Art Journaling

Property of Stormberry

Journaling has many reasons and fulfills many purposes for different people. It's not only a record keeping system to collect things that happened, but also a way to record emotions, thoughts and all sorts of memories, expressions, desires, fantasies and so on. One could say that journaling is the free-for-all place where you do whatever you want and/or need to do. Anything goes.

I started journaling at the age of 10, though maybe even earlier, as I always loved to write and always loved to store my thoughts and secrets in written form. From this time on, journaling formed for me as a way to record the many thoughts and conversations I had in my head. (Much like this blog, but holding back nothing). My journals were always worn and battered, with broken spines much like paperback books, but usually closed well. I was never a daily writer, though in my first journal I think I tried that, and as it didn't work, I moved to the system I currently have: "Write whenever I feel like it".

With time, I started adding here and there a newspaper clipping, or a recipe or a nice napkin, though I do have had a "junk box" where I stored all the pretty napkins, postcards, pieces of paper, and stuff I collected through life. You know, the kind of treasures that are usually called "ephemera". My journals still closed and more and more they were packed with words to the very edge of the page. My thoughts got more complex and here and there I added graphs and ideas for formulas on economic issues I wanted to solve.

It took decades and journaling sessions with a friend in Germany for me to start adding more, to paste things, decorate and going to the point where my journals couldn't close, but the pages fanned out and the spines started to rip, the covers slowly bending and detaching from the body. And yet, I still keep mainly writing.

A couple of years ago, through YouTube, I found out about sketch journals and art journaling, and I was astonished. I love watching videos of people art journaling or taking their sketch journals to some place and draw or paing in them and do art, but I often wonder how one looks back at an art journal. Do people fix memories to the art created? How? What kind of memories? Or are they emotions? And can one recall them exactly or that's not even the point?

Maybe I will art journal at one point in my life, but I need words and prose so much for my journaling, that even if I ever get to art journal, I will probably still keep a prose-journal too.

Drawing and painting is something that has interested me for a long time. I used to draw quite a lot back in the day and enjoyed it very much, but then I stopped and decided to give all my time and all my effort to writing, and then to studying. Maybe an art journal would be a way for me, to start getting back into my old, rusted hobbies. We shall see, but in the meanwhile and for the foreseeable future, I will continue putting pen to paper and writing away my thoughts.

Again on Journaling

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 It wasn't until moments ago that I found the old posts I have written here about journaling, and up until that moment I knew I had written about the subject - because duh! - but I didn't know what have I written and whether I would repeat myself. Well, I have the pictures and I have some ideas, so I might as well share them, right? Right.

This has been prompted because I have started watching videos about journaling again. Most of what you can find, though, either it's about art journaling or junk journaling, or doing a sort of journaling that's more like smashbooking or scrapbooking than the basic concept of journaling people get from reading or hearing about famous diaries, such as Anne Frank's, Anaïs Nin's, Benjamin Franklin's and so on and so forth. But then, there's also the journaling that functions also as a planner or a time/task organizer. So yes, it can become quite a confusing thing, though it doesn't need to be so.

So, when someone thinks "I would like to journal", or maybe someone who has been journaling wonder if they are doing it well, I believe the more voices with can give to guide and assure people on this subject, the better. In this post I'll mainly concentrate on the process of starting, so let's dive into that.

Right or Wrong Way

First things first, to the question of "Is there a right way to journal?" the answer is "Yes and No". There's not really ANY particular way, format, aesthetic, periodicity or medium that makes it right or wrong. So, whatever format you pick or if you give it up or have no consistency, or switch from one way to another, it's all good.

The only way to do it wrong is doing it without liking it. If you don't enjoy it, stop. When you stop liking it, that's when it's wrong. But as long as you like it, it's absolutely right.

What to Write About

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Well, before looking for prompts and consuming five TB of Pinterest pictures, and invest 100 hours on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram researching the subject, be clear about why you would even want to journal. Maybe you saw some pics and felt like you want to try it, or you heard someone did it and you want to do it as well.Or you saw the aesthetics and liked them, and you want to create something like that.

Now, usually one would say, "well, there you go: copy that". And yes, you are right: it's not that easy, specially if you are inspired by artistic journals and you feel like you don't have the same talent. Or if you are inspired by travelling journals, but you can't really travel, and don't feel like writing a journal about where you would like to go.

In those cases, my advise would be to write about that, or if you want to create a more art-journal or collage-journal, then start by simply clipping and collecting pictures you like. You don't even have to paste them in, just collect them, stash them between the pages, let them accumulate there and try out a couple of ideas as you feel like.

If you felt inspired and are more into "words", it's much easier  - or at least for me because I am into words and writing - because instead of jumping right off into the thick of it, you can start by writing about your motivation or how did you get there.

Now, if it wasn't your idea but it's a assignment, or you were advised to write a journal for whatever reason, a couple of ideas until you warm up are:

1. Write about the news headlines. What catches your attention and what do you think about it.

2. Write about the gossip you have heard.

3. Write about what you have seen on social media lately, that catches your attention.

4. Pick a person, an animal, a plant, a thing... anything that catches your attention, and write about what you think of them or it.

5. Write about anything interesting (for you) that has happened or is about to happen.

Last year a lot of people found inspiration to journal in the events that have changed the world, deciding to record their experience with the pandemic. Those journals got to be known as the quarantine diaries. Whether they keep up or not, those people and those journals came from a moment of global life change and came to life to record a shift like no other. But then again, you don't need a global shift to journal. A personal shift is enough. And yes, you can still pick up a pen and paper and start right now writing your quarantine diaries or your climate change diaries or the "oh-hell-what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-people" diaries.

Entries can be short or long and don't even have to be dated. I date them because I have a bad memory and my journals actually help me remember, but if you don't care about the dates or what you decide to journal about isn't time sensitive, skip it. Hey, you may even date some entries and some others don't.

How to Start an Entry

Well, dating it is the easiest way, if you choose that way. For a while now I've been adding the location and also giving a sort of title to my entries, but you do anything you want. If you want to follow an epistolary style, with "Dear Diary,", that's a way to do it. If you feel blocked, and you want to write, but have no idea how to write that first sentence, make a title with the general topic you want to write about. 

