Journal Assignment 3

Journal Entry

In 250 to 500 words write about your continuing journay with your daily Morning Pages. Are you still doing them? If not, why not? Did you have trouble getting up in the morning to do them? How do you feel about doing them? Do you think this is a good writing tool for you? Why or why not? What steps should you take to start doing them again, if you stopped? Address these questions in your journal entry.

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Since last semester, I hadn’t done a single morning journal. But today was my fifth day doing them again – I skipped one day because I really need the extra thirty minutes of sleep, and today I only wrote one page – and already I’ve noticed some very welcome benefits. Because I do free writing and just toss a jumble of words, thoughts and phrases onto the page each morning, my mind is more awake and alert for whatever my day entails. Despite losing a tiny bit of sleep, I feel less lethargic, as if coming off a high of accomplishment. Amidst all the nonsensical ramblings and cleared cobwebs, there are occasionally a few gems, particularly one I wrote on my third day, and which I’m tempted to use as the start to a whimsical story:

I was cleaning the apartment when I found a drop of love on the carpet.

A drop of love…I can imagine an entire story about a world where love is a material commodity, perhaps tossed around frivolously or sought after for its rarity.

Back to the journals - I’ve been incredibly busy lately between starting a new band, pumpkin picking, having the future in-laws over to our new apartment, and going to my first poetry group last night (which went swimmingly because they loved the poem I read, and everyone was so intelligent and inspiring!), all amidst two jobs and a demanding freelance gig, but I had a few hours to work on a story that has been giving me problems. I was ecstatic when I turned my creative faucet and the water ran warm. That day, I added an entirely new scene for my story that wasn’t planned at all in my sixteen pages of notes and ideas. More importantly, the scene propelled me over the plot hurdle that halted any progress for the past three weeks (I hear there are people who write stories all in one night…I’d trade a drop of love to know how). Since the moment I put down my morning journal, until hours later when I started to work on the story, my mind was running wild with ideas on how to flesh out my characters, things they would say to each other, and which plot avenues were best to travel. That faucet hasn't been turned on for awhile now, so it’s quite needless to say that I am more than satisfied with the morning journals and their after effects.