Just journaling

I'm never short on ideas, just the time to turn them into
reality -- paintings, writing, letters to friends, you name
it. Tonight I have no work to show you because I've spent
the whole day marking and tidying our house to show to
an assessor tomorrow. I could spend another 100 days and
about 20,000 dollars and the place would be presentable, but
we've done what we could on short notice.

So I was thinking about journaling. I read an artist on another
blog talking about The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, a pivotal
book on journaling. But so is Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind, and
that's what really got me into daily writing.

When I teach writing I ask my students to write in a journal
every day and the practice transforms their lives, and their
writing. Last year for a few months I tried to write in my
journal and draw something to accompany the words every day.
But it was too much, so I quit. The drawings weren't spectacular,
and I really like to whine away in my journal writing without
thinking about making it look pretty.

So I now I divide these activities most of the time. But I enjoyed
the use of art and words in the movie He's Just Not That Into You.
One large painting -- just said, "Should, Should, Should" in various
sizes of type. That made me laugh. I'm good at shoulding all over myself.
And of course the woman thought she should get married.

Here's a sad little sample from my Dec. 28/07 journal. It does
what I tell my students to do --" just ramble on it doesn't have
to be great prose." It isn't!

A genuine page from
the thrilling life of yours truly
sick even -- pathetic -- but
luckily not the norm.

Have a writing-it-all-down day.