Kimberly O'Connor

Hello–and welcome, new followers! I’m excited to write about The Artist’s Way each week for the next 12 weeks.

A quick note: if you weren’t part of The Artist’s Way workshop at Denver Public Library on January 20, you can still join us for The Artist’s Way adventure. All you need is a copy of The Artist’s Way, a notebook, a pen, and a sense of possibility.

This week I thought I’d write about morning pages, artist’s dates, and the exercises I did in week 1, “Recovering a Sense of Safety.” At the end of this post, I’m asking for suggestions and questions in the comments, too.

Morning pages are three pages of longhand writing you do each morning, as soon as you can after you get up. I’ve been doing morning pages on and off for over 20 years. There are years I’ve done them regularly, like this year and last year; years I haven’t done them at all, like the years I had a child age 0 to 5 and the years I taught high school starting at 6:50 AM; and years I’ve done them sporadically, which is most years of my life. I do think morning pages are great, and if you can do them, even sort of, they will align you with your emotions and goals and truths.

One question people had in the library workshop was how long they take to write. I wasn’t sure, but for the past couple of days I have paid more attention and I think mine take at least 40 minutes. That also includes my morning ritual of making coffee, feeding animals, and (new in 2024!) starting some essential oil in the diffuser. I spend a fair amount of time during morning pages staring off into space. But I think even writing for five minutes each morning has the centering effect that morning pages are supposed to have.

We also talked about what type of notebook to use. Right now I use composition notebooks from Dollar Tree. For awhile I really liked blank sketchbooks, and long ago I used fancy hardback books. Here are some of the notebooks I’ve used over the years:

On to artist’s dates… I shared in the workshop that getting myself on an artist’s date is hard. I resist. But last week I knew I’d be writing about my week, so I decided to check out a bookstore I’d seen from the highway for years and never gone to. I was late getting out of the house, but I thought I’d still have enough time to explore the store for a bit. When I arrived, though, I walked up to an empty storefront with a handwritten “out of business” sign that I thought about photographing for this post but was too discouraged to take out my phone.

Bummer.

I took the car to a carwash instead–not really the same vibe. But then, my son wanted to stop by Barnes and Noble, so we did, and he wanted to wander around by himself, so I wandered by myself too, for over half an hour! I looked at books and pens and all the stuff. I am counting this as an artist’s date even though I technically wasn’t alone. I had time to look around and think my own thoughts (which included a lot of wondering about why I dont’ want to read any books.. but that’s another topic). We do our best!

For the exercises in Week One, I did the thing where you write an affirmation and then notice what “blurts” come up. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, this is page 36 in my book, right above a chart of affirmations.) I wrote “I, Kim, am a talented and prolific writer.” And sure enough, some blurts happened:

You’re not that talented; you keep getting rejections from lit journals.

You’re not that prolific; you never write.

You’re not that talented; you’re not a tenured university professor.

And so on… it was interesting to see what blurts appeared and to acknowledge them.

So that’s my week 1! I’d love to hear from you. How was your first week? What did you do for your artist date? How are your morning pages going? What questions do you have for future weeks? Leave your answers in the comments below!