ (at least, not consistently). I'm not reading TAW again, but I'm trying to actually do morning pages now, even if I can't get them done in the morning, because when I did feel creative I was journalling consistently, so I'm hoping that journalling regularly will help. I'd be real curious to hear about your thoughts/successes/challenges with this new Cameron book, if you feel like sharing them!

[demarazare.livejournal.com]

I found The Artist's Way about a month ago and tried doing the morning pages. I did not keep at them consistently - I did them one day, then skipped a few days, then did them again two days in a row - but in the process of doing them I came upon the idea I needed to get unstuck on my novel. So I stopped doing the morning pages and went to the book.

I think the morning pages are for people who won't otherwise write at all. You and several of the people commenting here complain because it cuts into your writing time, which I think is a fantastic sign of your own dedication. Consequently I don't think you NEED the morning pages.

It seems like the people she teaches the course to and is directed at are middle-aged people who haven't written since college, or a would-be creative who went for the money career and lost their creative self along the way, or people with severe creative depression/guilt who don't go near a word processor, paper, or canvas if they can help it.

Overall I think it has some neat ideas in it, and I want to continue to go through it when I am stalled on the novel and less busy. I don't expect that every part of it will be wonderuflly helpful, though, especially as someone else said above, the vague religious overtones irritate me sometimes.

But of course the artist date sounds fantastic - though I don't see why, if I have a friend who, say, wants to go to an art museum, that doesn't count because I am not going alone.

If you were really pleased with your collage, why not do another one? At an SCBWI meeting last summer in my area we made story collages, and we were encouraged to put anything that reminded us of our characters, scenery, key items, etc onto a posterboard. Some of them came out really neat, and it might give you another outlet to think about your book without thinking about writing the perfect words. I still have mine on top of my bookshelf, and when I started my next project I tacked images up on my bulletin board for a less permanant version of the same thing.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I really like your idea of doing a collage based on the book I'm working on. If I have the leisure time, I just might try it (don't hold your breath, though; leisure time is in rather short supply around here.)