I was going to recommend The Artist’s Way, but someone already has. So I thought I’d come and say that she has another course-book called “The Right to Write”. I haven’t started it yet, but I have it and it’s similar to The Artist’s Way but focussed specifically on writing. I really loved The Artist’s Way, and there are things I started when I was doing it that have become parts of my life in general. Morning pages are something I’ve done for years but had fallen out of doing everyday, so it put me back on track and I find it useful. Although I do sometimes think that i prefer evening pages to morning. Morning pages your brain is blank so it’s easier to create new things, but if you struggle with creating new things atm then evening pages often gives you more to work with. You have everything you did that day, stuff to reflect on, feelings to process. So if morning pages are feeling tough, perhaps try before bed! You might end up doing both night and morning!
currently working through the artist’s way, and morning pages have quickly become a fav. It’s a steam-of-thought/get everything on the page daily habit. I find it’s great to just get the momentum going if I want to work but I’m stuck on what to do (you can even think through this conflict on the page and brainstorm solutions or figure out why you don’t feel like it). I like to also look through stuff I wrote previously if I had any good ideas I didn’t know what to do with at the time.
Here to Rec this again, or The Right to Write also by Julia Cameron. It doesn’t necessarily help with line actual writing tips, but I found it helped my writing and creative practice in general by beginning to consider my entire life as a whole as part of it. What we write comes from how we live, what we see, how we think. And this helped me with that! It comes in from an “Artist’s block“ perspective, and I was worried it wouldn’t work because I wasn’t at all blocked, but I still found it really useful and interesting to discover the ways that maybe I was blocked and hadnt realised. It’s also just a really good tool to ensure commitment to craft, which i think is the hardest and most important thing in creating. If you do it a lot, consistently, you will improve, always.
The former stolen from 'The Artist's Way' (three pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling every morning), the latter inspired by someone I follow on IG who once posted "the morning walk changed my life" (she was right). As a practice, morning pages are basically taking out the garbage for your brain, while to douche-ily drop a Nietzsche quote I've come across a bunch recently, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” Plus a bunch of mediocre ones! But really, can't say enough about both for creativity... and sanity <3