I have been keeping a journal on and off for 15 years, but it took a more serious turn in 2004 when I explored psychotherapy as a way to get through a period of stuckness in my life. I started writing down my dreams and analysing them - beginning a conversation with my unconscious that continues today.
When I started doing creative writing courses with the Open University, the first thing I learnt was to keep a journal of fragments, snippets and details to use in my writing. This was confusing - I already had a journal that worked very well for me, and when I started putting my writing in there too it got confused and muddled. So I started a second book, a parallel journal for creative writing.
Pretty soon I got annoyed at lugging these two A4 journals around everywhere. I tried leaving one at home, both at home, smaller journals, going back to one journal, and expanding up to three journals at one point. When the courses ended I had an A4 journal for my current piece of work and an A5 journal for my daily emotional work.
So why am I posting this?
I have changed things again. It's been a full-on couple of months with a new baby and lack of sleep, but my unconscious has been chugging away in the background trying to work out how to move forward now that I have no courses and no deadlines. I've changed the rules of engagement with my A4 'creative work' notebook. It's going to be more 'da Vinci', more sketchy, more free-form. I'm going to care less what I put in it, so I can make more creative mistakes. I'm going to stick more things in, use more colour, and generally try new things with it.
Not so different? For me this is a radical change. It's a change of attitude as much as anything. A journal is just a journal until something is put into it. And so what if I want to learn to draw at 36-years-old...? If not now, when?!
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