For instance, let's say that you had a hard day at work because there was too much traffic and meetings got cancelled and pushed to other days and you wasted hours trying to reschedule them. So how to start? You could say:

1. Today was a very hard day. ... and go on explaining why.

2. Make a title: "Hard Day" or "Wasted Hours" or "Rescheduling". Here go with the first idea. Then go on explaining what happened.

3. Pretend you are talking to a friend. Start with "People need to be more reliable. I can't have another day like this. Today I had a busy day..." and go on.

Sometimes it happens that you are very tired but would like to journal because you want to keep a fresh memory of the events, but really, you are too tired. Well, you can either make a short entry in list format or with just a few words or sentences to jug your memory, and leave it for some other day. If you have the chance, record it on a voice note. Deal with it later.

I have a couple of entries I have written through many days in order to record the particular events of a given day. It not only works, but oftentimes, taking more time to record certain things becomes cathartic and also gives you a new perspective.

Oh, and it's always ok to add stuff. Recipes, photos, clippings, notes. And no, it doesn't have to be artistic, just meaningful for you.

How to Start Journaling - the First Page Question

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Yes, it can be intimidating. The last two photos are actual pictures of the first pages of my journals. Sometimes I have added a printed out article I liked, and used it to write my first entry as a omment to it. Another first entry said something about my journaling habits, specifically how I choose to write the date and how that holds throughout the journal.

Other times that first entry reads as what it is: a continuation of the journaling process that comes from a long line of journals written through many years now.

This page doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't need a cover or a design or a grand opening. Just write. You don't even have to worry about reading it in the future, because unless you are like mee and have a bad memory, journaling is about recording, writing it down, recording, filming something for the very pleasure of doing so.

I don't really like it when people talk about "making a habit of journaling" or advise people to "keep doing it, even if you don't like it because it will eventually come naturally to you". You should make journaling anything you want it to be, and if it naturally becomes a habit, well, great. If not, if you write only once a year or every other month or god-knows-when, that's ok too. Write when you feel like it, and about what you feel like it.

The only person your journaling has to satisfy is you.

Now, something I would like to mention here is that journaling doesn't have to be strictly writing or writing by hand. You can type if you want, do it on a document on your computer, on your phone, or an app, or some online journal or even a blog. But it can also be audio recordings or videos, or any other way you find to express yourself in a way that satisfies you.

Many Ideas left in the inkwell

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Planning and preparation are great tools to make sure you get to do all you want. I love planning & preparing, and usually have calendars and lists and all sorts of stuff with this in mind. And it usually works... except when it comes to planning and preparing a blogpost. I think I have tried in the past, specially in 2012, when I was writing a post every single day. Wow, that was something!

I took part on a Philofaxy meeting at the begining of this month -  which I enjoyed like CRAZY! and everybody who has and loves filofax planners should seriously consider attending - and it was such an experience to show my system. So I was thinking about making a post about how I use my planner, and how have I've combined the bullet journal and the filofax system in one that pretty much works well, as well as showing a color-splashed, pretty hassle-free, free form, non-artistic spread. Ok, I work on them ONCE a year, and you could pretty much get the same thing just buying or printing out those inserts and that's all.

So I planned the theme, the idea, and even made the pictures for the post. LOTS of pictures. Really, like a huge bunch of them, so I had many, many angles and stuff to show, depending on how the text was going to turn out. And then... that's not what happened.

Life happened, that's what happened, and I was buried under a landslide of work and university homework, and preparing for lectures - because I'm one of those students that likes to read ahead of the class - and so the pictures are stored, along with the ideas, and I come here with new pictures - much less - and an etirely unstructured, different post idea. Like in the old days. Remember those?

Journaling is one of my favorite topics, in case you haven't noticed. That would be because I love journaling, and I love it because it's free. Of course the book costs money, and so the pen and the ink (for many years now, I only journal with fountain pens), but what I mean is that there is not set structure, like even the most free planning systems have. No keys, no rules, no blocks within the page to keep you organized, no indentation or color coding. Ok, I tend to write the initial "block" the same way (you know, the part with the date and so), but this has also changed through time a lot. There was a time when I always wrote it in Japanese (I don't speak Japanese, but I was learning and the date formula stayed in my brain for long), or always in French, and so. I have thought here and there to go Anaïs Nin and leave out the date and just write, BUT I actually need the dates because my memory is famously bad, and sadly I have encountered people in my life who have tried to gaslight me thinking I wouldn't know, because I don't remember. HA! Never underestimate a person with a journal.

Property of Stormberry

Journaling is kind of the other end of the planning and preparing. It is the summarizing and processing. There are many ways to do this too, and there is people that keep also many journals for different purposes. I usually have one journal, though for a while I've been also using a Simple Diary a friend of mine gave me, in which I either pick here and there a page at random, or look for one that has the kind of prompt I want to fill out - it's kinda funny to have a non-chronological diary like this. I also have a journal that's too... designed and thematic to be a real journal of any sort for me (I write sooo much and have soooo many thoughts and opinions, I just don't have time for top tens, favorite music of a whole page covered with a black butterfly), in which I only write in pencil, short and "cryptic", dark thoughts. Yeah, I have those too. It's like my punk-journal. No dates.

But these are like my "shot" journals, stuff that stays there through the years and, get attention, the-gods-know-when. Good, shot journals for the instant boost or unloading, or taking the edge of something. But my journal, MY JOURNAL - oh ho hoooo! - that's something else. Even if I don't write every day - which I don't - when I write, it's deep, detailed, and nearly forensic. I love that.

This year I also decided to start using my Witches's Datebook - a datebook I have gotten every year since 2012, if I remember correctly - also to record small notes on my mood or things that made me tick or made me smile. The idea was to start making a sort of lunar journal, which, yeah, not only I don't journal daily, I had no idea who could I make a spread for that in my planner. The idea was to record quite simply how I feel, so I could see actually how the moon and its phases affect me. In the end, well, you can see, I used it also to record stuff like a particular call from someone, a witchy virtual meeting, or just feeling like I really, really love someone in particular that day.

