Journaling Superstitions #1

Left: This image doesn’t have anything to do with journaling superstitions, it’s just that I’ve been doing a lot of portrait practice lately and this sketch (Pentel Pocket Brush Pen) and gouache, over a base of FW acrylic ink brush strokes (the dark Payne’s Gray you can see coming through—which were prepainted days earlier) is an example of what you might do if you want to finish up a journal: sketch portrait after portrait from 19th century photos, until you fill up the pages. (Pages in this journal are 6 x 8 so the image is 8 inches wide x 12 inches.) Click on the image to view an enlargement. (Notice how the head is too big for the body. I learn all sorts of interesting things about my measuring abilities when I work across the gutter—something I'm sure I'll write about on another day.)

Journaling superstitions, what are they? They are the little “shoulds” and “musts” that our critical, “perfectionist” brain tells us are “rules.” (Or worse, they are the comments made by experts pontificating on the "one true way" to journal.)

These “shoulds,” “musts,” and comments aren’t rules. Regard them with great suspicion. There is only one rule in journaling, as far as I am concerned, and that’s “are you doing what you need to do to speak in your voice.” (Or variations of that, like “Are you getting the job done?”)

Starting today, and on an irregular basis, I want to look at some of these superstitions that keep coming up for people in my classes, and people who write to me. Ideas that seem to be floating around in the air demanding attention. 

Superstition #1:
You must finish the journal you’re working in before starting a new one.

Recently during the final session of a nine-month long visual journaling class one of the students commented that she’d had trouble in one book and it had slowed her down. She found that for almost 2 months she didn’t journal. She didn’t like the shape and size of the journal, and I think she also didn’t like the text paper she’d chosen to use for it. She finally did work through that book, but she had missed out on journaling during that time span and it was obvious from her comments she regretted that (it was also obvious she got over it and finished the book and started another one, so that was a great piece of learning for her).

So here’s the deal, yes, we all have voices in our heads that say “you have to start what you begin,” but when we start a new project or process we also have to be flexible about our approach. We need to keep in mind that the most important thing is to keep moving, to keep developing that habit until it is so ingrained in us that it is second nature. (I’m talking about good habits here like visual journaling or an exercise program, not bad habits, OK!) This is one of the reasons I teach multi-month journaling classes and encourage students to jump through all sorts of habit-building hoops: I want it to be second nature to them.

If this student had alerted me at the time that she found herself with an aversion to working in that particular journal I would have told her to do one of two things:

1. go some place where there are lots of sketching possibilities, or set up sketching possibilities at home. Then sketch and sketch and sketch, with any media, page after page, as quickly and non-judgmentally as possible (turn off the internal editor and critic!) and just BURN THROUGH THOSE PAGES.

You might go to a zoo, or art museum, or a shopping mall. If the weather is nice you might sit on a street bench and observe the world around you. If you are at home you can sketch still-life set ups from different angles, setting a timer to ring every 2 minutes. Or you can sketch a pet, or loved one. Or you can sketch the views out of all the windows in your house. I find that setting up some fruit to sketch in a variety of ways is a good exercise for this. Pages and pages of pears!

The main thing to remember is that all of this sketching is going to be fast. Messy is fine. You can use anything that is at hand. In fact you’ll want to get out extra brushes and pens you don’t normally work with, because working with them in this quick fashion you may discover a new love of this paper or page size or art material and tools.

I’m talking about an hour’s worth of work. If you are stalled, taking an hour one evening or on the weekend is a small time allotment to take to unstall yourself. I’m asking that you work quickly. You don’t like the paper anyway, so why waste time deciding what lovely things you’re going to do on it, you already have told yourself this isn’t possible. OK, so just work, and work, and work. You should feel the creative sweat, and enjoy it.

(OK, at first you might be a little worried, frightened or even sick to your stomach, because that internal critic is yelling at you about wasting paper. But you aren't wasting paper. You're developing skills, developing a habit. As you work, and start observing, and noticing things, and forget about your dislike of the book and the paper, you'll start to enjoy the effort and the lack of judgement your are throwing at your work.)

Don’t stop to admire a drawing, or admonish yourself for a bad one. Just keep going. Keep turning the pages as soon as you finish one. If you find you are working on a great drawing, go ahead and slow down a bit and enjoy it. You might find that your time is up, so you’ll have to come back another hour to finish the book. Alternately you might find that you can get through the remaining pages in 60 minutes.

The beauty of this response to stalling is that it forces you to push through the stall, and at the same time it fills that book, which part of your brain was telling you to do anyway. “So there brain, that’s done.”

OR

2. Put the journal aside (literally put it on a shelf where you had planned to store finished journals or where other finished journals are) and pick up one made with paper that you love to work on and start working in that new journal.

The other journal is now officially finished. You don’t have to ever go back and work in it again. (I would suggest that after you are about 6 pages into the new journal you take 15 minutes—just 15 minutes no more—and go back to the old journal, and write down why you left this journal right after your last entry. This is how we learn our likes, dislikes, and those things that get in our way!)

Why would I give these bits of advice?
Because the notion that you must finish a journal before you start a new one isn’t a useful notion if it stops you from journaling. Anything that stops you from your creative habit is a bad notion. You need to remove those notions from your head. They are simply superstitions. They may apply to someone, somewhere in the universe, but they don’t fit for YOU.

“Whoa,” you might say, “but you always finish your journals Roz!!!???”

Yes, I do, but that works for me, it feeds me, it feeds my habit in a good way. I like the completion, I like starting a new journal. This is not a new habit for me. I don’t get stuck at the end of a journal or at the start. Interference to my journal habit comes in other ways (everyone has these; it’s how you deal with them that determines how your journaling habit is going to play out).

