The Creative Notebook

I’ve chosen my book for my diet journal.  I decided to start it out with my beginning statistics.  I think I might try to write in code that only I’ll understand because the stats are just so horrid I don’t want anyone to ever know what they are. 

I also recorded my goals.  Not my big huge goal of being a size six sex on stick kinda gal, but small goals in nice monthly increments that I can reward myself for reaching along the way.  I think that’s the key to success, not scaring yourself with a huge, unattainable looking goal but setting your sights on small, attainable ones.  Now to do more research to find out what should be included in my daily entries. 

I’m thinking I should have the usual food entries and activity entries, but I’d like to include something on my emotions and thoughts for the day.  I’m an emotional eater and it would be helpful for me to overcome that to see how the events of the day led up to my unhealthy cravings.

I’m going to a graduation party next month for my nephew.  He’ll be going off to college, and starting the next phase of his life.  I’ll give him some cash, because it’s the thing all seniors want.  A little money to have the ultimate summer before hitting the books in the big league.  But I’d like to give him a little something else.  Something a little more memorable.  Maybe something to take with him to college. 

When I graduated, my best friend’s mom gave me an awesome backpack and the best dictionary an English major could want.  I used them both till they wore out.   You’d give a med student a Littman Stethoscope when they entered medical school, an accounting major a super-duper adding machine, but what do you give someone who starts the journey out undecided? 

How about a map?  Not the kind of map that tells you where you are going, but one that will let you see where you’ve been.  I’m going to get him a very nice, leather bound journal and fancy writing set.  This way, he’ll record his studies as they unfold, always know where he’s been, and if he ever forgets, he can look back and see how far he came from an undecided college freshman to whatever wonderful person he ends up being when he once again has a graduation party.

As I was coming home last night from taking my daughter to dance class, it struck me that spring was finally here in Indiana.  I saw convertables with the top down and motorcycles everywhere.  We decided to take a small detour through the park, just to see what was in bloom. 

As we drove up the hill that is so famous to our little city park, I watched a truck full of teenagers in front of us.  The bed had kids in it, talking, laughing and enjoying the warm spring sun and air holding on to the ladder rack for balance.  It made me really think about life, and living in the moment.  When was the last time I was so present in just being?  When did I last take time just to notice the way the sun feels, the breeze, the smell of the freshnes of spring?  I decided to take time for just that this weekend.

My assignment to you, if you choose to accept it:  Be in the now.  Sit quietly, or put the top down on the car, jump in the back of the truck and ride.  Then write down, as descriptively as you can, just how it felt to truly live in that moment, just for that moment. 

Loud, laughing teens can be annoying, but they certainly have something to teach me about living.

I’d like to make a few posts about keeping a diet journal.  I wish I could say it was for truly altruistic reasons and that I don’t need to lose weight but want to only help others that do, but genies and fairies don’t exist and I’ve never been a size 6, so I won’t try to pull that one on you.  So, I’ll be doing the research, and you can play along with me if you’d like. 

I’ll strictly be looking for things that you should include in your journal to help you along, keep track of your progress, things you might need to make note of to discuss with your doctor, venting and dealing with the emotional roller coaster ride that the road to fitness is, and recording the joy that comes along with success. 

I won’t be discussing particular diets , so if you have any hints or tips you’d like to share or a particular diet journal question, leave it in the comments and I’ll share with my readers or see if I can give you an answer!

How often, in reality, do the two go hand in hand?  It’s all over the news every day, this actor is in rehab, this one has a drug problem.  This writer needs alcohol or drugs to be productive.  Is the number really higher in creative fields, or do we just hear more about it because they are in the spotlight.  And if it is higher, why on earth would anyone want to work in a creative field.  Is it the field, or the innate creativity we are born with that drives us to these problems?  Outside pressure, or genetics? 

 I googled creativity and addiction, and got a photographer’s website who likens the creative urge to a rush like what people who participate in extreme sports get.  I do get a sort of rush when I’m in my creative zone, in flow.  When I write or create art and I’m completely into it, time flies, I’m lost in my head and on paper or canvas, unaware of the world around me. 

But, if this is the case, then why would a creative person need any other way to get a rush?   It might be those times when creativity fails us, when it’s hiding in the dark like an elusive imp, and we can hear it breathing, feel it is close by, but can’t lay our hands on it.  Is it then a creative person feels around in the dark for the first thing he can find to bring on that rush.  And the addiction begins? 

I’d love to hear your opinions on this. 

There seems to be a barrage of books on journaling these days.  And to me, they all seem to repeat the same old information.  I don’t know if the authors and publishers aren’t doing their market research, or if there truly is a market for this many books covering the same ground, but I’d like to add a new feature to Creative Notebook to help you get past the “same ole” and find new information.

I’m going to feature book reviews on journaling, writing, and creativity.  If you’d like to write a review, contact me with your book idea at editor at creativenotebook dot com.  If you have a book you’d like to see reviewed, drop me a line and if I have it, I’ll review it for you!  Until next time……………………..keep writing.

I think it’s  a trait of creative people-at least I home it is………This addiction to ink pens, pencils, sharpies, colored pencils, fountain pens, and anything crayonish. 

I was cleaning off my desk this morning, and picking up all the misc pens that were laying all over it and shoving them in the ceramic pot I have for pens(it’s diamer is at least eight inched) when I realized I needed a second pot.  Is this normal?  Not that I’ve ever been normal, but……..  I know have a second medium sized clay pot full. 

My current favorite is the cheapo purple bic stick pen.  I’m know to carry pilot pens with me, or pigma microns to journal over my twinkling h2o’s and acrylic paints with.  And sharpies, I counted 30 sharpies.  Those things write on anything and come in every color imaginable now.  No more lonely black sharpies.

Are you a pen addict?  What’s your favorite pen for journaling?

Mostly, I hurt.  I hurt as a mother for those parents who lost their child.  I hurt for the children who lost a parent.  And I hurt for the child who never got the help he needed, either from his own parents, the school system, the justice system, the health care system.  Somewhere, someone failed him.  And in return he failed society.  He devastated families, friends, officials, teachers, and bystanders all over the world.  So much hurt.  So much failure. 

If I can be there for one child along this path I’m walking of childcare, foster parenting, and preschool education.  If I can not fail my own children, then I have lived a life worth while.  I grieve for those who lost their lives at VT.  I wish there were something I could do to ease this devastation for them.

 I haven’t been able to journal about it.  I guess to some this would be a form of journaling about it.  I find in the midst of terrible events like this, I can’t write.  I am numb and the thoughts run through my head but my hands can’t pick up the pen to record them.

What helps you get through difficult times?  Do you journal?  Do you have a hard time putting pen to paper?  Do you think that having difficulty journaling during the roughest patches of life equates not being able to acknowledge and deal with those raw emotions?