For two years now, I have decided to use these datebooks only to plan stuff that related to my personal or academic life. I wanted a work-free space, and so stuff like classes, exams, meeting friends and so on, got there. It was also on my bullet journal, mind you, but I also copied it there, specially because this datebook is my reference for stuff like astrological aspects to consider (Mercury Retrograde being major there, which starts tomorrow, by the way), and also the daily color. If you check many of my previous ones, most of them are quite blank, but recently they seem more full, and now... well, it feels like I need a wee bit more of space. :-) But then, for that, when the thoughts overflow, if I feel like I want to dissect them, I pull out my journal, uncap a pen - or two - and let the ink and the thoughts flow together.

So, in the end, I have a journal, and along with it, I have littl journal helpers that either aid in the process of refining the idea and shed the initial punch out of them, or they accumulate small bits here and there, so that later on I can wax poetry on this or that is so totally wrong/right about this, and what I think about it, and where the flaws in the logic are, and thus why I come to the well-thought conclusion... of whatever I conclude.

The point is, it's ok to plan & prepare, and heck! do it as much as you can! But when life throws a wrench into your gears, or you need to chillax a little or you just need to unload and let go and have a non-planned, non-prepared, just free flowing moment, don't beat yourself over it, and take any way, shape or form you feel like it. Scribble in pencil on a corner of your planner, type down a short note in your notes app, or use a journaling app, or take a picture and write a caption, or write nothing, draw a spiral on a post-it... express yourself, for yourself, in nay way you can connect.

That's the point.

This is how I journal now

Picture property of Stormberry

I found recently a picture of how I used to manage my planner some years ago. Oh boy, kids, this is from 2017! And back then I still used filofax inserts (Wo2P - week on two pages). I think this is the one that came... no. The one that came with the planner were the Wo2P in columns (it is an A5 Malden after all), and since I've got my planner in Europe (it was too expensive to have it shipped to the American continente), and I think I shortly after visited my friend Tina and we switched inserts because she loved the vertical distribution, while my way of planning (appointments to the left, tasks to the right) works better on a horizontal set up. I was crazy for color (as I still am, mind you) and back then I used frixion pens because they allowed me to write in ink and erase the notes when something needed to be rescheduled. Before that I tried using colored led mechanic pencils, but colored led was hard to come by (and then I've got a shipload of them, and now I have them here to use, and haven't used them in quite a while. This is how I function.).

I still remember my boyfriend from back then, who was mindblown that I had spent about 180,- € (including the shipping) for a planner. Three-four years later I'm still using that planner, and am completely in love with it. One of the best investments I've ever made, if you ask me.

I no longer use inserts, but I get dotted paper (have stocked up on a few of them... several times, so I think I'm safe to go through the quarantine for a while solely on my stock), or cut graph paper to size, punch it and use it for bullet journaling, which is how I plan today. Curiously, I migrated my appointment/task setting to my bullet journal, and I don't use indexes, but instead keep on using the sections all filofax lovers adore, and fitted both worlds to my personal need. As everybody should.

Property of Stormberry.

Something else that has been changing is how I journal too. And when I say journal, I mean that sort of sit down and write your thoughts, impressions, events, personal analysis of what goes on, gossip you don't want to forget... or whatever you write in your journal. And yes, not all of us are Anaïs Nin's (I know, I LOVE Anaïs Nin. Deal with it.), but our thoughts and impressions and experiences are all valid and all deserve to be recorded.

In my earlier journals - you can find pictures, I believe, if you go back far enough - I used less media and more text. Here and there I would paste a news clipping, but it was all mainly text written in a single color ink. I wasn't much of a spread creator or a visual arts enthusiast, nor I consider so myself up to this day, but I have been starting to cut and paste more and more pictures from magazines or pictures I print out from photos and internet searches, and add them in.

Washi tape sometines also gets involved in my entries. And now sometimes I draw too, or do some lettering, or add an extra page in this baking-sheet-like paper (this translucent, resistant paper, like the one you can see in this second picture, from which I folded a simple envelope to keep some of thsi cut out and clipped pictures), on which I paste whatever memento in order to save pages I can use for writing.

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I have always been one to keep souvenirs and either I collected them in a box (or more than one. Don't ask.), or just put them between the pages of my journals. It was through the influence of my friend Tina, who does a lot of art journaling. I started experimenting more and more with this sort of journaling, and then tried to scale it back, because I am not an art-journaler or an artistic-spread-making kind of journaler. I don't think I would ever try to make whole artistic spreads in my journal, for my way of journaling is through words, and I strive for all pictures to have something to do with the entry. Or so I try. ^_^

In my last journal book (a Leuchtturm 1917 A5 Copper), I tried to regain the old style, minimizing as much as I could the use of art, with not much avail. It did was significantly reduced compared to my previous one, an A5-ish, jaw-dropping Bomo Art plain paper journal of absolute beauty. Yes, I'm adding the link and I'm promoting it shamelessly (but not being paid in any shape or form by them or any other company) not because they are a Hungarian company I love, but mostly because the product is GORGEOUS and the whole universe should know about them.

So, that Bomo Art journal was my most artistic so far. Now I'm writing in a HEMA, which was gifted to me by my friend Arjen. This notebook has been in my collection for a while - as about 10 others, I gather - and though I wanted to start another Bomo Art notebook, my hand went to this one.

Lined Paper, which is not my preferred, and a cover/inside combination that I LOVED when I first got it because it took me from light to darkness - the hearts desire of many a witch ^_^ as we don't fear darnkess but learn to work with its power - and yet now, with such a hard 2020 under way, I needed to find light in me, and so I changed the cover. And what to know something? HEMA notebooks are sooo cooperative! Even an unskilled person like me (yes, I am actually quite clumsy, but fix all mistakes with washi tape and good attitude) was abe to change the cover so that it looks like that was how it was originally planned to be. And this forgiving, yielding, happy, considerate, ample notebook has tapped again my visual veins and I've started perusing Pinterest and clicking, printing, cutting and pasting again.

The point, my dearest Reader, is that when it comes to journaling, all you have to do is just do what you want to do. Just that. Journal for yourself, and if you are proud of it and want to share it, share it! Hey, and if you need some encouragement, write to me ^_^ or just link here the pics of your journal entries or your journal book, and I'll go and give it some love. Because whatever you do, for yourself, it is BEAUTIFUL.

Quaratine Diaries and Journals

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From my own journal.

Maybe you have heard of these diaries and journals, but the first time I did was throught an article in the New York Times published on March 30th, 2020. The article spoke about how people around the world has been turning to pen and paper in these days of staying at home and isolation to record the flow of their days, their thoughts, their fears and their experiences.

