The Miracle of Morning Pages: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Most Important Artist's Way Tool: A Special from Tarcher/Penguin

With the pages in place first thing, you are much less likely to fall in with others’ agendas. Your day is your own to spend. You’ve claimed it.

Meditation gives us knowledge of our Higher Power’s will for us and the power to carry it out. We meditate to discover our rightful place in the scheme of things. This inner power has the ability to transform our outer world.

Although occasionally festive, the pages are frequently negative and fragmented. They may be stilted or even self-pitying.

We become more bold—first on the page, next in our life. We learn to miniaturize our Censor, the negative voice that frightens and intimidates us, bullying us out of making art.

Many times, students come to me hoping to lose their fear. They believe “real artists” are fearless. Instead, I teach them to have their fears and act anyhow. “Real” artists are people who have learned to create despite their fears.

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.

Well, I am here to remind you that you were both safe and sorry. No one undertakes the Morning Pages who is not hungry for change. “Safe and sorry” is the identity you are shedding. You are not who you were, but you are not yet who you are becoming. Picture yourself as a hatchling—awkward, but becoming free.

“What do I need to know?” “What do I need to try?” “What do I need to accept?” “What do I need to do?”

“What do I need to know?” “What do I need to try?” “What do I need to accept?” “What do I need to do?”