Word By Word, Page After Page

The background - How a book was stuttering and stalling in the process of its creation and how an exercise called “Morning Pages” started to rescue it from the throes of stagnation.

Before I go further, I need to introduce you to two people - Sridevi Datta and Julia Cameron. Sridevi introduced me out of the blue to Julia’s website. Because I was an author, lost and groping-in-the-dark in the process of my self-creation, and I was in need of rescuing. 

“I write therefore I am” (hey, that can serve as an informal intro) and I was failing to be for want of a well-knit work of writing that people could read and relate to.

I must mention here that Sridevi, who had read a few of them, had urged me, to compile into a book, the collected material from 33 essays I had written in response to some fascinating questions on India and Hindu thought, posed by undergraduate students of Maine Maritime Academy. Therefrom had emerged and grown my sense of myself as author, from mere writer@large. I did follow her advice in a modified way and started writing the oft-mentioned book-in-the-works.

The Advent of “Pages”

Sridevi had been battling her own creative drought and happenstance sent Julia her way, an invaluable resource she promptly shared with me.

“Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*– they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything on the page…and then do three more pages tomorrow”

I realized I had been doing this already, for some years, though not in a regular way. I listened to the video and it seemed so simple, I felt a breath of spring had rushed through me. This was it and I was going to follow her to a T and allow myself to write all the rubbish that came to mind. I felt like someone had handed me the key and I just needed to follow the map I drew through my daily 750-word-dose, in order to find my way.

Pages/Not Pages 

How the exercise shaped for real, is a different story. What emerged on the Pages was a pleasant surprise, indeed so pleasant that I was swiftly hooked to the process. I began to share the daily pages with a handful of friends who enjoyed them. While an occasional rant or list of chores tucked itself into the text, it merged comfortably into the flow of words. I was getting addicted to the exercise and was turning out Pages morning, noon and night. I received some incredibly encouraging feedback from these readers - themselves wonderful writers.

Meanwhile Sridevi was feeling the effects of the exercise too. She had followed Julia’s advice a lot more closely and was clearly reaping the benefits of using longhand on paper. “To-day I completed 12 days of MP. And I feel a paradigm shift deep within. The mental blocks, the writing blocks are getting cleared,” she reported, and was finding the stillness needed to recharge and awaken her creativity.

Writings that get lost - or are they writings that wander?

Epic distraction morphed into addiction. A stage came that found me living to write these “pages” and sadly, my mind started switching off from the book that was meant to be written.  Realizing this I set a conscious intention to switch this exercise into one of writing three pages of the book with the same compulsive rhythm. Alas a mega travel planning project intervened altering my frequencies. Of that another time.
I began switching off from all systematic writing, as if the creative surge had petered out the way some streams do, losing themselves in a desert or a marsh. It’s like I had reversed the process to the stage of writing impulsive rants and to-do lists that the exercise was supposed to have been for starters. I was angry but I told myself happy writing days would return. The pages became erratic but when I did write with focus, the ink flowed easily and I would feel happy and reassured by the result. Perhaps another compulsive daily activity, more closely aligned with travel - The Trails -  was  claiming these creative energies on a different playground? 

The Very Readable Contents - and more coming 

Did I start by telling you that this exercise was not meant to produce results of any literary/artistic merit? And that nonetheless they did in my case, from the very start? Whereas I had effortlessly adopted Julia’s rhythm and discipline, my creative spring was activated from the word go. So Morning Pages weren’t Morning Pages at all! They were segments of a larger body of writing and they evolved as I wrote, finding their purpose. After months of not having written these pages, one day I effortlessly picked the thread up and realize that a secret Arachne had been continuing to weave in my absence.

All those bits and pieces of writing in conversations with friends, mails, comments and random posts, were all part of the design. All those apparently miscarried offspring were safe and alive in storage. They continued to carry the potential for coming to life, like frozen embryos banked for the future. They were not lost, just awaiting their time and place.

I am back. In the first instance I am about to share what I wrote in the autumn of 2016. They feel timeless and perfect for any autumn. I am reordering, grouping, merging, to connect with a far larger audience. And they will appear on the space Unwritten so they can be accessed by the public. The first of them is already posted there and quite a few more are about to tumble aft. Meanwhile there are new posts in the making so perhaps I will alternate between old and new or start by creating a theme for the festive season. I am back to writing the book (the aforementioned 33 essays et al) code-named “A Night’s Tale.” The story of how it took its present shape is tucked away in one of the many pages that will be posted. 

Look forward with me. The best is yet to be!