Starting the Day Off Write

Have you heard of morning pages? I can't recall where I first saw them mentioned, though in researching (to give credit where credit is due) I find it's an idea which was popularized via Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way," a book which I admit I have not read and on which I cannot offer an opinion.

In any case, the concept is simple: first thing in the morning, as soon as you roll out of bed, before your brain has had the chance to fully wake and get its house in order, you sit down and write three full pages. Longhand. That's right: just you and a notepad and a pen or pencil.

What do you write about? Whatever pops into your head. Write about the crazy dream you just escaped. Write about your plans or worries for the day. Write about what you're going to eat for breakfast. Write about how weird the word "morning" looks to you right now, for some reason. Write about the sound of the rain and how it reminds you of sleeping in the back bedroom at your grandmother's house that July between sixth and seventh grade, when birds created a nest under the eaves and one memorable afternoon, a fledgling flew in though the window and about gave Grandma's fat old tabby cat a heart attack.

There are no rules. Just fill those three pages.

As you'd kind of expect, much of what I write is dreadfully dull or complete nonsense. However, in giving myself the freedom to explore whatever comes to mind, I've also found the seeds of short stories or poems or blog posts, wrestled with life decisions, and sorted out tangled scenes in larger works-in-progress. It's also a good way to work on writing discipline: simply sitting down at a given time each day, knowing you have to write something, no matter how sleepy and uninspired you may feel.

In a perfect world, I think I would always start my days with morning pages, and end them with writing down my "Three Good Things." In practice, I manage stints of three or four days at a time, but have never really gotten consistent about it. And I should.

Have you ever tried morning pages? If so, how have they worked for you?

Rotation, Rotation

I appear to be in nerdy over-analysis mode for the moment, so here we go again.

The other day, I was writing with a ballpoint and realized I was rotating it slightly--sort of rolling it to the left--at the end of each line, or whenever I lifted my hand for a moment. It's something I do--something we all do, I assume--with wooden pencils without even thinking about it, so the point wears evenly, but it has no real purpose with pens except to sort of reseat your grip every so often. The only reason I noticed was because the clip on this particular pen kept getting in the way now and again, and I finally figured out it was coming around the rotation every so many lines and rubbing against my hand--until I rotated it away again.

I do this with mechanical pencils, too, to the point where when I picked up a Uni Kuru Toga pencil (which rotates the very point of the pencil for you to maintain a consistent point), we fought--because I couldn't break myself of the habit of turning the pencil, even though it was rotating for me.

Now...obviously I don't do this with fountain pens, or they'd stop working every time I got to the end of a line. So my subconscious apparently has it figured out that they're another species. Why, then, does it lump most other pens with pencils, I wonder?

Interestingly, I appear to rotate pencils to the right and pens to the left. That's even weirder.

Are you a rotator? Do you keep rolling in a particular direction or is it random? Does your brain distinguish between pencils and pens?

Identifying Bic Cristals

This is totally nerdy, and I may be the only person on the planet who cares, but here we go anyhow!

As I mentioned in the comments on my recent post about Bic Cristals, I ended up splurging (for about three bucks) on a box of the new Easy Glide variety. When I got them home, I realized I couldn't easily tell them apart from the older "writes farther" variety I already had on hand. They're clear, and they don't have any model number or anything easily visible on the pen. So...I resorted to a piece of blue paper. What will my boss think if she comes across pens labeled "smooth?" Unknown.

But today, as I was A/B-ing these pens again, something caught my eye. There *is* a difference! The "Bic" logo is farther back from the point on the "Smooth" model than it is on the older type.

Top: Bic Cristal Easy Glide. Bottom: Bic Cristal "Writes Longer"

So there ya go. If you come across one in the wild and are wondering what it is...here's your field guide.

Forgive Me

Forgive me, pen snobs and pencil fans, for I have slummed.

In my defense, the Internet has been conspiring against me. First Rhodia Drive got me feeling all nostalgic, then it felt like I kept running across these on Instagram and Twitter all week. I had to pick up laundry detergent today, and these were there...begging. And I was feeling down today, and when I'm feeling down, I have no resistance to begging pens.

OK, they're skinny. They take some pressure to move. The ink is less than perfectly black. They certainly aren't the best pens in the universe. But I can still stick a piece of paper with my name on it inside the clear barrel so they don't walk away. And they make me think of scribbling at the kitchen table as a kid. And, above all, they were CHEAP.

So there.