Some people has taken pen and paper for the first time to write about what goes on, making do with the art of journaling or keeping a diary as their days stretch into weeks and months in confinement, with fear of the outher world while at the same time yearning for it. Others have already been journaling ad have now turned to their trusty pages to record their experiences or find solace to the angst and burdens that now bend their backs and hearts.

I do not know of anyone around me keeping such journals, though I do know of people who journal. I am, for one, the kind of diary-keeper that would be considered the most unreliable one for recording events that happen around me or in the real world, to call it some how. I journal about my feelings, about intimate recounts of happenings with a handfull of people from my environment, with usually no information that might help place these events in any sort of social or historical context. For the love of the Gods, I just spent four months recording the events of a single day spent with Fritzl!

Property of Stormberry
From my personal journal

And yet still...

And yet still, I have found that I want to record some things that have been happening, that have affected the general tide of the society in which I live, and thus affecting my relationships with others as well as my state of mind. I'm certain my journal won't be listed in any book of history, nor it is my intention to record anything in it for anyone but myself, if I ever decide to go back and consult it, but I do find it important to try and illuminate in my notes the fact that there is a pandemic swirling around the world and upending life as we know it.

Things change, human contact change. I find myself wondering whether I'll be able to experience a long, sustained hug again, if I'll be able to hug, to feel against my arms the sure warmth of and solidity of someone I love. If I'll be able to kiss again, burry my nose in the crook of the neck of someone and breath in their scent, feel their hair against my face and between my fingers.

I'm still moved to write about my feelings and their evolution, collect and systematize my memories in the minute dissection of someone, holding their actions between the steel tines of my nib, beating softly as ink pours over them and cut them into tiny pieces with my words as I find new and new meanings of every action, every word and every gesture, combined with the yuxtaposition of other collected memories and experiences that help me draw parallels.

I change. We all change, and our old coping mechanisms might have been compromised. Mine have, as I can no longer drive to a coffeeshop, order a specialty coffee and claim a table for myself to write and sometimes also do some people-watching. We must adapt, and quarantine journals or diaries, or just our regular journals and diaries can help us navigate these new waters.

The Art of Recording Your Experience

Source: Book of Shadows, Charmed Wiki.

In recent days I've been going back more and more to my Book of Shadows, striking out things that are no longer part of my believes, and also adding anotations from the practice I am doing. Nothing fancy, just usual comfy-witch-doing-stuff kind of things.

The funny thing about my Book of Shadows, is that I see it as a dynamic, changing thing. I started keeping one ages ago, first in a spiral bound book and then moved to a large hard bound book a friend gave me. This had some lettering, some structure and some uncertainty. In it I sought to embrace the witch in me without going against my believes of the time, which was difficult, because the consensus of my believe frame went against my nature and my very own believes.

Slowly I grew, and learned to shed the frames imposed by third parties and reach out in a direct connection to my believes and the world around me, and so some things in my Book of Shadows became obsolete, so I have started striking out what no longer works for me. I'm also taking up again some studying I wanted to do during my Year-and-a-Day period, but yeah, that didn't quite happened. That is also recorded in there.

I've a new book - leather bound, handmade pages, and much smaller than my current one - and I've been thinking about moving into it, with the anotations better organized and curated to my current system of believes. Now, my Book of Shadows is personal, not a public record nor a book for public consultation. It can hold all my tries and errors, and nothing happens. However, as I was revising yesterday, I was thinking how different it is from my journals, which I don't go back to correct. I do have similar feelings for both of them, both are personal books, but while one adapts to my current needs, the other remains fixed.

This got me thinking about some things we do. Sometimes we are tempted to go over our past and past decisions and fix them. We want to go back and erase them, or tell them differently, in the light of what we have learned later on. We don't want to admit that we had a crush on that person that turned out to be so embarrassing, and we don't want to admit that we didn't do something or didn't get to be picked for something we really wanted. I've met people who had lied about the score they've got to enter a beloved university, claiming they didn't get into this or that career because "back then they decided against it". The truth? Back then their results came below the required score. -- Yes, I had back then the means to check on their allegations.

The point is not that people lie - people always lie and it's not always a bad thing - but the issue here is the revisionst attitude to one's own past. Why do we feel the need to do so? Because, at the same time, most people are perfectly fine rewriting their past, but do nothing to fix their future and improve those perceived flaws. We want to change what we can't change (our past), but ignore what we actually can change (our attitudes and actions in the present).

If it bothers you that you couldn't enter to your beloved career, instead of lying about why it didn't happen, why don't you try to enter now? It's never too late to study. Or was it that you let go the love of your life? Hey, unless they are dead, you can still pick up the phone and drop them a message. And if they are dead - I know, that's my case - you can always dedicate them some time to write or paint ot think about them.

Honor your past, learn from it. You don't need to share if it makes you feel uncomfortable, but embrace it, observe it, draw out lessons and apply them to your present. See it this way: if you want to change something you did in the past, or that happened to you, what could you do now to correct its effects?

I keep a journal for my past, to remember the things I did, I said, I thought and those I witnessed. I keep a Book of Shadows for my spiritual practice. My personal past and my personal present. Life is also separated in two books for all of us (or more). Use them wisely.

Advise for Journaling

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You might be roaming the ailes of a paper store looking for a notebook and a pen to start journaling because you feel like this is something you want to do, or because you are convinced that this is going to make your life better. You might be nervous or excited, or just blah. So, let me ask you something: What will you do the moment you open the journal? How would you start?

Yes, you may already have a plan, or you might be concentrating on the notebook purchase because you have no idea what to do about it.

The thing with journaling, or keeping a diary - call it any way you want to, it's yours and it should fit and please you, nobody else - is that often expectations can kill the process. The "blank page" can block you and make you feel off because you have no idea what to do, or maybe you devote the first week an insane amount of energy in planning, designing, drawing, collaging and what not, and then you realize you don't really want to do that anymore because it is so tiresome. So, what to do?

