I woke up this morning and wrote six pages of strangeness. I’ve done this every day for six days now on the advice of an author — Julia Cameron, an award-winning journalist, screenwriter, director, filmmaker and self-help guru. Her book is called The Artist’s Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living, and I highly recommend it.

Cameron calls this exercise “morning pages.” That’s when you do them — in the morning, when your subconscious is still lurking at the doorway of consciousness. Cameron suggests this exercise as part of a unique 12-step recovery program for artists. The goal is not to gain freedom from addictions, but to re-connect with our source of creativity, our souls — the eternal muse.

It goes like this. Wake up. Write three pages, by hand, in a notebook. Write more if you like, but write at least three pages. Don’t let anyone else read them. The pages are sacred, and yours alone. Do not hold back. This is a stream of consciousness spilling out onto the page. Got a gripe? Write about it. Reeling from a profound dream journey? Write about it. Have an idea? Write about it. Got a headache? A massive to-do list? Write about it. Write about whatever comes to mind. Do not censor yourself. Don’t worry about crafting prose. Just write.

The process brings a host of benefits for creative types.

It’s a brain dump — it gets you out of your own way. The issues that end up in the pages are frequently things that would keep us from creating, from finding inspiration and from acting on that inspiration. Soul gunk, baggage, hang-ups — all these things block the untrammeled expression of the creative will. Put them on the page, and move on with creating.

The pages also encourage the kind of discipline that so many artists lack. Don’t skip a day, says Cameron, even if you feel like there’s nothing meaningful to write. Write three pages about what you want for breakfast if you have to, but write three pages every morning. Then see if that same kind of discipline can be used in other areas of your life.

Writing morning pages also forces us to engage the oft-neglected left hemisphere of our brains. Stream of consciousness writing is non-linear, holistic, uncensored. Most of us grew up learning to favor the right brain — linear, logical, and critical — all of the things that hamper creative expression if allowed to dominate our noggins. Writing these pages becomes a tool for reconnecting to the other half of our brain. Of course, the real power comes from making the two hemispheres work together, but we’ll settle for reclaiming the neglected half for now.

Writing these pages also provides a safe space to explore inspiration, play with ideas, sketch up concepts, and spill the creative, psychic overflow that we tend to wake up with. It’s hard to follow every inspiration that occurs. Not everything that wells up from our subconscious is worth turning into a piece of art. Getting lost in the creative sauce is every bit as much a block as not being able to find any inspiration at all. Pages become a place to sort out inspirations, make choices, refine concepts, and figure out an order of operation.

Finally, a side note: this book is based on the AA Twelve-Steps program, which is ironic. Because I think I’m addicted to doing these damn morning pages.