“Julia, I think I must be doing the pages wrong. Mine are dull, petty, and repetitive—hardly inspirational.” There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages. Remember, they are not intended to be art. They might be what is called “brain drain”—the siphoning off of negativity is one of their main functions. “I forgot to call my sister back.” “The car has

You no longer say “yes” when what you really want to say is “no.” You are starting to know—and speak—your mind.

We call God “the Creator” without realizing it is another word for “artist.”

So start with three pages of longhand morning writing. State exactly where you are. Do this daily. “I’m awake and I’m tired.” “I dreamed I was in an airplane crash but I survived.” Every morning, no matter how you feel, tell your pages how you feel. Think of your pages as a daily sign-in. Let them become a habit for you. Allow yourself to be

Trust the prescription of three pages a day. The Artist’s Way has worked for nearly four million readers. Let it work for you just as it is designed.

Oftentimes, the Censor is a recognizable person—a parent, for example. An unflattering picture helps to downsize the Censor’s power. The point is to stop buying what the Censor is selling. Learn to hear it not as truth, but as a blocking device. Morning Pages teach you to do this.

Most of us have a ceiling that we place on our creativity. We deem ourselves creative up to a point. Morning Pages may suggest we change the height of our ceiling. I, for example, believed that I was not musical. When pages suggested otherwise, I had to raise my ceiling. Now, I know that music is within my reach.

In other words, Morning Pages give us not only the light of insight, but also the power necessary to effect positive change. It’s very difficult to write negatively about something day after day without being moved to action.

“Enjoyment” may be the right word for the transformation that Morning Pages induce. No matter how dreary, sad, or angry we may be when we undertake pages, sooner or later we will realize that our pages contain many choice points. We see that we choose over and over how we will spend our day. Sooner or later, we will begin to make more satisfying