I started journaling when I was 10 years old. From age 8 or so, I wanted desperately a Hello Kitty diary, even though I didn't know to write quite well. In my case, ever since I know myself, I have always been drawn to letters and to writing (among other things, of course), so when I've got my first diary for Christmas, I was over the moon, even if it was in a blank paged book, and I was afraid to write in it because I was used to ruled pages. I thought back then that keeping a diary meant to write everyday, so even when I was tired or nothing interesting had happened, I wrote in my journal. Of course, on those days I wrote:

Nothing interesting happened today.

Eventually this became too much of a chore and I abandoned it. Me, quite possibly a graphomaniac. Since I am addicted to writing, though, I came back to it later on, with a much more relaxed attitude, and started writing whenever I wanted, whatever I wanted, no pressure. And I've been doing it since then.

Property of Snowberry

There have been years when I've made only one entry in the whole year, and there are years where I burn through two or three books because I'm carrying my diary around and writing like I'm possessed. Some of my journal books are cover to cover only writing, some have drawings, some have... charts and graphs where I explore ideas for economics theories. Some others are fat and prone to fall apart because I've stuffed it with mementoes from trips and dates and purchases and whatnots. They each are me and represent me, and they are there to wait for me for when I want to write about something. And they work for me.

So, what's my advise for people looking for starting a journal (or a diary)? Simple, pay attention.

First Page Issue

In my case this is no longer an issue. After so many journals, each is like the continuation of the next, so I'm long since gotten over this issue. However, sometimes I like to leave this page purposefully in blank, and later on do something on it. You can, for instance (and I really like this), grab a cup of your favorite hot drink (non sweetened) and pour just a tad on a saucer. Sit the mug on the spilt liquid and then put it on the page and let it sit a couple of minutes. Lift it and you have a purposeful stain, in a circle. You can leave it like that, or write a quote in it, or around it, draw if you want to...

You can also do that with water colors and go creative.

Another idea is to pick up a magazine or a newspaper you like, clip out a picture or a news article, and paste it. The write over it "Most Memorable News/Picture on The Day This Journal/Diary was Started". If the picture is big, or you make a collage, you can always cut a strip of paper to write on it and glue it on. Perfectly cut, ripped... it all works. :-) Remember you can "age" paper by brewing a really strong black tea, and submerging the paper in it. Leave it some 20 to 30 minutes and then dry the page by putting it between old news papers and pressing it down. It can take a day or two, depending on weather conditions.

You can also go not so artsy, and just write a quote or a warning on it, or the date of start or a list of the things you like. And here's another idea: Put on top of it or at the center, or anywhere you want "Random Thoughts" or "Brain Dump", or "Thought Parking", and use it through time to write anything short on it.

You don't need to make it perfect, because honestly, you will hardly see it. Make it anything that talks to you. And yes, it's alright to use it for the first entry. The hell knows you may want to use up as much of the paper real estate of your journal for as long as you can.

First Entry

This can be tricky for many. Remember this is for YOU, so you don't need to introduce yourself to the journal, though you can do that if you want to. In this spirit, remember that this first entry should be... you. Like every other. Writing the date is optional, too. Nobody needs to know. You can add a title, if you like too, or address the journal as if you were writing a letter.

Two of the diaries I've read and remained with me are Anna Frank's and Anaïs Nin's. Ms. Nin wrote continually, so often you don't have an idea of when things happened. Her diaries were a collection of confidences, unaddressed, and mixing thoughts, impressions and facts. Anna started each entry with "Dear Kitty", a friend she invented, and made her journal to be.

Here's an example of how I do it:

Heredia,

2019.09.23

"Giving Advise"

Another day at work, and another day gone by. Things are going as usual and I'm happy about it. I was also thinking about journaling because I've seen K's efforts to try and get into journaling.

Style

The question of style is the easiest: go with whatever pleases you. This is not a beauty contest, nor  there is a price for the journal that keeps the canon. If you feel like doing some are, do some art. If you feel just like writing, then write. The journal is there for you to unload your mind and spirit, so do so and don't mind how it's going to look.

Style can change from book to book, and you can also experiment with different things as you go by. Your journal is personal, so it has an ample space to do all your tries and errors. And don't worry! Try it all, keep it there, and maybe in the future, when you revisit your pages, you can rediscover something from the old days.

Property of Stormberry

Sometimes art or clipping look aweful at the moment, but with time, the materials age and it can look wonderful years later.

The Rhythm

Take it easy. Notebooks and writing instruments have a cost. Don't write if you don't feel like it. If you do something when you don't like it, when you have to force yourself to do it, you'll hate it. This is not a life saving diet, nor exercise to keep you in shape. This is something you do for you. To the hell with all that "you have to make it a habit", or "get into the habit" and "fake it until you make it". Hell no! Do it because it pleases you, because you really want to, because you feel like it.

You can keep it by your bed, or at your desk, or carry it around with you... it's all up to you and what you feel like it.

No matter if you  do it for a mental health exercise or a way to improve your life so, this is your friend, your personal tool, your writing, your journal and it should fit you and serve you, not the other way around. Journaling is a pleasure, not a task.

EDIT: I was checking some videos about journaling, and I found this video from this super lovely girl, and she gives some really incredible tips. So, I'll leave her video here to help you get inspired. :-D Oh, and please, please, PLEASE live her a lot of love in her video, because she just so totally deserve it. :-) 2019.09.24

Journals Waiting

Property of Stormberry

Yesterday I had a chat (via WhatsApp, mind you), with my dear and Best Friend Arjen about all things related to post, paper and how much we totally and absolutely love each other, and how we make each other's lives so much better. Well, for sure Arjen makes my life a million times happier and brighter. Do you have any friends like that? You know, the kind of friend with whom you feel so well, share tastes, someone with a like mind, and with whom suddenly you have the absolutely best ideas in the planet? Well, that is Arjen for me.

So, Arjen and I were talking about how long it takes for a parcel or a letter to fly between Costa Rica and Belgium, mostly because both of us sent out our letters pretty much at the same time. Let me explain this quickly for you: I actually wrote to Arjen sometime in Spring. She got the letter and was sending me her reply. However, life has happened and with all the things in my life (thesis, friends gone, friends found, etc.), I HAD to talk to her. Sure, I could have sent an e-mail or chat her up on WhatsApp as we often do, but these things needed the long winding quality only handwritten letters can provide. On the light of this, I sent her what we call now "Letter Volume II: The Second Installment". I can't wait for her to get the letter! I even sent it with the courier service because: 1. it is faster, 2. it wasn't that much more expensive than the normal version, and 3. it comes in an uglyu plastic bag that will at least save the letter from water damage.

