There are countless articles and anecdotes on the internet about the life changing power of doing morning pages. They are well known in artistic and writerly circles, as is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a book which guides you through a 12-step program in discovering your creative self.

I bought my copy of The Artist’s Way at a second-hand book stall somewhere on the north coast and began writing morning pages in August 2014. The idea is that you are not supposed to go back and read them, but when I come to the end of a notebook, I usually have a quick skim back through. Sometimes there are great ideas I had completely forgotten about, and other times there are painful reminders of how I was feeling on a particular day. Often, I sound completely mad and bonkers.

You are most definitely not supposed to show them to anyone, but here is a small snippet of my first ever morning pages:

“I’m reading The Artist’s Way, hoping to ignite my creative self. My dream is to write books for children. I want to be able to describe myself as ‘someone who writes for children’.

“What do you do?” someone may ask me.

‘I write books for children” (insert grin and satisfied sigh)

I would love to see a child read something I had written, then hug the book to their chest, squeezing it, as if they want the book to become part of them”

Well, nothing has changed in almost 4 years. That is still my dream. I will keep going, showing up at my desk, working hard to become a better writer, and hoping to one day see a child hug a book written by me.

Note to self: Give daughter instructions to burn all my morning pages notebooks upon my death, lest anyone read them and thinks I was completely bonkers.