Tulips and Rain, Sun to Follow

Showing up for Writing and Establishing Writing Practice

This weekend the first apricot beauty tulips are unfolding in my garden, which is usually a sign of warmer temperatures, but the wind has been from the east, cold and unrelenting and now its raining. I feel for my tulips! I feel a certain amount of guilt too for abandoning them, but not surprisingly, I’m looking forward to the sunnier climes of north Mallorca and our flight out tomorrow.

In preparation for the holiday, I’ve selected my notebook. It would be unthinkable for me to go without one, and I will need several pens as they have an annoying, I sometimes think deliberate, habit of running out on me when I don't have a replacement to hand.

I won't be writing a lot. I'll be having a break but I am committing to one writing exercise a day and it’s not the famous 'morning pages.' For those of you not familiar with 'morning pages,' as advocated by Julia Cameron in, The Artist's Way, the idea is that every morning you sit down to write three pages of whatever comes to mind without stopping, and without reading back what you’ve written. It is intended to be a cathartic, writing process that clears your mind, builds confidence, and creates a path for greater creativity.

I have to confess morning pages never worked for me and so I was interested this week to read Summer Brennan's admission in her Writers Notebook (see my recommendations) that she found morning pages were not, 'good for me.' She goes on to suggest that for certain writers the practice may even be linked with depression. I get it. For me, my morning pages, when I eventually did read them back, read more like a misery memoir or a giant whinge. I really couldn’t keep them up. They seemed to act like a kind of diary for me, and I’ve never been able to keep a diary consistently.

However, what was good about morning pages was the appointment I made with myself to turn up and write every day, and to write without any specific agenda or purpose. I still like this idea, although often I'm conflicted as I have writing that I need and want to get on with, which is always the case if you’re writing a novel or engaged in a big project. But in the downtime between novels or such projects, which is now for me, then I like the idea of turning up to the page every day. Well most days.

I also think it’s a good and helpful way of beginning writing if you’re keen to write but don’t quite know how to begin. In her article, Brennan also shares the poet, Marie Howe's version of morning pages, of ‘showing up to write,’ which she asks her students at Sarah Lawrence college to do. If you don’t know Marie Howe’s work then I need to tell you her collection, What the Living Do, is among my all-time favourites in the poetry world. I admire her immensely, especially the way her poems stand, accessible and unadorned on the page. Here is an extended interview with Howe, where she talks about this collection, her work as a poet, and also describes how she begins a class by asking her students to write two lines about what they saw that morning. Both lines are to be written without metaphor, this being important because metaphor takes us away from the specificity of direct observation. Observation forces us to stay with the subject and to look closely.

This process can be extended to any number of observations 5,10, even. I’ve been trying it out myself and it isn't always easy. Brennan has her own version, called the Five Things Essay. This is also about showing up, making an appointment with writing, coming to the page without preconception to list five things she’s observed or is thinking about in the real world. Worries and, 'to do,' lists are banned.

She suggests you make a list of five things, writing a line or a few lines on each. When you come back to them later they may stand alone, or you may see a connection, they may go on to gather steam and become an essay or a story, who knows the start of the novel even.

Mine is the holiday version of the five a day, a kind of mixture of both. Holidays are good for writing, a shift in place, so many new experiences in a short time. So, I intend every morning, to open my notebook and write five things. Either that I see directly around me in that present moment, or that I’ve observed or been thinking about since arriving. No metaphors, no worries or anxieties just time to write whatever comes and enjoy.

I've been practising a bit - here is one of my first examples.

1.The first apricot beauty tulip is unfolding in my garden, tips streaked orange.

2. Why do the tired never sleep?

3. My arms and breath heavy, weighted by the needles in my back.

4. Empty supper dish stained with chilli sauce.

5. Two milkmaids stop to speak in the early morning by the river in Delft. ( I have been looking at pictures from the Vermeer exhibition - its a poor substitute for being there but it’s still a treat, though sadly I find Stephen Fry's commentary patronising and annoying - best keep the sound off.)

On the subject of showing up and writing, if like me you’ve fallen out of love with Twitter, and the shenanigans of Elon Musk, you may like to explore Substack Notes. I have the Substack app on my phone and get notifications and the ability to post notes - they are like Tweets but longer and often more interesting. One morning this week I woke early at 6 a.m. and watched the sun rising, out of my bedroom window. My phone pinged with a notification from Summer Brennan, who lives in Paris, to say that she was up and writing and would welcome others to join her. I got out of bed, grabbed my notebook, responded as you would to a tweet, and joined her virtual writing group. Although I had no idea what anyone else was writing, or for how long, I wrote away, happily engaged in the knowledge that I was not alone. It was a great way to start the day and I got tons of writing done. The more I see of Substack, at the moment, the more I like it, and the more at home I feel. That’s not to say t00hat in time it will not present some of the same problems experienced on other social media sites. Let’s wait and see. In the meantime, there are some great people to follow and some inspiring newsletters out there.

If you’ve enjoyed my newsletter, please think about sharing it with others who may be interested and suggesting they subscribe. After all it’s free, which can’t be bad, and I would love to grow my audience.

I'd love to hear how you show up for regular writing practice, or any creative practice that you use, do let me know in the comments below. I’ve been thinking about doing a quick collage every morning - limiting the number of paper pieces I can use - here is one I did earlier!! using only 5 pieces of paper inc background.

Thank you for reading - Avril x

PS I'll send you a postcard from Mallorca