I recommend that people start with one journal and finish it before they move on because I know the satisfaction of that completion and want other people to enjoy it themselves. But more than that I want people to enjoy journaling. If you are working in a book that doesn’t fit your hand, with a paper that is unresponsive, move on. Life is too short. There are other books out there for you to try or make.

If you stall and don't move on, you'll never have the joy of completion of any future book. You have a choice to make.

I am not advocating giving up or giving in. I am talking about first making a good faith effort to really make that book and that paper sing. You will learn something about paper, about materials, and about yourself in the process. But when only sour notes and aversion result, then it’s time to move on, whether there are 3 pages or 300 pages left. 

If you have had a chat with yourself and decided that journaling is something you want to do, for reasons you have identified to yourself (be specific when you do this) and you find yourself avoiding your journal, you need to step in and help yourself right away. No one else is in a position to do so.

The biggest way you can help yourself is by not listening to your internal critic go on about rules and the right way to do something.

There is only one right way to do something, it’s the way that works for you, that gets you doing the work you want to do. You’re finding that way. You won’t find that way if you stop having the discussion with your creative self.

So go throw some salt over your shoulder, knock that hat off the bed, step over those cracks on the way to your desk, and fill up some pages.

Comments

[Terry Garrett]

Well said Roz-
I needed to read this post- I go through so many should do ordeals- but letting go and just work is what is important as you said.
Great Post- now where is that journal...
Terry

[Nita]

Even though I have a 35-year journaling habit, this is a good reminder. I have a variation on the theme. I get within 10 pages of the end and can't wait to start a new journal, just because it's new, not because I dislike the one I'm in.

So I often paste in drawings I've done on other bits of paper, just to fill those empty pages and move on.

[Mary Olson]

I haven't run into the problem of not liking the journal or paper itself yet, but your first method for overcoming the problem sounds like good advice for anytime a person gets stuck.

[Roz]

Terry, I'm so glad this helped. And I hope you found that journal right away and started filling it up (because I love your work!)

[Roz]

Nita, I think this is an excellent idea. It gets those spare bits housed safely and gets you to the end.

I find that sometimes towards the end of a journal the pull to the next one is also very great for me, and I do a variation of this myself: I end up going to various events or locations and find I have collected just enough ephemera to fill up those last pages. Funny how that works out isn't it!

I like to start a new journal on New Year's Day also. It isn't a must (because I try to leave musts behind too) but something that is tidy and appeals to the orderly parts of me. Last year I ended a journal about 5 days before the end of the year and selected a very thin journal (seriously, very thin, made from a few scrap signatures), thinking I could easily keep up a 2-3 spreads a day pace and finish it before the New Year.

With all the holiday visits and celebrations I found myself on December 31 looking at several unfinished pages. Out came the pears!!!

So whatever works is a good thing. I really like your method!

[Roz]

Thanks Mary, I think one can burn through pages in a lot of situations and I think it is a good "tool" to embrace. Sometimes when I have a horrible job that drags on and doesn't go like I would wish, or simply keeps me from drawing for a couple days I make my way to the zoo or the Bell Museum and draw and draw as much as I can in an hour or so, just to get myself back to balance. It's about moving forward for me. I hope your journaling is going well.

[Mary Olson]

I've been struggling with finding something to draw or making a decision. I think it's stress. So I've simplified once more and decided to alternate between doing a drawing of my dog or some other animal one day and the next day doing a self portrait or sketch of some other person. Doodling people during meetings has been interesting. Just hope they don't notice.

[Roz]

Mary, I'm sorry to hear you are struggling, but as you know I am always in favor of using pets as life-models, so I say go for it.

People in meetings may notice you drawing them, depending on the seating arrangements, but if you are on the bus to and from work, or if you have to go to appointments I find that the people in those situations tend to ignore me when I am sketching them, so I recommend that.

Do you have any fruits and vegetables that you enjoy sketching? I love sketching pears and peppers. Both have interesting shapes. You can sketch one or a group.

I often take one pear and plop it down on the table, sketch it quickly, turn it slightly, sketch it again, also on the same spread, turn it again, sketch it again, and work my way across the page spread until I have 4 or five views of the same pear. It's fun and a great way to get a lot of practice in. And you can use a different medium each time, or do them all in the same medium.

Give it a go.

Good luck pushing forward!

[Janine]

I actually decided to try your advice, Roz. I took one of my dormant sketchbooks off the shelf this morning. It had about 30 blank sheets left. I said to myself FILL IT UP in 30 minutes. I am amazed at the results. I don't like the paper any better but working in that way, really pushing myself, made me realize this is how I ALWAYS want to work. Some of the drawings came out really nice, some were just tossers. But after I closed the cover and put the full book back on the shelf, I felt so energized. For me, sometimes, being too in love with my materials can cramp me. I get too careful. Careful is not a good thing for creativity. The less I "care," it seems, the better I draw. Very interesting... and the important thing here is that I could not have learned this without actually letting go and just DOING IT! Forgetting about how the "product" looks or is supposed to look. The product, it turns out, is the least important part of all of it. Thanks as always for your inspiring posts and fabulous ideas! You're a gem, Roz! If you haven't already, you should write a book.

[Roz]

Janine, I'm so glad you took down that journal and filled up those pages. I am so glad you have a sense of satisfaction. Materials can cramp people. (I have a post coming up on that.) I think everyday we have to remember to shake it up a bit. There are times when slow and careful can be appropriate too, but too often we let careful merge into internal critic talk which doesn't have the same effect at all.

So keep going and working and getting to those images that really speak to you!