Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Wreck This Journal

One of my main partners in crime, Katherine Garbera, is amazing at finding exactly the right thing. I've been whining about writing (is there any other way?), and she emailed me before conference to say that she'd found me a journal. Now Kathy knows that journals and I don't always get along. I've posted on my difficulties with journal keeping before. I haven't gotten much better since then. But she was confident that this journal was just the thing to get the ol' creative juices flowing. So when she had a chance, she handed me this:



This is not a journal for the fainthearted. Smith, the author of other creativity works like Living Out Loud and The Guerrilla Art Kit, has produced a truly weird volume that just might be the key to unlocking folks who are stuck. Rather than inundating you with all of those lovely, yet intimidating, blank pages, Wreck This Journal gives you tasks to complete. And are they weird! A sampling of instructions:
  • Add your own page numbers. Starting here. (I did this one. I used prime numbers!)
  • This page is for handprints or fingerprints. Get them dirty then press down.
  • Draw lines while in motion, on the bus, on the train, while walking.
  • Tie a string to the spine of this book. Swing wildly. Let it hit the walls.
  • Make a paper chain (includes lines for cutting the page apart).
  • Sew this page.
  • Color outside of the lines.
  • Fill in this page when you are really angry.
  • Write with the pen in your mouth.
  • Collect fruit stickers (from bought fruit) here. (Two already, an ORGANIC sticker from some bananas my other partner in crime, Nancy Robards Thompson, bought in SF, and one from a Sunkist lemon in my fridge.)
It's not your usual journal. Some of the tasks, like "Crack the spine," will be hard (that's a pet peeve), but others seem fun. Freeing. Good for the unsticking that writers need to do from time to time. Last task: Tape the journal closed and mail it to yourself. There's an address box on the back.

Anything weird like this you do to get yourself unstuck?

4 comments:

Dara Edmondson said...

Sounds like a great gift! That'd never work for me, though - I'm way too orderly - neurotically so. I was an in-the-lines colorer, although I always prefered no lines. But if they were there - well, you get the picture.

Keri Mikulski said...

Wow.. Love the idea. And what a great journal to use with students.

I run. That usually gets me out of my funk. Have fun with the journal. :)

Terry Odell said...

I usually think about the 'other stuff' I'd have to be doing if I wasn't writing -- like ironing, or cleaning -- and then I'll write anything. I can always fix it later.

Anonymous said...

I really like when people are expressing their opinion and thought. So I like the way you are writing

 

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