It was after lunchtime yesterday before I could get around to writing my Morning Pages. Like many of you, my early mornings are jam-packed with things that I MUST do during early mornings–no exceptions.

HEAR ME: This does not mean that because I can’t be the perfect participant in Julia Cameron’s program The Artist’s Way, I just won’t participate at all. 

One of my favorite phrases is: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” and that thought applies here.

I remember the days when I had to be at work before 8 am, and before that, I had to feed 3 children and dress at least one–and in the meantime, I had to dress myself. Could I have written early Morning Pages before work during those years? Definitively NO! I realize that some young mothers are faced with similar challenges.

For some of you, Morning Pages may be after 10 pm pages–after at least some of your crew go to bed. I get that. I won’t go into my own reasons for having to wait later in the day to do my pages, but I’m just saying–do Morning Pages as soon as you possibly can–and not a minute before that. Just do 3 pages of writing which empties your mind.

Yesterday, when I decided to get back into writing my own Morning Pages, I had another challenge: I could find no ink pens. I am an artist, and although I have every art-making pen imaginable in my house, I could find no writing pens.

[By the way, to help prevent your tendency to edit yourself as you write your Morning Pages, I suggest writing with an ink pen.]

After sorting through my storage room for at least an hour, I found some pens that I discovered are perfect for my own writing of Morning Pages.

Uniball Eye Set of 10 Assorted Colors.

Black, Pink, Orange, Light Green. Blue. Light Blue, Red, Green, Red Wine, Violet

Uni-Ball EYE UB-157 Rollerball Pen 0.7mm Ball [Pack of 10] One of each colour

Today’s reading contrasts Logic Brain and Artist Brain. Before I begin discussing today’s reading, I must admit that I am Artist Brain–through and through. People with Artist Brain like to play, and writing Morning Pages is dull for me.

I’ve tried my Uni-Ball EYES, and they are the Spoonful of Sugar that might help me swallow the medicinal task of Morning Pages.  Try it!  Who says you can’t doodle in the margins? Just be sure to write 3 full pages, but feel free to do that in technicolor. That’s what I plan to do.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved color. When I was a tiny child, my favorite thing about the Christmas season was sitting alone in my dark living room and watching the Christmas Tree’s lights bounce around in the panes of the large picture window that fronted my parents’ house.

Jacki Kellum Country Kitchen
Photo Taken in July

For the past several years, I have hung Christmas lights in at least one of my house’s window all year long.

Color is Childhood for Me. It is a ride on a Carousel on a warm autumn night. Color begs my spirit to play. That’s why I paint in watercolor:

So with that thought, let’s talk about today’s Reading Assignment:

LOGIC BRAIN – Beware!!!!

“Logic brain was and is our survival brain. It works on [pg. 12] known principles. Anything unknown is perceived as wrong and possibly dangerous. Logic brain likes things to be neat little soldiers marching in a straight line. Logic brain is the brain we usually listen to, especially when we are telling ourselves to be sensible.

[Logic Brain would not appreciate my colorful writng pens.]

“Logic brain is our Censor…. Faced with an original sentence, phrase, paint squiggle, it says, ‘What the hell is that? That’s not right!’

“Artist brain is our inventor, our child, our very own personal absent-minded professor.” Cameron, The Artist’s Way, pgs. 12 – 13.

No doubt about it: I am Artist Brain, and I have been that way all my life. My dad was an artist, and I inherited enough of his genes that I am a legitimate Artist Brain. The sad news is that Artist Brains are very sensitive. We walk around sniffing the flowers and writing poetry on a whim, but we are easily hurt. The Logical, Tough World constantly pushes us around. Like turtles we may dart into our shells and hide for a while, but invariably, we stick our noses out and sniff the flowers again–over and over. For me, The Artist’s Way helps urge me back out of my shells.

Most Logic Brains have little use for flower-sniffing and watching birds bathe and listening to the silence of snowfall. But the good news is that writing Morning Pages can help the Logic Brain to begin seeing life more artistically.

For us wounded Artist Brains, writing Morning Pages can help ease us back out of our shells again, and Morning Pages helps the Logic Brains to become more aware.

Bottom line: Writing Morning Pages is good for everyone,

You might enjoy watching the following tribute to my Artist Brain Dad, thanking him for the ways he helped me be the Artist Brain I needed to be.

READ: In The Artist’s Way, Read: The Basic Tools, pgs. 12- 13.

Here is the text of those pages:

LOGIC BRAIN – Beware!!!!

“A word is in order here about logic brain and artist brain. Logic brain is our brain of choice in the Western Hemisphere. It is the categorical brain. It thinks in a neat, linear fashion. As a rule, logic brain perceives the world according to known categories. A horse is a certain combination of animal parts that make up a horse. A fall forest is viewed as a series of colors that add up to “fall forest.” It looks at a fall forest and notes: red, orange, yellow, green, gold.

“Logic brain was and is our survival brain. It works on [pg. 12] known principles. Anything unknown is perceived as wrong and possibly dangerous. Logic brain likes things to be neat little soldiers marching in a straight line. Logic brain is the brain we usually listen to, especially when we are telling ourselves to be sensible.

“Logic brain is our Censor, our second (and third and fourth) thoughts. Faced with an original sentence, phrase, paint squiggle, it says, “What the hell is that? That’s not right!”

“Artist brain is our inventor, our child, our very own personal absent-minded professor. Artist brain says, “Hey! That is so neat!” It puts odd things together (boat equals wave and walker). It likes calling a speeding GTO a wild animal: “The black howling wolf pulled into the drive-in …”

“Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance. M. C. RICHARDS

“Artist brain is our creative, holistic brain. It thinks in patterns and shadings. It sees a fall forest and thinks: Wow! Leaf bouquet! Pretty! Gold-gilt-shimmery-earthskinking’s-carpet! Artist brain is associative and freewheeling. It makes new connections, yoking together images to invoke meaning: like the Norse myths calling a boat “wavehorse.” In Star Wars, the name Skywalker is a lovely artist-brain flash.

“Why all this logic-brain/artist-brain talk? Because the Morning Pages teach logic brain to stand aside and let artist brain play.

“The Censor is part of our leftover survival brain. It was the part in charge of deciding whether it was safe for us to leave the forest and go out into the meadow. Our Censor scans our creative meadow for any dangerous beasties. Any original thought can look pretty dangerous to our Censor.

“The only sentences/paintings/sculptures/photographs it likes are ones that it has seen many times before. Safe sentences. Safe paintings. Not exploratory blurts, squiggles, or jottings.

“Listen to your Censor and it will tell you that everything original is wrong/dangerous/rotten.

“Who wouldn’t be blocked if every time you tiptoed into the open somebody (your Censor) made fun of you? The Morning Pages will teach you to stop listening to that ridicule. They will allow you to detach from your negative Censor.” Cameron, The Artist’s Way, pgs. 12-13.

Write 3 Morning Pages. No Editing — Just Write. Let it Flow. Whatever Comes to your mind. Write. Remember: This is not Creative Writing, You Are Simply Emptying Your Mind.