Cameron - The Miracle of Morning Pages: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Most Important Artists Way Tool: A Special from Tarcher/Penguin

A LSO BY J ULIA C AMERON

Books in The Artists Way Series

The Artists Way

Walking in This World

Finding Water

The Complete Artists Way

The Artists Way Workbook

The Artists Way Every Day

The Artists Way Morning Pages Journal

The Artists Date Book

(illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron)

Inspirations: Meditations from The Artists Way

The Artists Way for Parents

Other Books on Creativity

The Prosperous Heart

The Writing Diet

The Right to Write

The Sound of Paper

Vein of Gold

How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy)

(illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron)

Supplies: A Troubleshooting Guide for Creative Difficulties

The Writers Life: Insights from The Right to Write

The Artists Way at Work

(with Mark Bryan and Catherine Allen)

Money Drunk, Money Sober

(with Mark Bryan)

The Creative Life

Prayer Books

Answered Prayers

Heart Steps

Blessings

Transitions

Prayers to the Great Creator

Books on Spirituality

Safe Journey

Prayers from a Nonbeliever

Letters to a Young Artist

God Is No Laughing Matter

God Is Dog Spelled Backwards

(illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron)

Faith and Will

Memoir

Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir

Fiction

Mozarts Ghost

Popcorn: Hollywood Stories

The Dark Room

Plays

Public Lives

The Animal in the Trees

Four Roses

Love in the DMZ

Avalon (a musical)

The Medium at Large (a musical)

Magellan (a musical)

Poetry

Prayers for the Little Ones

Prayers for the Nature Spirits

The Quiet Animal

This Earth (also an album with Tim Wheater)

Feature Film

Gods Will (as writer-director)

The Miracle of the Morning Pages Journal

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about the Most Important Artists Way Tool

Julia Cameron

J EREMY P. T ARCHER /P ENGUIN

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

New York

JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

USA / Canada / UK / Ireland / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com

Copyright 2013 by Julia Cameron

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

Most Tarcher/Penguin books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. Special books or book excerpts also can be created to fit specific needs. For details, write: Special.Markets@us.penguingroup.com.

ISBN 978-0-698-14040-0

C ONTENTS

It is a snowy winter evening in Santa Fe. I am snowbound in a small adobe house. The dirt roads leading to my driveway are slick with ice. There is no getting out. I am determined to make the most of my enforced solitude. Ive lit a fire in the Kiva fireplace and cued up beautiful music. I am curled up on our leather couch, ten feet from a sparkling Christmas tree bedecked with tiny birds. My little dog, Tiger Lily, is curled by my feet, puzzled that I am writing by firelight. She is accustomed to me writing in my writing room, and writing by daylight.

First things first, every day, is a practice I call Morning Pages.

The MPs, as Ive nicknamed them, are three pages of longhand morning writing about anything and everything that crosses my mind. They appear to have nothing to do with creativity, yet they are the bedrock on which my creative life is built. They are the terra firma of my book The Artists Way and the central, life-changing tool that guides and safeguards creative emergence. I have written about Morning Pages many times, in many places. I am writing about them here because students still raise many questions, and Id like to answer them carefully and fully.

To begin at the beginning, I am always asked, Julia, must the Morning Pages be done in the morning?

Yes, I explain. You are trying to catch yourself before your egos defenses are in place. You want to catch yourself as close to waking as you can. We are after candorthat, and specificity. We want to know how you really feel about your life. Later in the day, you may officially feel okay about something that actually bothers you. Caught off guard, just upon awakening, you may feel angry, hurt, diminished. As you vent on the page, you become intimate with yourself and your real feelings. Not only sorrows but joys become clear to you.

Morning Pages may hold insights and intuitions that startle you. Typically, they puncture denial. As one recovering alcoholic student told me, Julia, I was perfectly happy drunk in the outback. Now Im sober, living in Los Angeles, working as a Hollywood screenwriter. The pages identified her drinking problem. Drunk last night, they noted. Hungover today, they confessed. Maybe you have a drinking problem, they speculated. Drunk again last night. You definitely do have a drinking problem, they concluded. Maybe you need to get sober, they suggested firmly. And their guidance was taken to heart.

If Morning Pages are a tough-love friend, nagging you about a pressing problem, they also point out joys. You might delight in something the pages help you to acknowledge. The pages may point the way to a treasured friendship, or lead you to a new art form. They may suggest the path you could cherish.

It was my Morning Pages that led me to write music. Wouldnt it be fun, they proposed, to write a musical about Merlin?

But Im not musical, I protested, only to have the pages insist I would soon be writing radiant songs. Sure enough, when I sat at the keys, I heard melodies that I could pick out a note at a time.

Pages clarify our yearnings. They keep an eye on our goals. They may provoke us, coax us, comfort us, even cajole us, as well as prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. If we are drifting, the pages will point that out. They will point the way True North. Each morning, as we face the page, we meet ourselves. The pages give us a place to vent and a place to dream. They are intended for no eyes but our own.

Virginia Wolfe asserted that all artists need a room of their own. I always think, Fine, Virginia, if you can afford it. Its my contention that Morning Pages constitute such a room. They are a place of privacy. Show your MPs to no one, however intimate. For the first two months, dont even re-read them yourself. If something is important, your Morning Pages will bring it up repeatedly, until you get the message and take an indicated action. Make no mistake: Morning Pages