Practice is constant, the season is the weather
Julia Cameron orders three pages every morning, 365 days a year. But doing them on a dark January morning at seven, with cold and no light, is nothing like doing them on a July morning with the sun already high at half past six. Denying that difference is the fast route to abandonment in the middle of winter, when the bed almost always wins.
Adapting is not lowering the commitment: it is protecting it. The common mistake is trying to replicate the summer routine in the dead of winter and blaming yourself when it doesn't work. Your body responds to light, temperature, and hours of sleep, and all of that changes radically between seasons. If the practice is not yet established, review first how to make morning pages.
It is also convenient to distinguish between the structure of the ritual and its content. The structure—writing three pages by hand, first thing in the day—stays the same all twelve months; That is the non-negotiable that gives continuity to the practice. The content and conditions—the exact time, the light, the tone of what you write, your energy level—are what breathe with the season. Confusing the two is the source of most abandonments: there are those who believe that they have 'broken' the method because in January they write half an hour later, when in reality they have only adjusted the wrapper without touching the core. Keep the structure firm and let everything else flow with the year.
Winter: the challenge of darkness and cold
In winter, waking up before dawn goes against biology. Melatonin levels remain high when the alarm clock rings, and the body asks for bed. The strategy here is operational compassion: prepare the conditions so that writing costs the least.
- Warm light ready: A 2700 K lamp turned on before getting up gently tricks the internal clock.
- hot drink prepared in advance for the cold transition.
- Permission to write later: If your winter is very dark, moving the pages for half an hour does not break the method.
- Blanket and capes: the cold contracts and disperses; physical heat helps concentration.
- More introspective pages: winter invites us to retreat; let the tone be more reflective without forcing playfulness.
Winter is the natural season of creative recollection. Don't fight that tone: your pages may become denser, more about balance and revision. It is consistent with the energy of the season.
Winter is worth reframing entirely. Our productivist culture treats any drop in energy as a problem to be corrected, but nature doesn't work like that: trees are not ashamed of losing their leaves, nor are fields ashamed of resting under the snow. This apparent rest is, in reality, invisible work of roots. Your creativity has its own winter, and the dark months can be exactly when what will bloom in spring germinates underneath. The pages of January, slower and more reflective, are not pages of lower quality: they are the pages that that season demands. Forcing summer joy in the middle of December is as absurd as expecting an apple tree to bear fruit in February.
Summer: easy early mornings and bright pages
In summer the situation is reversed. The sun rises early, the body wakes up earlier and getting up early costs much less. It is the ideal season to consolidate the practice or recover it if you left it in winter. The early natural light does the work that the lamp did in January.
The risk of summer is another: dispersion. Vacations, trips, broken schedules and social life that lasts until late can scroll the pages. The advantage of getting up early is lost if you go to bed at three. If you travel, it will help you how to maintain pages on vacation.
- Take advantage of natural light: open the window and write with the sunrise, without a lamp.
- Get up a little earlier to avoid the heat of the day and the activity of the house.
- Let the pages be more expansive: summer brings energy of startup and project.
- Be careful not to break the chain when traveling: carry a small dedicated notebook.
Spring and autumn: the pivotal seasons
Spring and fall are transitions, and the pages reflect that. Spring brings drive, a desire to start things, an energy that should be channeled before it overflows into a thousand half-finished projects. Autumn, on the other hand, calls for closure and harvest: a good time to reread (when it's time) and to ask yourself what you want to let go of before winter.
Use official time changes as a reminder to review your writing schedule. When clocks go forward or back, spend a few pages observing how the change in light affects you. That seasonal meta-awareness enriches the practice.
How to adjust the schedule without losing the chain
Cameron's principle is "morning" because the newly awakened mind has fewer defenses. But the word "tomorrow" is elastic depending on the season and your life. The non-negotiable thing is that they are the first what you do, not the exact time on the clock.
- Anchor when you wake up, not at the clock. "As soon as I wake up" works in every season; "at 6:00" no.
- Accept a stripe, not a point. 6:30-7:30 in summer, 7:30-8:30 in winter is perfectly fine.
- Check your schedule when time changes. Twice a year, readjust without guilt.
- Prioritize chain over perfection. Better a few pages at the wrong time than none at all by waiting for the ideal moment.
Once this is done, the seasons cease to be an obstacle and become part of the material. Your January pages will talk about something else than those in July, and that variation is a sign that the practice is alive. If you want a structure for the whole year, the 7 steps to get started They serve in any season.
The body, light and the internal clock
Behind all this there is a biological explanation that should be understood to stop blaming yourself. Your internal clock—the circadian rhythm—is mostly calibrated to light. In summer, early sunshine naturally advances your waking time and lowers melatonin earlier. In winter, prolonged darkness keeps melatonin levels high, and that is why getting up early physically costs more, not because of a lack of willpower.
Knowing this changes the relationship with the practice. When you have a hard time getting up to write in January, you're not failing: you're fighting your own chemistry. The answer is not more hammer discipline, but more strategy. Artificial warm light on before you get up, ideally with a sunrise alarm clock that simulates dawn, gives your brain the signal that the sky has not yet sent.
There is also a recognized seasonal phenomenon: part of the population experiences a low mood in the dark months, sometimes known as the winter blues. If you notice that winter turns you off significantly, the pages can be a support to observe it, but they do not replace taking care of your spirit; Natural light, exercise and, if necessary, professional support matter as much as the notebook.
The general lesson is one of humility before the body: your creative energy is not flat throughout the year, it rises and falls with the seasons just like the sap of a tree. Smart practice does not require the same performance in December as in June. Ask for consistency—appear in front of the notebook—but accept that the nature of what you write and the ease with which you do it will follow the pulse of the year. That acceptance is, paradoxically, what allows you to never completely give up.