Source:  Fendrihan Canada

She showed me then a notebook she's going to use for a Bullet Journal Workshop she's taking. Oh my! I was so envious! :-) Can't wait to see the end result of it. That brought me to remember the A5 dotted, copper Leuchturm 1917 notebooks we've bought last year in Budapest. I remember that day with such joy! It was December 2017, and the both of us went to the 11th district looking for a paper store called "Fiók". It seemed like we would not find it in time, but then we did, and when we went into it, there they were, the beautiful Leuchturm 1917, hardcover notebooks! By then I had been on the hunt of A5 blank, lined or grid copper notebooks, but never found one. I didn't even think much, just grabbed the notebook.

Though normally I prefer blank pages for my journal, somehow I wanted this book to be more of a bullet journal (ain't gonna happen), and for that I wanted dotted pages. Arjen decided she wanted one too, and she also got the A5, dotted copper notebook. After that we were taken by the copper love and grabbed copper metallic Sharpies and other coppery washi tape.

Source: Pen Heaven

By the begining of the year she was already bullet-journaling in her copper notebook, while I was pondering what should I do with mine. I mean, I bullet-journal, but I do so in my A5 Malden filofax. In other words, my prized copper Leuchturm was an impulsive purchase I had acquired for the visual pleasure of its supple aesthetics. Then it went into my trunk, which is being currently heavily guarded by all the books I've bought since June... that no longer have a place in my bookshelf. (This is the reason why I'm posting pictures from google rather than pictures of my own blank notebooks). For my regular journaling, I've been using lately books from BomoArt. These books have blank pages and the paper is thick enough to handle fountain pens, which is what I use for... anything that has to do with handwriting.

In this same trip I was refering previously, Arjen and I went to Bomo Art in Budapest, in the Régi Posta utca, close to Váci utca, and I've bought that would have been my next journal. 

Property of Stormberry

Would have been? Yes. I had planned to use the latest Bomo Art book as my next journal, but after yesterday, we decided to return to our A5 coppers. You see, while talking about the paper world, Arjen mentioned that she had abandoned her copper Leuchturm. I'm myself on the last pages of my current journal, so the next logical idea came to mind: we should retake our copper Leuchturms at the same time! Isn't that the most fabulous and totally Super Best Friend thing in the world?

Since the journal is copper colored, and I have some copper washi, I thought it would be cool to use it with copper ink. Yeah, it would be cool... if there were copper ink. Now Arjen and I are on hot pursuit of cooper ink. The closest we've found is a Diamine Caramel Sparkle she has spotted. The closest I currently have is a Pelikan 4001 brilliant brown.

I know, who would have thought that the world of pen and paper could be so complicated?

Thinking about Blogging and Journaling

I haven't journaled in quite a while, so I tried to do it today while waiting for Nate to get washed (it's been a while since I last washed my own car). Not like I've got much written, since Nate was the only car at the carwash and all the five guys at the carwash devoted to him. Naturally I don't journal everyday, specially since I don't carry my journal around in my bag, but then, I really haven't journaled in a while. I was thinking about that and what really stops you from journaling, specially when you have an idea of what you'd like to journal about.

The thing is that journaling - I realized - is actually much easier than blogging, because you journal (usually) for yourself, and it's supposed to be a record of things that have passed in your life, recording your recent past for the further future, if you ever feel like revisiting it (I usually don't), while for blogging you actually need a sort of topic for posting. Well, sure, you could make a blog that functions as a journal (as I sort of have tried), but let's be honest, you never open up as much in a blog as you do in the close intimacy of your journal.

The other day I was watching videos about notebooks and journals (some people have the most curious concept of "journals". They call "journals" even notebooks I'd call "planners" or simply "notebooks"). As usual, I saw videos of people who had loads of active journals, and some really overwhelmed me. I remember this one woman who kept a journal of her relationship with her partner, which she planned to read in the future to her children. Yes, um... ok. She did keep journals of her other relationships as well. Some people do that.

I've read articles about the benefits of journaling (and I guess the same principles may apply to blogging, except the part of the benefits of handwriting compared to typing), and I can't really sign next to many of them, but one thing that's sure is that it does give you a fabulous time to set your thoughts and help you sort and organize your feelings as well. A journal is a great place to dump your anger or your sadness and even your success and your happiness. As you write it down you live it again or see it in a better light. Such a process shouldn't really happen before the eyes of the Big Anonymous Cyberspace.

Blogging - I would say - takes a different role for the writing-obsessed people. A blog is where your settled and processed thoughts go. You journal it first, work it over, and when you have distilled it to a clear thought you blog it. No, not all blogposts are backed by a journal entry nor all journal entries end in a blogpost, but I'd say that process pretty much remains. Yes, sometimes some distilled thoughts are too intimate, too personal to end up thrown at the Big Anonymous Cyberspace, and sometimes more spontaneous, raw thoughts and feelings also fall onto blogposts, but I would say that most blogposts and journal entries follow this rule almost instinctively. I don't know, perhaps because you feel safer with the journal, or the blog seems wider. Or at least, this is how it works for me. I wonder if it works the same for others.

Let's make this a Rambling Journal Entry

Again I start writing without a title for my post. I have a couple of things I'd like to discuss, but then I stop thinking whether this or that is "proper" or wonder how can I drive this or that topic to convey in a clear message why it concerns me enough to write a post about it. Though granted, not everything that ends up in a post of mine concerns me so terribly. I may have a particular sense, sometimes, like some of the things about me or around me, or things I think or witness are "top secret" and I could be processed for divulging them. Yes, maybe I've been working for the Public Sector for too long.

On the front of the Book Swap, all is going quite well, except that one of the girls, Andy, hasn't gotten her present yet. This concerns me quite a lot, not only because I've been organizing this, but also because I've become quite fond of Andy. Dare I say, I love her very much. This also reminds me of a complicated situation that seems to have arrived, which is that I believe that Carrie doesn't like Andy very much, and it's sometimes difficult to lavish all my love and attention on darling Andy, and then noticing that Carrie might not be so delighted about that. I believe I have witnessed a few bouts of jealousy from Carrie - or maybe, not so much jealousy as, um, dislike that I might be making plans to spend time with Andy - with have been... peculiar to say the least.

