Process XLII

This week I celebrated my having written morning pages every day for an entire month. There is a school of thought, often expressed in the form of inspirational memes, that being a servant to practice can be harmful. Don’t be hard on yourself! It’s okay not to do morning pages!

Sure, of course. It’s okay not to do anything that’s good for you. You can skip your daily exercise, you can eat what you choose, once you have received confirmation you never need go to church again, this is well understood.

But then, what is a practice if you don’t keep it? Each morning, at 6:00 AM (later on weekends) I handwrite three steno pages, or for thirty minutes, whichever comes first. It’s usually the three pages. I once did this for over six hundred days.

I chose when to stop, that was intentional, but it was difficult to resume. But I had to resume, at least if I was going to think of myself as a writer. I say I am a runner because I run, when I can’t run anymore I will happily report that I was a runner. I never want to say that I was a writer.

This week I turned in the first draft of a new play on the subject of the "great resignation". The assignment was for at least half of the new work, but as far as I am concerned, getting to the end is half the work. I want to spend the rest of the semester improving upon it, not finishing the first, rough draft. And it is rough. But it’s whole.

And a ten-page paper on structure which is more like a fever dream, but hey. The man said it didn’t need to be scholarly and boy-howdy, it’s not.

This weekend the boy and I are in New York City, having an adventure! We may even see a play.

Process XL

Let’s talk about the well made play. What is it? Do people still even make those? I mean, any one worth speaking of? 

The well-made play consists of:

• All action!
• Surprises!
• Suspense!
• Contrivances!
• Neat resolution!

Or so they say. George Bernard Shaw did. He said it, he didn't do it.

These two classes I am taking this semester, the one on dramatic structure and the playwriting workshop, they blur into each other. What I am learning in the former is employed in the latter.

The thing about a murder mystery, or even an involuntary manslaughter mystery, is the extent to which it is based on surprise. And is the mystery compelling? Most important-to me, anyway (and to Shaw) is whether or not I can craft a shocking mystery with a MESSAGE.

Yes, a message play! I said it, and I’m not ashamed of it. Neither is Shaw.

Okay, the past week has been an emotional adventure. I mean, I haven’t been emotional. Quite the opposite, actually. Since I began taking anti-anxiety medication, I have been floating somewhere an inch underwater. And considering when I started this medication, which is about two years ago now, it has been the absolute best time for me to be taking it.

Am I missing anything? I don’t know, have I been productive and not wanted to curl up and die? Yes to both, thanks. Emotions are overrated. They only cause pain and interrupt my sleep.

Friday evening my son was at his Syndicalist book club (he’d bludgeon me if he knew I said that) and my wife is seeing the new Bond film as part of a trio of ladies, which is only just. Me? I tried to decompress and yes! Write.

One final bit of good news: Today I have written morning pages for twnety days straight. After a summer adrift, I have returned to a practice which pleases me. Cheers!

Process XXIX

And we’re back. That’s it! That was my summer break. Just kidding, I will get one later. For now, I am taking one, six-week course in early American poetry. Already I am dead chuffed, inspired by the works of Anne Bradstreet to compose a poem about selling my mother’s house.

Tuesday, my son turned sixteen, and I rose early to make him a special breakfast, to celebrate him. By eight I remembered I had not done my morning pages, and it was at that moment that I chose not to.

I chose not to. I wanted to exercise, and then to get right to my work, and not to sit and write. I chose to break a six hundred and eighteen day streak of writing, writing every morning. Because doing so had become a burden. I had to write. I was no longer choosing. It was about the record, not about the process.

Siri tells me that six hundred and eighteen days from now it will be late January, 2023. That is far into the future. Six hundred and eighteen days ago, my mother was still alive, and the pandemic was only just starting, on the other side of the world.

I have been working, I have been writing. I have been moving and I will be writing. We begin again, every day, as we all must begin again. And it is with this in mind, that I compose verse about my mother’s belongings.

Five Hundred Days of Practice

What does it mean to write every morning? What is the significance of this daily ritual?

It means I begin the day thinking, in silence. Meditative. Thoughtful. I do not jump from sleep to the screen. I can process my thoughts, my dreams. I articulate. 

And because it is daily, my family, my children, respect that I have to do this.

It need not be creative, though it can be. It need not be productive, though it can be. It need not be anything, just three pages, thirty minutes.

And once I have set down my pen, then I can continue my day with the confidence that whatever else happens, I will have accomplished this one thing.

Three-Hundred and Sixty-Five Days of Practice

For one calendar year I have written my morning pages every single day, not missing a day. This morning, to celebrate, I share my exercise with you.

Morning Pages

Ritual is not what you do naturally. Waking up in the morning is not a ritual, nor is having breakfast. Ritual us not synonymous with routine, either. No, ritual is something you compel yourself to do, on a regular basis, something which does not come naturally, nor easy, but in doing so lends your life purpose, meaning, and hopefully, satisfaction.

For years, though not for all my years, I have tried to create a writing ritual. It happened less recently than you might imagine, but in the past five to ten years, I began rising at 5:00 am, so that I would have quiet, peaceful time alone, to write for thirty timed minutes.

Our gas fireplace was repaired in early 2016, and so the ritual during cold-weather months was simple. The fire. The coffee. The bathrobe. Thirty minutes, or three steno pages, whichever came first.

Around the same year, we had our deck rebuilt. And so warm weather months included its own ritual. The deck. The coffee. The robe. The birds and sky. Thirty minutes or three steno pages, whichever came first.

Then came the writing prompts and the one-page plays. What had merely been ritual had become a compulsion; when not doing something is harder than doing it. Once upon a time, for me, that was running. Finally, in my fifties, it is writing.

Social media apps get you hooked by awarding you for checking in every day. You have “streaks.” I keep track of how many days in a row I write my morning pages. Today is the 200th consecutive day I have written morning pages. Today I wrote about writing morning pages as my morning pages. Right now, I am typing that up.