Give Evening Pages a Try!

Writing can be hard and sometimes almost nigh impossible; it is something you have to be in the right mindset for.

For me, I don’t have trouble staying motivated once I start; I can stay in the flow state for long periods of time. My problem more so comes from starting.

That dreaded feeling when you want to get some writing done but you don’t know how to begin, and you stay there sitting at your desk or study, blinking at an empty page in your word processor or anywhere else you write. You don’t want to just give up, but it is not doing you any good just wasting time like this.

If you know what I’m talking about, or heck, even experiencing right now, and you decided to take a breather and check your RSS feeds, or you found this post when searching for writing tips online, first off, thank you so much for joining me today! And second, I know your pain well…

Frankly, it’s the most demotivating thing to me as a writer. You put effort and take time from your busy schedule, and for what? It can be scarring and keep you from writing for a while, or heavens forbid, from writing at all!

So how do we combat this dreaded enemy we all have called Writers Block?

Shudders—just typing out those two words is enough to give me the jives! But regardless, there are multiple tools and tips writers and artists create and use to stave off that horrid beast, and you may already be acquainted with one method.

Called Morning Pages, a tool detailed in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. This method is quite simple, and you can quickly start doing it as early as tomorrow.

All you need is a pen and notebook. You could use your phone or computer and take them digitally, but it is highly recommended you write on paper. But since this is to help yourself, you should use whatever tool works for you, honestly.

Once you have that settled, be sure to keep it near your bed so when you wake up the next day, you can reach for it right away.

The main idea is that every morning, hence morning pages, you write three pages or more of freeform writing—anything or everything that comes to mind. For example, you may have a busy day ahead, so you may take this time to plan that out. You can reflect on yesterday, write your goals for today, or just write what you have on your mind at that moment. It can be utter gibberish; it doesn’t matter. The point is to shelve those thoughts right away so you can start your day with a clean slate and make writing habitual.

Similar to a journal but reversed, with a caveat: it is recommended that you don’t reread these pages at least for the first few months. This method is not about the contents, as it is a tool to free your mind and get you into the mindset of writing.

Sounds great, right? Well, hold on! Before you get a notebook and pen ready, let’s turn this method on its head, shall we?

Let me introduce you to Evening Pages!

As the name suggests, it is a method very similar to the former but with a major change: you do the writing at night!

That’s it! The only requirement is that you write these before going to bed or later in the evening. Other than that, go for broke! Unlike morning pages, there isn’t a rule of thumb for how you should practice it. Heck, you don’t even need to write three full pages! I personally don’t, and even if I did, it would be hard to tell how I write these pages.

Yep, I don’t even use a notebook or any paper medium! I just write these on my phone. This will be utter blasphemy for morning pages, but like a chiller older brother, evening pages don’t care; they’re cool with whatever! All you have to keep in mind is that you do these daily and in the evenings. Easy, right?

So easy it becomes an utter joy to write these every night—no more waking up and trying to write with groggy eyes and an empty stomach.

No, now your mornings are free and yours. Personally, I do most of my reading in the morning when I wake up, so morning pages never worked for me. I would be replacing my reading habit with another bothersome habit. I never could do it consistently. Not even two days in a row.

Now I can start my day like normal, and when the day is wrapping up, I can lay back and relax on my bed and quickly jot something down on my notes app. I write about my day, goals, reflections, and ideas that I had during my day. It’s great to shelve these thoughts right after the day is done; I feel less overwhelmed the next day, and even my sleep has improved!

And more importantly, it is helping me habitualize writing, so that slowly every day I’m in a mindset when I can start writing with vigor and focus. This post, for example, was supposed to be rather short, but it already exceeded that expectation twice now. Thanks to being more focused and entering a flow state easier. It is a wonderful feeling, albeit with the caveat that it makes it harder to keep things brief. Oh well.

So that’s the ways of morning and evening pages; which method you should choose is entirely up to you. But! I do encourage you to try both methods out, see what works for you, and let me know how it goes! Until next time, sayonara!