TAW, Some Writing Quandries and Morning Pages

The Artist’s Way - hmmm, it seems that Julia Cameron’s TAW, published ten years back, has caused some controversy in some areas, particularly in the writing domain.

Here’s one writer, Scarlett Thomas, a published novelist, suggesting in the U.K. Woman’s Writing magazine, Mslexia that we -

Don’t bother with ‘morning pages.’ All that Dorothea Brande stuff – there is too much emphasis on writing about your childhood or using the most emotionally overwrought crap you can.

I thought to myself - who’s this Dorothea Brande woman, then?  A web search gave me the answer, and the controversy in some writer’s minds. Back in 2003, here’s a writer / blogger miffed by The Artist’s Way author calling the concept her own. In fact, Dorothea Brande, the author of a writing book, “Becoming a Writer” introduced the concept of morning pages some decades before Julia Cameron - in the 1930s.  As the blogger concerned points out, Julia does acknowledge Dorothea’s book in a later section of The Artist’s Way.

That blogger isn’t the only one suggesting that at least one of the concepts suggested within The Artist’s Way have been derived from elsewhere. I noticed myself that in Week 6 - the week I’m currently within, Julia Cameron proposes the usage of a corkboard of images for those primary desires of yours. The visual board (or put it up on a refrigerator) of dream images has been called many things over the decades - from visual dreamscapes, to simply a collection of images, dreamboards to Life Collages. Julia’s synchronicity message also struck me as straight out of The Celestine Chronicles, some books which I read a good ten years ago also, and which make some recommended reading elsewhere in books now talking about the concept of “Cosmic Ordering”.

Whomever first wrote of such concepts, I have little care for. The Artist’s Way is written for many types of creatives, and packages many concepts for those people - including writers. Or wannabe writers like me. But at least the Scarlett Thomas opinion to not do morning pages seems debated as it is, within the writer’s community itself.

Orna Ross, on the Font International blog, debates Scarlett’s opinions quite heftily. Regarding Morning Pages, Orna has this to say -

This leads her to dismiss a key creativity tool, in an even more clueless assertion than her anti-workshop diatribe: “Don’t bother with ‘morning pages’,” she says.  “All that Dorothea Brande stuff — there is too much emphasis on writing about your childhood or using the most emotionally overwrought crap you can.” 

As a great many writers who have reason to be indebted to them know, Morning Pages is the term used by Julia Cameron in her bestselling, The Artist’s Way, to describe the simple technique of writing three pages of whatever thoughts come to your head, freely and without self-consciousness, first thing each day. 

At Font, we use the term “F-R-E-E-Writing” to describe the similar method we endorse (see further details on our F-R-E-E-Writing Page at www.ornaross.com).  The emphasis is a little different to Cameron’s; we stress the need to write as fast as possible and take writing students through some other simple instructions around the process (F is for Fast, R is for Raw and E-E is for Exact-but-Easy).

Having had the privilege of working with hundreds of writers who between them have created thousands of amazing poems and stories, I can say that I have yet to see a single one who practiced F-R-E-E-Writing failing to improve and grow — often very dramatically.

Orna also debates another Scarlett Thomas opinion - to not attend any  writing workshops. Scarlett says this on the Mslexia interview  -

“Don’t go to workshops.  The workshop is the death of writing.  No one should attend a writing workshop ever.”

“I can guarantee you that Tolstoy or Shakespeare never went to a writing workshop.”

This is an interesting opinion, and one which had my attention - because I’ve just enrolled onto an online writing course, at sufficient cost to myself. The idea didn’t sit well with me, however - although I am unaware if many of my idol authors actually ever pursued a writing course or workshop, or just started to write really. Maybe Scarlett somehow had a point, I thought…until…

Danuta Kean is a Freelance Journalist, who interviewed Scarlett Thomas on her blog and for the Mslexia Magazine. The online magazine excerpt (link above) only suggests the bullet point rules proposed by Scarlett, found within the Author’s Method - or how to write - section online. Danuta Kean has published the full interview, and it includes much more about Scarlett Thomas, and the challenges and criticisms she has faced in her writing career so far.

I was taken aback, however, when reading the following sentence found on Danuta’s interview -

Writing has been an escape since childhood for the 35-year-old, who lectures in creative writing at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

So here was a published novelist suggesting that we should never attend a writing workshop, and she’s a lecturer of creative writing. Huh?  Not only that, but the interview and Mslexia have targetted it for people like me, wondering what is the best way to start and learn about writing.

Despite the contradiction in terms, when reading further of Scarlett’s history, she sounds so much like me that I got a sense of Dejevu, especially when reading of her first attempts at writing a book (at the age of six) and her feelings of not belonging when looking at childhood photographs. Many of Scarlett’s past and indeed her passionate nature appeal and speak to me. 

Should I write morning pages or not - the answer is towards a question I didn’t know existed in the writing world. Many writers do do them, but many others do not. Should I? Well, I’m doing them, and seeing the profit in doing so - but then I’m also seeking creative inspiration in other pursuits and not just writing. Morning Pages, or Daily Pages - are good for me, if only as a journal of the latest events and thoughts, or as a sometimes dream diary. I haven’t seen anything truly inspirational come from them as yet - not even a poem, which I’m loathe to attempt because I don’t enjoy poetry (egads, that’s an admission for a wannabe writer!).  

But of other points, I am in total harmony with Scarlett’s pronouncements - she’s all about the plotting. And so shall I be, as I will be about character and theme also.

In my pursuit of some of this information I happened upon another blog, called amusingly, Listen to Your Broccoli, by another writer.  That writer’s Creative Crises Manifesto and Emergency Action Plan came up in my searching because of their mention of Julia Cameron’s morning pages. In the blog entry the writer admits she sometimes stopped facing herself (in the morning pages). Although this touched me, it was the actual Manifesto which intrigued me. Was I, too, ready and prepared enough to commence making a Writing Creative’s Manifesto? I know that it might well mature with time, and further readings (including The Artist Way work) but there seemed enough principles around in my head to allow me to give it a start.

My next blog entry is exactly that.  

Comments

[orna ross]

thanks for your take on this issue -- I'd love if you had time to comment on our original post at www.fontlitagency.com/blog/ -- we had comments disabled but have just enabled them.

I feel Thomas did writers a real disservice with these throwaway comments -- I'm a fundamentalist free-writer!!! no, seriously I have seen it work for too many people to doubt its value and I really feel she didn't think before she dissed -- and that she owes other writers and writing students more than that.

Your own writing is great - and your designs. A really great blog. I'm just getting into it -- a whole new world for me!

thanks for your interest in Font

Orna
www.fontlitagency.com
www.ornaross.com