Jan 3, 2021 13:01:52 GMT -5 auroralynneskye said:

Quick question...I have been hearing the reference to "Morning Pages" all over the threads I have read through. What are they?

Morning Pages come from The Artist's Way (full description in the link). My understanding is it's a bit like mental housekeeping. You can write down anything and everything to get it off your mind, hopefully bringing clarity to thought. So venting, or working through problems is cool, or can use it for story brainstorming or basically anything. I don't think there's a wrong way to do it. The principle is just write 3 pages every morning, even if you don't have that much to say. Pushing for the 3 pages is supposed to bring truth I think, as you have to dig deep to make the amount.

January 5th, 2021
3,699 / 75,000

Thanks guys WriDay was tough, took me much longer than it should have to make target. I then failed to make the 1k I wanted on Day 2 (made 905) and for the past 2 days I've just written a sentence. Not the most auspicious of starts. I've decided to move the head challenge to next month as I think it was too much new stuff, all at once. I have managed to do morning pages, and sketch every day; I've exercised and only forgot my gratitude journal once. So I'm trying but struggling a little bit. I need to remind myself it's a marathon and not a sprint, and training my brain for a new routine will take time and practice, stumbling is to be expected. I just need to persist and I'll get there eventually (I hope).


Writing

• Complete WriDay - 2.5k (2,755 written)
• Complete Full Moon Madness
• Complete 5k Weekend
  
• Complete New Moon Madness
• Draft The Fall of Camelot novella
• Finish the fic "Choosing Fate"
• Maintain 4thewords streak - 2/31

Art

• Complete the John/James club drawing
• Sketch a day - 4/31

Life

• Read 1 book - Agent of Time (Nathan Van Coops)
• Exercise - 1/4
• Morning Pages - 4/31
• Gratitude Journal - 3/31

Dang it! Now I have the song stuck in my head!

Best of luck in 2021!

January 8th, 2021
5,362 / 75,000

Sorry for the earmworm Roisin and thank you I said to myself that I could update this thread yesterday evening, after I'd done everything, but then I didn't do everything. So I'm doing it this morning because it's end of week one and I feel like that should be marked. I am totally on target with sketch a day, morning pages and the exercise. I haven't started reading the book or the major drawing yet. I haven't taken a completely zero day but equally I've only made 4thewords streak 3x which isn't good. I've forgotten the gratitude journal twice. The best I can say is I'm still persisting. This month the challenges seem to be backloaded, hopefully that'll help me catch up a bit.


Writing

• Complete WriDay - 2.5k (2,755 written)
• Complete Full Moon Madness
• Complete 5k Weekend
  
• Complete New Moon Madness - 1.8k
• Draft The Fall of Camelot novella
• Finish the fic "Choosing Fate"
• Maintain 4thewords streak - 3/31

Art

• Complete the John/James club drawing
• Sketch a day - 7/31

Life

• Read 1 book - Agent of Time (Nathan Van Coops)
• Exercise - 2/4
• Morning Pages - 8/31
• Gratitude Journal - 5/31

hey, all progress is good progress!
as long as when you realize you've forgotten something you go back to it and jump back in,
i think that still counts as a positive.

January 13th, 2021
10,589 / 75,000

I decided to switch projects this week (I had been working on Fall of Camelot first) and that seems to have helped my word output. I think my ambition to have both projects drafted this month is exceptionally unlikely but we'll see how far I get. I've been quite frustrated with my lack of focus and today my mum suggested that I introduce time limits. Aka when the time is up, I have to stop no matter what I've got (or haven't got) written. I don't know if that spurred me on if it was NMM but I managed to write more in less time today than I have for a while. Cross fingers I can repeat the feat!


Writing

• Complete WriDay - 2.5k (2,755 written)
• Complete Full Moon Madness
• Complete 5k Weekend
  
• Complete New Moon Madness - 1.8k (1,941 written)
• Draft The Fall of Camelot novella
• Finish the fic "Choosing Fate"
• Maintain 4thewords streak - 5/31
• Consistency challenge - 500 words / 7 days (hey I like badges)

Art

• Complete the John/James club drawing
• Sketch a day - 13/31

Life

• Read 1 book - Agent of Time (Nathan Van Coops)
• Exercise - 3/4
• Morning Pages - 13/31
• Gratitude Journal - 8/31

You're still doing great! Keep it up!

January 18th, 2021
10,781 / 75,000

Kandybar thank you so much for your kind encouragement. It means a lot I just signed up for the 5k weekend (I really need the boost) but I went for the lower target officially. In actuality I'm going to be aiming for twice that, I just wasn't 100% confident I'd make it and decided not to add the extra stress. Anyway the reason I'm updating today is that I have taken Fall of Camelot off the goal list for the month. It was always a bit of a pipedream to get both projects drafted this month, and this month has not going according to plan at all so it's definitely an impossibility now.