About my friends - my girlfriends, in this particular case - recently a friend of mine, Tina, posted some pictures she made. Tina is an incredibly talented photographer. Her pictures got to me so much that I told her I would love to marry her pictures. She replied - in jest, of course - that I could marry her and the pictures. This made me really happy and I though "Yeah, sure, I'd marry her!". This then got me thinking how I'm so quick to propose to my girlfriends, and how I can actually imagine myself marrying a woman (yeah, it would hardly be a real marriage, but more like girlfriends living together, watching movies and going crazy at shopping, mind you), but if a friend, a guy-friend of mine were to make the same declaration, I would be running the other way. I've tried to press myself in this matter, get to the core of it, imagine a girl with clearly romantic and sexual intentions towards me, and a guy with nothing but friendly intentions towards me, both of them asking me to marry them, who would I marry? I would still marry the girl. But if the girl insist in having children while the guy is not interested in children... I would marry none.

Why am I so threatened by the idea of marrying a man?

I simply can't imagine the circumstances in which I would marry a guy. And yet, I can't kid myself, I know by now that sadly, I'm heterosexual. Yeah, I'm still whining about that. I refuse to believe I'm complicated, though often simply saying "I'm complicated" is the easiest way to end a conversation about me and my so-called weirder characteristics. Thanks Hyne I love them, all my quirks and crazy little things, but I still would like to uncover the mystery of some of the things I think and I feel.

Talking of marriage, getting married, as I try to think of the scenario where I would marry a man, I remember this weird dream I had back when I was a teen, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. It was one of those confusing dreams with many weird parts, with something about me having a baby that was half a kanguroo (the left half, I believe), and half a baseball player. And the father was a classmate of mine I didn't really give much thought to then. Anyway, in the dream I was simultaneously pregnant with this baby, nursing him and watching pictures of him at different ages. Then, as I rushed out of this museum like building, I was wearing a wedding dress and ran out to a funeral. There was this classmate of mine, dead and his casket about to be lowered to the grave. In the dream I stopped the funeral, opened the casket, got into into it, and laid next to him. I remember holding his dead hand as the lid of the casket was closed on us and feeling the casket being lowered and then the dirt shoveled on it. I remember feeling so happy, so in peace that I would be forever with this guy. To this day, I think that's the one scenario were I would feel ok "marrying" a guy.

Good Satruday

Like any good day, this day started with a brooding stormy look. Milena and I were supposed to meet to work on the thesis, but since there's this inminent threat-of-rain I wouldn't put Nagi in harm's way, so Mile and I decided to work from home and e-mail our results. We are working on the final 25% of our last chapter, but this 25% is quite large, so it could take us quite some time to get done.

Since my day was free that way, I went up to our tiny downtown and to run some errands such as returning the four movies I rented on Thursday, all of which I adored  - it was one of those unique cases when all the movies you rent you have never seen before and all of them are just awesome - and then went to the Post Office to finally - FINALLY! - mail Calendulina's letter. Her letter took me millions and millions of years to finish for a great lot of reasons. It was also filled to the brim with questions and replying to all of them was quite like being expected on writing a Treaty on The Letter Writing, Personal Philosophy and Me. In the end I had to enlist the topics remaining and promise to properly address them in the next letter - if there is a next letter. I mean, lets be honest here, people, Cal wrote to me like in December of last year and I mailed Today. What are the chances of she still wanting to penpal with me? After all, not everybody is a bucket of calm patience for penpalling. (Thanks Chuck I am ^_^)

Yesterday I shot out the TV and sat at my low desk writing until I finished the letter. This time, amazingly, it took me over six hours to get to the last dot. Good thing Kari wasn't anywhere near or I would have to endure him staring at me and wondering when oh' when will it be over. My Kari isn't a writer, so he doesn't really get the rush, the hunger, the experience of delving into the writing and losingf yourself in it. Have you ever had that feeling? When you realize the time passed only because your wrist hurts like hell and you look up while stretching your hand, making circular moves with your wrist and closing your fingers in a fist, and you see the clock on your desk or perched on the nightstand, or the one of the DVD, and for a moment you wonder if the clock is wrong or broken because it certainly doesn't feel like that much time passed.

It kind of doesn't work like that with the typed writing, with the computer writing at least, or at least not for me. Handwriting is magical. Today I'll work on our thesis, typing out some of that 25% we still have to complete, read a letter from Dani, settle my planner and prehaps even write in my journal. Yeah, I have a few private thoughts I would like to leave on paper.

This Saturday is quite. This Saturday is a Good Saturday.

Great Temptations

Well, as days go by I realize more and more that I just don't seem able to keep up with the entry-a-day rhythm I had once. Not that I wouldn't like to, but Hell, I just don't get there. Another annoying thing that happens to me, maybe it happens to others, is that the best ideas come when I can't write them down, such as when I'm rushing in the morning to get the bus. Others, then, are a bit sensitive issues that I rather don't vent "publicly", so there goes a great topic, awesome, juicy, filled with the matter good gossip is made of, BUT it can't be published. Now, if you've read me long enough I would see that often what people would think means squat to me, BUT then there are cases, sensitive cases that, in the name of the World Peace Illusion and the Greater Good, are better filed away, mayde scribbled in my personal journal and stashed where no one would ever see it.

It is Friday, and that by no chance means that I have less work. If anything I've more work. Yesterday I took a load home to check it over, and to my greatest annoyment discovered that some m.f.s completely disregarded the corrected document I sent them, document I corrected instead of sending them the list of things to be done on it, and yet the maggots gave a flying squat about the whole thing and kept all their outrageous mistakes in. How outrageous? Well, let me give you an example (the topic and matters, of course, are changed to protect the innocent): They have a bakery where they did bread. They bought a machine that would help them to make not only bread but also different types of pastry. The machine never worked, so they can't offer pastry. Never could and never will. So they say in their proposal: "we can't make pastry because the machine doesn't work". A paragraphy later, and then all over the document, at least three times they say "if the buyer want's pastry, we can give them pastry thanks to our new machine". Oh yeah, the machine was bought like seven years ago. Hell, some people are simple stupid.

