A first reflection on The Artist’s Way and the power of Morning Pages
The Ongoing Creative Expansion Experiment – Series 1, Introduction Week
Each week we’re moving through a 12-week Creative Expansion together through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. This is more than a book we’re reading. It’s a practice we’re undertaking, individually and collectively, to explore what becomes possible when we give our creativity sustained attention.
This week, we began with the Introduction.
I will bullet-point the topics covered in the introduction, and highlight in this entry only the Morning Pages, as they are the on-going structure of the twelve-week journey.
Here are the main points Julia Cameron introduces everyone before Week 1:
- Art as a spiritual transaction.
- Her own journey with the creation of The Artist’s Way and its purpose.
- Basic Principles of Spiritual Electricity
- How to Use the Book for Your Creative Recovery
- What to Expect
- The Basic Tools: Morning Pages and Artist’s Dates are the two pivotal tools of the entire process. Lasting creative awakening requires consistent use of both.
- Filling the Well
- And, finally, the Contract with ourselves for this commitment.
Now, let me emphasize the grander purpose of the Morning Pages as the instrument of this 12-week process, in 10 major points.
What Morning Pages actually are
Three pages. Longhand. Stream of consciousness. Every morning.
Their primary function is as a “brain dump”. They aren’t supposed to be art.
They aren’t even really supposed to be writing in the conventional sense.
There is no requirement that they be intelligence, meaningful, insightful, eloquent, positive, spiritual, or coherent. Nothing is too trivial or strange to put down.
This removes one of the first barriers to creativity, there is nothing to perform.
1st Purpose: Empty the Mental Clutter
Morning Pages can be negative, fragmented, repetitive, childish, angry, mundane, or self-pitying. And this is good, why?
Because the worries, annoyances, anxieties, and seemingly insignificant thoughts circulating beneath awareness occupy mental space. They are like open tabs on the computer, they consume memory space in the brain.
Her instructions are – get that material onto the page instead of carrying it through the day. So the page becomes somewhere for the noise to go.
2nd Purpose: Separating us from the Censor
Cameron describes the Censor as the “internalized critical voice” – the commentary constantly evaluating whether what we create is good enough, intelligent enough, original enough, legitimate enough.
Morning Pages undermine it because there is no correct way to do them.
You simply keep moving the hand… much similar like “automatic writing”.
Over time we can recognize the Censor not as “objective truth” but as a voice operating within us.
It puts space between the thought and the person observing and writing the thought.
3rd Purpose: Creating without Waiting for the “right state”
Morning Pages are non-negotiable every morning, and are not mood-dependent.
Tired? Write.
Irritated? Write.
Distracted? Write.
Think what you’re producing is garbage? Write
Her point is that creativity doesn’t need to wait for inspiration or the perfect internal state. The practice teaches us to stop judging the act while we’re performing it.
Just show up to the page and continue to let thing emerge from the inside.
4th Purpose: To get us to the “other side”
By ‘the other side’, she means beyond our fear, negativity, moods, and specifically beyond the constant chatter of the Censor.
So the Morning pages are not necessarily about the content of the three pages. They are partly about what the repeated act of writing allows us to move through.
5th Purpose: They create space for the “Artist Brain”
There are two types of places we can think from – the Logic Brain and the Artist Brain.
The Logic Brain categorizes, evaluates, relies on what is known, wants things orderly and sensible.
The Artist Brain is associative, playful, holistic, and willing to connect things that ordinarily don’t belong together.
Morning Pages gradually teach that judging or categorizing can move aside long enough for the more associative creative faculty to operate.
So it gives rise to this beautiful framework:
- Creativity may not require us to manufacture more ideas. It may require us to stop interrupting the ones already trying to emerge.
6th Purpose: Morning Pages are Meditation
Cameron explicitly asks readers to consider Morning Pages as a form of meditation.
She says they may not look spiritual. They may contain complaints, errands, worries and nonsense. Yet she considers them meditative because they produce insight and can become an instrument for change.
She describes meditation as capable of moving us from fast to slow, logic toward artist consciousness, reducing stress, opening contact with a creative source and producing creative insight.
For Cameron, meditation helps us discover identity: our relationship to an inner source of power and our place within a larger whole.
7th Purpose: A Path toward Knowing Ourselves
Cameron describes prolonged Morning Pages as a pathway toward a stronger and clearer sense of self; a trail into our interior where we encounter both our creativity and, in her spiritual framework, the Creator.
Morning Pages map our interior.
Because without some mechanism for observing our internal landscape, our desires, frustrations, dreams, fears and recurring patterns can remain largely unmapped.
Morning Pages begin making the invisible visible.
8th Purpose: Repetition turns Awareness into Action
If you write about the same dissatisfaction morning after morning, eventually it becomes difficult to continue merely complaining about it.
We tend to move toward constructive action and previously unseen solutions.
Morning Pages are making our internal reality visible enough that we can begin responding to it consciously.
9th Purpose: A dialogue with Inner Wisdom
Morning Pages can also be used for the mornings during the times we don’t know how to handle a problem. You can write the problem down and listen for the solution, seeing what comes through the writing.
It’s the faithful practice of developing a connection with the source of wisdom within.
10th Purpose: Revealing Creative Directions We don’t yet See
Morning Pages can show us the way.
They create a place where things can surface before we consciously know what they mean.
The Pages can reveal what the conscious mind hasn’t organized yet.
When we sit down to write deliberately, our conscious mind tends to ask:
- What am I supposed to write?
- What’s the point?
- What should I do?
- What would make sense?
- What is realistic?
And those questions immediately begin narrowing the field.
Morning Pages operate differently.
You aren’t asking yourself to produce an answer. You’re allowing yourself to follow the thread of whatever appears.
It can go something like this:
- One thought leads to another.
- A complaint leads to a memory.
- A memory leads to a desire.
- A desire leads to an image.
- An image leads to an idea.
- An idea reminds you of something you’ve wanted to do for years.
- And suddenly you’re somewhere you didn’t consciously intend to go.
The direction often appears indirectly.
If any of this resonates with you in this practice, you’re welcome to join us at any point in the journey… at your own pace. You can view the featured launched for our first 12-week series, happening September 28th through December 27th, 2026:
Each Monday we start a new week and a thread to begin our contact, connection and conversation for the week, in our community chat.
Every Saturday, I do one of these reflections and prompt everyone in our community chat for a check-in update.
Throughout the week we can remain in-touch through the community threads, wherever you may be in the process, whether you started from the beginning or somewhere in-between.
The community conversation threads are also available for quick reference in the comments of each of the related post.
It’s easy to follow along, stay in touch, and remain in the momentum together.
Join us if you’re interested in this process!
Now, if you have a moment, drop me a comment and let me know if you’ve had experience with Morning Pages or a similar practice.
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