Writing

• Complete WriDay - 2.5k (2,755 written)
• Complete Full Moon Madness
• Complete 5k Weekend - 2.5k
  
• Complete New Moon Madness - 1.8k (1,941 written)
• Finish the fic "Choosing Fate"
• Maintain 4thewords streak - 5/31
• Consistency challenge - 500 words / 7 days (hey I like badges)

Art

• Complete the John/James club drawing
• Sketch a day - 17/31

Life

• Read 1 book - Agent of Time (Nathan Van Coops)
• Exercise - 3/4
• Morning Pages - 16/31
• Gratitude Journal - 13/31

I'm sorry this month has been going poorly! But you're still getting things done, so don't sell yourself short!

Hi Sam! Good to see you again!

I love the Lego movie. That song is a classic. I also liked Zootopia too. Great song by Shakira.

The two novels you're working on sound really interesting. Those are a good set of goals you've got listed. I wish you good luck with them.

I'm terribly sorry that you've been frustrated this month.  Don't beat yourself too much.  If you need to switch novels right now, that's fine.  It looks like you're still making progress and you've got a few things crossed off your list.  Go back to the other novel later, if you have to.

The timer thing is a good idea.  Your mom gave you good advice.

I read "The Artist's Way" years ago, when it was first released.  Even though I didn't do any of the exercises in it, I really enjoyed the book.  I didn't do the morning pages because I think everyday the entry would be the same.  Something like this---"Ugh...I have to get up and get going.  I need coffee so bad!  I wish it could come to me instead of vice versa, etc."  It would get awfully boring after a while.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Jan 19, 2021 17:17:03 GMT -5 Gemma said:

Hi Sam! Good to see you again!

I love the Lego movie. That song is a classic. I also liked Zootopia too. Great song by Shakira.

The two novels you're working on sound really interesting. Those are a good set of goals you've got listed. I wish you good luck with them.

I'm terribly sorry that you've been frustrated this month.  Don't beat yourself too much.  If you need to switch novels right now, that's fine.  It looks like you're still making progress and you've got a few things crossed off your list.  Go back to the other novel later, if you have to.

The timer thing is a good idea.  Your mom gave you good advice.

I read "The Artist's Way" years ago, when it was first released.  Even though I didn't do any of the exercises in it, I really enjoyed the book.  I didn't do the morning pages because I think everyday the entry would be the same.  Something like this---"Ugh...I have to get up and get going.  I need coffee so bad!  I wish it could come to me instead of vice versa, etc."  It would get awfully boring after a while.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful comment!

I've not actually read the book "The Artist's Way" but I heard a lot of others talking about doing their morning pages in the discord. I thought it might be a useful exercise for the 'mental housecleaning' it talked about on the website (I read the brief description on it). However, what you said in your comment struck a chord with me. I think the pages have got quite repetitious and it's taking time/energy in the morning which would perhaps be better served getting started on my other tasks, and I'm not sure if I'm getting any benefit from it. I've done them for three weeks, perhaps I'll take a break and see how it feels.

You made me think. That was useful. Thank you

I hope your 5k weekend is going well!
timers are a great idea!

January 25th, 2021
13,532 / 75,000

erin thank you! I did manage it in the end (just) but it was a struggle. You know I think I should maybe have two word counts going as that 13k is fiction words but most of them aren't original. I mean my WriYe goal is set low (to start) at 75k, as the bare minimum on my yearly goal is 75k of original. Most of what I have this year thus far is fanfic. Yay words but not exactly the right words. I'll have to have a think about how to present/format that. Hey at least I'm persisting and I haven't had a zero day yet. I mean I've had a lot of days with just a sentence but that means I'm still "checking in" which counts for something I think. Better than ignoring it completely anyway.


Writing

• Complete WriDay - 2.5k (2,755 written)
• Complete Full Moon Madness - 1k
• Complete 5k Weekend - 2.5k (2,526 written)
  
• Complete New Moon Madness - 1.8k (1,941 written)
• Finish the fic "Choosing Fate"
• Maintain 4thewords streak - 7/31
• Consistency challenge (500 words / 7 days) - 2/7

Art

• Complete the John/James club drawing
• Sketch a day - 25/31

Life

• Read 1 book - Agent of Time (Nathan Van Coops)
• Exercise - 4/4
• Morning Pages - 18/31 (suspended on day 21)
• Gratitude Journal - 20/31

You are doing amazing!

You're doing a great job, Sam! The fact that you're still writing something everyday is great because just "showing up" can be a really hard thing to do.