But lets not talk about stupid people because though we do need to blow some steam out, in the end talking so much about them is just annoying, even if it is often so needed, and almost quite tempting to do so. From time to thime, though, it can be strangely amusing, like when you sit with your friends around some drinks and talk about how stupid this or that person is, or tell stories about abhorrently stupid people you know and they don't,or the other way around. Why do we do that? Because something good must come out of those s.o.b.s, whether they like it or not.

A temptation of a more positive kind came my way Today in the form of an advertizing e-mail from my favorite bookstore. It was Book Day, and for each like $9 you spend in books, they give you one book free. Oh dear, do you know, are you aware of what could that do to my finances? Not to mention to my dear Kari, who was happily celebrating that we had shipped over to Hungary already pretty much all my books!

It is (not) evil, and I must (try to) fight it. Resist temptation! But it is difficult. Though then again comes to my mind the case of the books I've been buying and reading recently, and how they turn out to be a waste of money and time, and a hideous slaying of trees.

This is the point where I find the counter answer to lord Henry Wotton's famous words in Dorian Grey about how the only way to get rid of temptation is yielding to it. Well, if you wish to get rid of temptation (and it works like a charm with some types of temptations - hasn't been proved in all of them) a very effective way is to rationalize it. This basically means that given the fact that I haven't found so far anything to my liking, my real liking, in the volumes I've bought (though I still have to plunge into Solstorm), so going there and rushing into a lot of unknown, un-referenced books would be a silly move. What to do then? Well, though a few extra books to my lot wouldn't hurt (much), truth is that I buy books to enjoy them, and so, in order to avoid bad experiences, if I decide to go, then I should go looking only for certain books, certain "lines", so to say. Now, many of us often do that, but then we allow other books to seduce us. That shall be avoided at all costs. Sure, some of them happen to be good books, but I have been running lately into so many lame ones that I just don't want to get burned again.

So, when Great Temptations strike, hit them back with Great Expectations. You'll see that most of the times these Great Temptations are not up for the challenge.

I guess I'll still stop by, check the supply, see if I find anything fitting, but I won't wolf on the books.

Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all! ^_^What can I say? This is ma favorite "holiday" even if it isn't celebrated here, nor I've ever been in a place where it were celebrated. I wanted to organized a common lunch with my coworkers yesterday to sort of celebrate it, or take it as an excuse for all of us to be mates, not only coworkers and feel good. The group wasn't game for it. Oh well, the spirits aren't the same for a while now.

My spirit didn't broke though, and since my coworkers wouldn't play nice and wouldn't participate in any friendly, bonding activity, I was left to my own devices. My own devices took me today to take a fun and resting day all for myself today... after the bank-tour.

My day started at 6:47 am when my boyfriend woke me up. Quick shower and my favorite cotton clothes: black gym pants, wide legs, black 3/4 sleeve shirt and grey dress wur no sleeves and a hoodie. What can I say? I love that outfit. Then I spoke to Kari over the Skype for less than an hour, and finally left on my bank tour. I was thinking about visiting Cynthia to give her a chance to talk about her boyfriend so she could get over him, but that plan went down the sewer as both Cyn and Rosario had plans. Hell, having kids, or kids&hubbie is a ticket for a boring, depressive, unsatisfying, grey, dull life. Hn, I should talk to Kari and tell him that marriage ain't a good idea. Waaaah~ they simply seem so... down.

Anyway, I ran my errands and then went to Paseo Las Flores. Damned if that commercial center looks bad. The movie section is going through remodelation, so it seemed the first part of my plans were doomed. I did want to go to the movies and watch "Gestación", a Costa Rican movie. So I went here and there, bought some colored tissue paper at the Home Depot to stack up my gift wrapping pool. I was going to buy an acrilic picture frame, but none of the ones I found there was right. I did pick up one, but when I was about to pay for it, I saw that it was chipped, so I gave it back.

I actually was looking for a pencase, a really small one that could hold a pen or two, for those times when I have to pack light my purse, but I don't want my pen rolling around the Universe inside there. Found none. At the end, since I had gone to a groceries store and bought there a tube of gumballs (because it had a Halloween Pumpkin on it, and I was desperately looking for a Halloween Pumpkin), I decided I'll reuse that one for light pencase. Then again... maybe not. Well, maybe I'll just crochet one for myself. Maybe use the uncapped plastic tube.

After the shopping and walking around, I've got hungry, so I went to score some food. I was thinking on something like a Subway soup or something, but the Food Court was packed to capacity, so no. Specially since I wanted to sit quietly and write in my journal. I ended up in Ichiban, where I tried a Soto Roll, which isn't so good, and an Orange Kiss, the first sweet sushi I've ever tasted.

The dessert looks lovely, but the rice paper that wraps the peach sushi sticks to the place to the point where you have to wrestle it off the place. Once you place it in your mouth, it seems to expland and holds up so well it makes it hard to chew and not choke on the piece. I took my sweet time, lagged with my Soto Roll and my Orange Kiss, a coke and then Club Soda. It felt good to have time to write in my journal, I had almost forgot the feeling of getting lost in pen and paper, scribbling words that won't be revealed to anyone else. It's amazing. It's the communion with oneself. A deep experience.

After that I went back to the movies just to make sure it was really closed, which would make it weird why were all the people at the mall. Well, it was working. Dirty, ugly, crammed but working, and they were showing the movie I wanted to see. So I got my ticket and then went to spend 1 hour 20 minutes while it started. I ended up in Librería Internacional, always a great place to be, and browsed around, mainly looking for a CD of Peregrino Gris. I've got the CD, and then bought also a book, "The Eye on Jade" by Diane Wei Liang, translated in Spanish. I know, I usually read only in English, French or Hungarian, but this time I wanted something to pass time, maybe some Vonnegut (which wasn't on supply), but I was looking mainly for a quick read, something to occupy myself while the movie started. The book seems good.

The movie was lovely. Simple, using commonplaces, and yet very enjoyable. Many people has critizice it for touching an overly worked topic: the teenager pregnancy, but I found the topic quite up to date. There were a few fairy-tale elements, but all in all the movie worked out magnificently. It was upsetting that some people were loud and constantly talked at the movie, but all in all it was a good experience.

This is what I needed. My head hurts a bit, my eyes, but I feel good. I look forward for the rest of the weekend, and getting my batteries recharged. ^_^