The Creative Notebook

I’ve told you all many times that my journal tends to be a catch all.  And part of what it catches is the monthly budgeting and planning.  I write down when bills are due in relation to paydays and add and subtract to work through my money for the month.  I take away any extra I spend, and I’m trying to journal where all the extra goes, in an attempt to get ahold of my finances and try to save to open a new business. 

It amazes me how quickly a $20 disappears and I have no idea where it went.  Writing it all in my catch-all journal makes me more aware of where it all goes and makes me a better consumer.

You’ve probably noticed a lot of the prompts I offer here come from my life experience and what goes on in my normal day.  Usually when I offer a prompt like this, I’ve written about it in my journal, or I’m going to because it’s been on my mind that day.  Today’s is no exception. 

As you know if you read here regularly, we are moving into our own place(not a rental).  To ease some of the tension on my kids, they are going to choose how their rooms are decorated.  We’ve spend a lot of time looking at kids bedding for my son and stuff a little older and trendier for my teen daughter. 

It has me remembering my childhood, and what my bedrooms looked like.  We moved a lot, but always in the same town, so I didn’t deal with those type of changes. 

What was your childhood bedroom like?  What is the most vivid memory you have of it?  Did you help decorate it?  What does the phrase “childhood bedroom” immediately make you think of?  Sometimes first impressions of a phrase can reveal a lot about your innermost feelings.

Take some time with this one.  Journal writing can take you places you never would have though you’d end up, and reveal things to you that you never knew were inside you. 

This would be a great visual journal or art journal prompt.  Draw your bedroom.  Or take magazine cut outs and collage what your inner child’s dream bedroom would look like.

Here are some links to articles about keeping a journal for your child, and about encouraging kids to journal.

Capture Memories of Your Child With a Journal

Help Your Child Learn to Write Well

Teach Your Child to Keep a Journal

Waiting Adoptive and Foster Families and LifeBooks

Creating your child’s legacy journal

If you find any more good links I can add to the list, let me know and I’ll add them and give you credit for finding them.

My son has always been a handful, from conception.  One of my big regrets is that I didn’t keep a journal for him, to record all the fun, crazy, and offbeat things he’s done since he was able to move around by himself.

He’ll be able to remember a lot of things that happen now himself, since he’s almost ten.  But maybe I should still start now, and record his wordworking adventures, his model rocket experiments, the car he made with his dad from balsa wood with flames down the side that ran on it’s own with a c02 cartridge, or the funny little comments he makes.   I know he’ll want to remember how he has always had his own style, and has never been afraid to be himself(a trait I hope he carries into adulthood). 

But I wish I’d gotten it all down from the beginning.  If you have a little one, journal for them.  You won’t regret it.

I’ve been looking for a loan so I can find a cheaper place to live.  I want to focus more on my writing and art, and it can be a long, poor, road to establishing myself as a published writer.  Magazines don’t exactly beat your door down when you’re a new writer.  I’ve only got a couple of clips to my name right now.

I’ve looked into debt consolidation loans, but they won’t save me much money, because I really have very little credit card debt.  My biggest debt is my car loan.

So then I moved to the next obvious place, my living expenses.  I rent a 1500 square foot home and if I don’t run my daycare any more, we don’t need all that space.  I looked into personal loans to see about maybe buying a nice used mobile home to live in that I could pay off in a couple years and only pay lot and utilities after that until I was established and could buy a house again.

I was really suprised, since I went through a horrible divorce four years ago that left me with a huge house payment I couldn’t afford, that I didn’t have to go with 
bad credit loans, but I didn’t.  I’ve done a great job of handling my finances on my own.  I’m very proud of the quick progress I’ve made.

My journal is full of budget notes, income tracking and projection, lists of all the bills I pay each month and when they are due, and how that compares to paydays/the amount of money left for other household things after those bills are paid.  I refer back to those journal entries constantly to help keep things going smoothly.  And I’m always adding new notes, figures, and ideas on money saving and frugal living.

Just another way I use my little notebook.

by Dorene Page(your host here)

New members of my journaling list ask regularly for new ideas for journaling techniques. My favorite technique is just plain and simple freewriting. If I am blocked that day, I start out with “I don’t know what to write.” I will write that sentence repeatedly until something else surfaces, or even write about why I do not know what to write about. Before long, other thoughts are flowing onto the page and I am deep into a worthwhile journal entry. Freewriting is what I call “brain drain.” Draining my brain helps me get all the garbage running through my head onto paper so I can get on with my day. Julia Cameron uses this technique in her “morning pages.”

Freewriting leads you places you never would have imagined. The mind naturally jumps and flows in many directions and so should your writing. Freewriting is simply recording the thoughts as they roll through your mind, going where they lead you. Some of my best article ideas come from freewriting, and some of my best poetry. I set a timer and write non-stop for thirty minutes. Later in the week, I skim through the pages and see if any of my writing brings up ideas for me. A lot of journalers find that sections of a freewriting session can be pulled out of the entry, reformatted just a bit, and are wonderful poems requiring only minimal rewriting.

Are there rules for freewriting? Only one: There are no rules. Punctuation does not matter. Do not use it or capitalization if they interrupt your train of thought. Paragraph breaks don’t matter, just let the words flow from your hand as they flow through your mind. Don’t worry if it makes sense to anyone else. If you really paid attention to all of your thoughts through the day, they probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone else either. Throw away everything your grade school teacher taught you about grammar and create.

So pick up your pen, open your journal. The freewriting session begins………….Now!