Jessica
If you’ve read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, then you’re familiar with morning pages. If you’re not familiar with this practice, the basic idea is that writers should write three uncensored, unfiltered journal pages every morning as soon as they wake up. The idea is that you develop a creative practice, you unload whatever you’re thinking about, and you plant seeds for future “real” writing. Throughout my life, I’ve tried morning pages off and on. In fact, I remember the first time I committed to them consistently was when I was living in the western Chicago suburbs. I was in my first professional job out of college and it was the first time I was scared that I would never be a real writer, because I never felt like I had time to write. I learned that this was wrong, because months later I was moving to Minnesota to start my MFA program at Hamline University. Despite my early successes with morning pages, I’ve never been able to practice them consistently over time.
As of today, I’ve written morning pages for 29 days in a row. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the brilliant site, 750 Words.
I originally heard about 750 Words through Twitter, although like most things in social media, I cannot seem to pin down where I first heard about it. Basically, it’s a site that offers writers a free space to write your three morning pages each day. There’s a little word counter at the bottom of the page that helps you to see when you’ve gotten to 750 words. (This is the magic number, because on average a page of typed text is 250 words, according to the site founder.) Once you reach 750 words, it gives you a message that says you’ve achieved your goal. Your morning pages are archived by month, which you can download in a text file.
If this is all that the site did, it would be pretty cool. But it does more. You can send yourself a reminder email each day, so that you can click through to the site and write your words. It uses fancy word recognition software to tell you what you’re thinking and how you’re writing. (I will stress though that your words are totally private and only you can access them.) The site also awards your writing behavior with badges. If you write three days in a row, you earn a turkey. If you write five days in a row, you get a penguin. Ten days, and it’s a flamingo. Right now, I’m one day away from earning an albatross. There are badges also for behavior, from your total accumulated words (reach 100,00 and you get a flock), to whether or not you get distracted for three minutes or more.
Lastly, you can participate in monthly challenges. You join the challenges only if you want, which commits you to writing for the whole month. You are allowed to devise your own rewards. For example, I’m participating in the October challenge. If I write for all 31 days in October, I will treat myself to lunch at an interesting restaurant. And I’ll be listed on the site’s Wall of Awesome, which is archived on the site. If I miss one or more days, I will donate $10 to the 750 words site. I will also end up on the site’s Wall of Shame.
As you can see, there are multiple ways that the site encourages your consistency, between badges, challenges and daily prodding. Since I’m on a 29 day streak, I am terrified of breaking it, which perpetuates my streak. Since I’m participating in a monthly challenge, I’m motivated by my potential rewards (and dumb pride). All of this adds up to daily writing.
There are benefits of this site beyond consistency. Even though I’m writing nonsense most days (my 750 words include to do lists and half formed thoughts) I am unloading there. It’s a healthy place for me to crab about work or other nagging things on my mind. I don’t always have these private spaces in my life, so I appreciate that space, much more than if I were crabbing to my husband or friends. I also have a space to work on creative projects and think through ideas for poems privately.
But most importantly, I get to see myself as someone who is engaged in her creative practice in a meaningful and consistent way. I get to be a finisher, an achiever, someone who writes 23,188 words in 29 days. And that kind of feeling is powerful.
(Full disclosure: I wrote this blog post as part of my 750 words this morning. It’s not cheating, it’s multitasking.)
