Acts of the Apostles of St. Julia

Morning pages
keeping the pen moving —
a good pen with smooth ink that freely flows
but cheap notebooks
the kind Target sells for ten cents each the week before school starts.

Sure, some like beautiful notebooks
with creamy smooth paper
with only the occasional line to guide you
but for me
anything more than ten cents
brings pressure
beautiful words belong in beautiful books
and I am just writing morning pages.
and cheap notebooks don’t have to have
lovely prose
and the green college lines
give no guilt when they become home
to a bunch of whining
about why I have no time to write.

Morning pages
where the goal is simply to fill three pages
as quickly as possible,
which means I shouldn’t be stopping mid-sentence
to read an answer on Quora
or
check the latest Tweet about someone getting indicted
(or not)

But keeping the pen moving
ink flowing
from the brain to the hand
gripping the pen with the firmness
required by the subject
Ink representing blook in some cases, pouring out the contents
of the heart
or representing tears
or representing the wine from the night before
the loopy handwriting will tell you which, of course

and the pages will tell you what kind of day you will have
will we be open to the universe today?

I won’t know
until the pages are done.

*inspired by Julia Cameron‘s The Artist’s Way.