The Clumsy Interloper

Morning Pages apply a force of nature on me. They are a funnel cloud on my consciousness. My thoughts are flung skyward in a column of air, spraying in all directions until all I’m left with are the fragments of authenticity. After this 45-minute daily waterfall scribble, my electric block-letter frenzy is finally over and I sink back into my chair. I massage my aching hand and take inventory. I breathe deep.

One of the first exercises of the Artist’s Way is to repeatedly write out an affirmation of your choice to close your Morning Pages. The reasoning behind this is because you are now more exposed to your unvarnished truth. I selected the phrase, “I, Alan, am a brilliant and prolific writer” – less a proclamation, more an aspirational and motivational intention. While writing these out, your Censor will perk up and object to this naked self-praise. It will surface and interject with biting invectives. These are your Blurts. The goal of the first week is to turn these blurts into affirmations, reorienting your negative inner-critic toward a lightness than better serves you.

Blurt 1: You are lazy and you never finish anything. >>> You are driven to improve, your process is your North star.

Blurt 2: No one wants to read your shit >>> Your writing contains your truth and brings people joy.

Blurt 3: Your vocabulary and sentence structures are cookie cutter >>> Follow your rhythm and voice, be free on the page above all else.

Blurt 4: You are too pleased with yourself >>> You are worthy of praise, connection and happiness.

It’s been a powerful experience this week to face and reckon with my blurts. They run deep.  I think I wrote voluminously in my 20’s to escape my inadequacies. I did it for attention, posting my best poems on my dorm room wall in a conspicuous gambit to prove I was talented or profound. Writing was a battle with this ineffable feeling that I wasn’t enough. I didn’t do it as therapy or a means of connection, but rather as a parlor trick to attract a female or impress a friend.

When I write to conquer or outstrip my blurts, my voice becomes strident. I lose the signal and become the noise. I read stuff I wrote in college and my humor is coarse and misogynistic. It is tethered to a fear that I no longer have space for. For too long my blurts have controlled how I express myself, now entrenched in middle age, I look toward the next page with optimism and joy.