The Creative Notebook

This woman is my hero.  I just adore her and her work.  I wanted to share this link to her speech at the Harvard Alumni Association.  You can see the video or read the text. 

Go here!  http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

If you want to market your creations, this is a great article.  It’s a long one, though, so be sure to bookmark it. 

I have a special bag for my “on the go” journaling supplies.  I take it with me everywhere.  Sometimes I don’t even get as far as taking it out of the car, but it always goes with.  I never want to miss an opportunity for a good journal page.

My bag is stuffed as full as I can get it.  My mom says I carry everything but the kitchen sink.  Hah!  I carry several kitchen sinks, just don’t tell her that.

I keep things like watercolor pencils, water brushes, a small spray bottle, twinkling h2o’s, scissors, a small container of gel medium, some acrylics and brushes, glazing medium, a glue stick, some bits of papers for collage, some gold leafing sheets, and my favorite pens.

What’s in your bag?

Design your perfect fantasy world.  Write about it, draw a scene from it, collage it on canvas with magazine cut-outs, old photos, pieces of your drawings, write a poem about it.  Anything goes.  Maybe the sky is yellow and it has silk trees and oceans are lavender.  Maybe it’s more traditional and a wholly self-sustained world.  Maybe the world was perfect for you 100, 200 or 1000 years ago.  Maybe it’s a futuristic life you’d like to have.  Have fun with it.  Reach way into your subconscious, your imagination.  Throw out all the rules.  Dr. Suess didn’t have any rules when he created his worlds, and neither do we. 

I enjoy writing or creating art outside when the weather is great.  Right now here in Indiana it’s wonderful.  The air tonight is in the 60’s and there’s a breeze.  I don’t have a garden I can make a spot in for creativity, but I do have a screened in back porch. 

I love to sit on the swing and write or knit, or sometimes draw in my journal.  I have an old hand-me-down swing that used to have a canopy on it that got blown away in a tornado six years ago.  It has comfy cushions and I love the movement.  The only thing that would make it better would be some sort of weather-proof desk.  But I’d settle for some teak outdoor furniture.  I’ll have to put that on my wishlist, though, or on my manifestation board!  Anyway, thanks to wireless, I write to you tonight, about writing and creating outside, from my back porch swing with my laptop on my lap.  Don’t say I don’t practice what I preach!

I could certainly see myself writing the “Great American Novel” with a new office set.  Browsing through some office furniture, I came across some awesome setups. And they have free shipping.  So where’s the money fairy when I need him?  The only problem is, I’d have to have a completely separate room for my art and fiber studio because I’d hate to clutter up all this beauty with piles of collage ephemera and bags of wool to be spun into luscious yarns.  The creative lifestyle comes with so much clutter.   And if I hid my clutter away in clever little storage devices my “out of site out of mind disease”  kicks in and I can’t create anything at all.

The only thing that would make this setup any more wonderful would be another big dream of mine.  I want those built in library shelves that have one of those ladders attached to them on rollers so you can slide it around and reach the books on the top shelf.  Oh, and a nice warm fireplace with a couple chairs positioned in front of it for an evening of reading and tea or coffee after a day of writing my novel.  What’s your big dream?  Talk to me.

I’ve decided to start working on my manifestation board again.  I’m going to print out things I’d like to bring into my life, no matter how small or petty they may seem and put them on my board and concentrate on bringing them to me.  Right now I really want creature comforts.  First on my list is new curtains and blinds.  So I’m starting there.  Actually I started with a printout of a million dollar bill, but that’s another post.  What would you like to manifest into your life?  Cut out pictures from magazines and paste them in your journal.  You don’t have to have a board like I do.  I’ll keep you updated on what I add and how or if it manifests, and you do the same with me.  Kay??

Sometimes I feel out of place here in my home town.  The people around me don’t seem to understand my need to create.  They look at my altered books like I’m nuts.  They tell they’d never have time to keep a journal(and I could rant on that one for hours because they have time to spend two hours in front of a tv, don’t they?)  So where are all the creative people hiding?  I read online about meetup and writing groups and journaling groups and I’m so envious.

Maybe if I hung a sign in my my yard, like this fancy Address Plaque, advertising for creative friends I’d find some then?  Probably not.  The neighbors would chalk it up to the eccentric daycare lady who’s always home and will probably some day have 5 cats and talk to her plants in the back yard. 

 It worked well for Emily Carr, and she had a monkey, too.  And a spinning wheel.  And I do love to spin my own fiber for my art.

But that’s o.k.  At least I’ll have a record of my craziness in my journals and art and maybe I’ll teach my cats to journal too.  (If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m allergic to cats.)  But I’d have garden journaling, for the plants.  That’s something.