Morning Pages
I was listening to Tim talking to Brian Koppelman on his podcast. I was interested in listening to Brian as he is one of the creators of the TV show Billions. It's a fun little show that has built a fascinating world. I was introduced to the pronoun "They/Them" for the first time through the show.
Brian was talking about his writing practice and habits that help him write well. One habit was the Morning Pages. He wrote them every day and recommended them to everyone who is a creator.
I read this excellent piece in The New York Times about Julia Cameron, the creator of Morning Pages. It's a good primer on the writing practice.
Morning Pages is writing your stream of consciousness first thing in the morning without judgement. It doesn't matter what you write. It doesn't have to be good. You sit and write until you cannot.
It helps you express the ideas that are taking up space in your mind. It's like emptying cache memory so that your system can run faster.
I started writing morning pages in the middle of 2020. Julia recommends writing using pen and paper. I filled up two long notebooks writing three pages every day. It felt like writing a journal at first. The same topics kept repeating. I wasn't sure if it was helping. I persisted without knowing the benefit I was acquiring.
I wrote three pages every day. Writing using pen and paper made me slow down my thinking process. It helped. I did try to write it on Notion, but it felt like cheating. Since then, I have moved on to writing on the laptop. I recommend doing what works for you.
In the beginning, it will be a venting space, and slowly it becomes a place where you write your silly ideas, and then you explore those ideas in detail. I strongly recommend writing morning pages.