Pages and Posts
If you are a WordPress blogger, you know the difference between Pages and Posts. Pages are static and used to publish information that doesn’t change much. Good examples are Older Eyes’ Home Page, the Who’s Bud page and Bud’s Favorites. Pages often show navigational links, like Blogrolls, links to other sites and subscription information in the sidebar. Posts are individual publications that are listed in reverse chronological order, usually on the Home Page. If you click on a blog entry … or arrive directly from an email subscription … the post will appear as if it is a Page, with or without the navigation, depending on the WordPress Theme the blogger is using. I use Sapphire, which by default does not show the sidebar. As I wander about the blogosphere, I notice that quite a few people use the word Blog interchangeably with Post, as in, I like today’s Blog. Technically, the Blog is the entire collection of Pages and Posts, the blogger’s website, if you will.
That’s not what today’s Post it about. Well, it is about Posts but a different kind of Pages. This shouldn’t surprise you if you’ve been coming around for a while. Older Eyes is fond of leading you down one alley then, just when you think you know where you’re going, making a quick turn into another subject. No, I don’t know why I do this. At any rate, what I want to talk about today is
Morning Pages … the two to three pages of handwritten, stream of consciousness prose recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way … and how a year of posting daily has affected them. I’ve been doing Morning Pages most mornings for almost 18 years. For me, the process of slowing down whatever is swirling in my head by writing it down has been invaluable in the process of knowing and understanding myself, as well as crucial in doing the inventory required by the Fourth Step. Writing brings out things I might not otherwise have seen or chosen not to see. But beyond the self-help aspects of Morning Pages, the process has done wonders for my ability to write freely about whatever topic I choose, which in turn has turned me into a prolific blogger.
It appears, however, that the process of posting regularly is not returning the favor … because as I have become more attuned to the structured writing of Posts on a particular topic, it’s taken longer and longer to complete my Morning Pages, sometimes to the point that I just say, To Hell with it! Other times, I find myself drafting a Post in my Morning Pages. The problem isn’t having a topic … after all, Julia says the Morning Pages can be on any topic. It’s the planning and the pace that I worry about … over the years, when I’ve been slow or reluctant during my Morning Pages, I’ve assumed that there’s some issue I’m avoiding. You don’t suppose that my self-improvement is complete, that I’m a finished product, do you? Nah. So what’s the deal? Maybe it will turn up in my Morning Pages … if I get back to doing them.
Explore posts in the same categories: writing and bloggingTags: blogging, books, feeling older, mindfulness, Morning Pages, The Artist's Way, writing, writing and blogging
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Older Eyes 
January 21, 2012 at 8:17 am
Maybe I just need another cup of coffee, but I had a hard time following your post, maybe I should be looking for an explanation on a page? (LOL, now I’m cracking myself up) Maybe I’ll just wait for Monday…Ha, laughing again over here. Thanks.
Sorry if you didn’t intend this to be funny, you can feel good about making someone smile–even if it was their own strange sense of humor. (now I’m not sure if I can follow this comment!) Still laughing.
January 21, 2012 at 9:10 am
See? My posts are turning into my stream of consciousness Morning Pages. Yes, I was being half-facetious which allows for laughing. Sometimes I over-complicate life and need to laugh at myself.
January 21, 2012 at 8:33 am
Maybe you’re just happy and content and settled. Less anxious, less concerned with things. Less “swirling around” in there first thing in the day. That wouldn’t be entirely bad, right? But if you want to continue the daily reflection, is it possible to write your pages at night instead, when the day has had a chance to give you more material, before sleep lets you hit the Reset button?
January 21, 2012 at 9:14 am
You know, it’s funny. I tend to be a rule bender and only disciplined in a few areas of my life. I don’t do any of the other things advised by The Artist’s Way. But I’ve been doing Morning Pages for so long, I have trouble deviating from “Juia’s Rules” – two to three pages, written in the morning, no constraints on topic, write continuously without stopping. But I think you’re right, there is a lot less swirling in there. And as the post shows, Bud’s Blog is getting more stream of consciousness.
January 21, 2012 at 9:41 am
I can see how your pages and your posts could become mixed, eventually one canceling out the others. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You seemed to be attuned to yourself, so you will know when you need your morning pages.
I used to keep a journal, which was often very stream of consciousness and repetitive. Since I started blogging (not as much as you, unfortunately), I find the writing too slow. I like the way the posts make me slow down and think, although I tend to over think them.
My latest habit is doing a day journal. It has 365 pages, one for each day, with five years marked out. Now there is a challenge for me–narrowing my flow to just a few cramped lines. It’s going to take practice!
January 21, 2012 at 10:44 am
I don’t think we ever get to a point where we fully know ourselves and all that stuff but I do think from time to time we do run out of things to say (write) effectively. Well, I sure as hell know I do anyway! Sometimes I think with the off-and-on way I have always operated that perhaps I am bi-polar and when I can’t think of a thing to write about or the energy or whatever, that maybe I’m dipping down, going into a repressed or depressed cycle. Then I may have a couple days here and there where I don’t really want to write but am forced into it due to other obligations and those days are a struggle. But every now and again, I do go through phases of free-will postings where I want to share/write and I actually enjoy it then. Been in a “slug” mode for several days now, in case you’re wondering -no energy, no mood for anything but sleep most of the time. Who knows?
January 21, 2012 at 1:37 pm
The use of the word “blog” when one is actually referring to a “post” has long bothered me. You pointed out the proper use much more politely than I could have.
I’m not surprised your morning pages have been suffering. It’s expecting an awful lot of yourself to hand write those two to three pages and also churn out an organized, well-thought out blog post on a daily basis. Personally, I wouldn’t have the energy to do both. Hopefully that’s all it is. But if something more is behind the lack of morning writing, I hope it comes to the surface so you can address it.