Every morning I write for ten minutes before getting out of bed.
It’s a ritual.
It’s a routine.
It’s a creative habit.
It starts the creative juices flowing, it documents my mind’s daily wandering, and it allows me to move on to the day ahead feeling that I’ve accomplished something.
it is one of my seven strategies for a successful day.
Another one is working in a series.
Making not one but two, three, even a hundred, of the same idea.
Today I am painting still life’s, specifically Morning Glories.
But before I began to paint, I wrote my ten minutes.
I believe the one (the timed free write) informs the other.
I believe the writing without destination, following wherever the story takes me, allows me to paint better, to think better. And to write better.
Here’s my writing today.
10 minutes, timed, before getting out of bed.
6:53 am
Woke up in a motel in SF drank coffee got some rows knitting in before a phone call with our daughter, then six miles walking to the Golden Gate Bridge and back.
It always looks so much closer.
So big and red and looming, and yesterday the sky so clear you could practically see the individual wire strands of the suspension cables.
A young girl met us on the street corner with a big blue sign asking us to vote for her candidate.
A man lay in a doorway huddled in on himself, no blanket.
The joggers were out in force, maintaining their bodies beautiful, one tall thin woman with a high pony more prancing than running, like a prima ballerina set loose on the track.
The tide was low but water looked between us and the beach, reflecting the Golden Gate upside down.
We had brought nothing but a bottle of water with us so kept walking, but we were both thinking, “how would I paint that?”
Sailing boats are tied up at the yacht club here, their reflections dancing with them in the gentle wake.
As we walk and talk it seems the water and the boats and the islands are moving, not us. The bridge seems always at the same distance from us, close, so close, but yet we are still not there.
At one stop along the path there is a sign that tells us we still have half a mile to go, which seems incredible, because we can practically reach out and touch it. And yet.
White steam erupts from a large building across the road, and the smell of hops.
From the last pier a few men wrapped in many layers cast lines into the water.
The Warming Hut is closed, it’s still too early, even though it seems half the City is out walking their dogs.
That’s it!
If this process interests you, maybe you’d like to join my online Writing Group, Tell Me More!
Tell Me More! supports writers in writing daily.
We start off with a commitment to write ten minutes a day, for 30 days.
We share our work in a Secret Facebook group.
We don’t critique.
We don’t share each other’s stories outside of the group.
That’s it!
Make Art! Be Kind!
Send me a message on Facebook if you’d like to participate!