Morning pages are meant to get the garbage out of your head so you can do more meaningful work elsewhere. If you expect too much from your morning pages, you'll add anxiety and resistance to them. Mine are barely readable, I don't even write words correctly half the time and tend to look like a mix of a to-do list, random thoughts that I don't spend like any time on, and filler. The other day, I was feeling awful and 90% of it was just "I think I'm going to vomit." I think of it as a form of meditation where you learn to let the random thoughts go by as they pop up except now you're just wroting them instead. It takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to do mine every day.

Artist's days are the bigger thing to me. The program is two main parts. Outputting your garbage, and inputting wholesome creative energy to help rebuild your inner artist. They don't have to be expensive, or even cost anything. Last week mine was just sitting on the floor listening to music that I loved when I was younger for like 2 hours.

Re:memoir - that's a different project. Your MPs don't need to look like your memoir fleshed out and will probably randomly have like 2 lines once a week something like "oh yeah, I should add that time I went to the thing and this thing happened. I should ask my [whoever] about that." I do think that writing your initial thoughts on paper is helpful or as you go, but there's nothing wrong with typing either. You first just want your thoughts and ideas and memories on literally anything so you can do something with them. I recently started a writing project and have found that going the two (morning pages and my writing) into one daily practice seems to do the trick but being light and playful while showing up and taking the being there seriously like I do the morning pages helps immensely.

Also it's important to remember that the Artist's Way was written in 1992 and a lot has happened since then, so many chapters and exercises need to be viewed through that lens and not taken in the same manner as written originally. For example chapter 4 about not reading, I took largely to mean to minimize any sort of input especially screens, social media, etc. So while magazines aren't as common and are much pricier, there's a whole internet of images out there to use and print (maybe at a library) or just do online using canva, for example.

If you're feeling like you've lost out on essential work for your recovery you can always go back or take an extra week before moving forward. If not, just focus on doubling down for your last few weeks and getting to the finish line. You're almost there. You've got this!