Showing posts with label Idea Journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idea Journal. Show all posts

Friday, December 10, 2010

Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes and Letters by Marilyn Monroe

Reading this book (reviewed at the NYT) got me to thinking of some of the fragments that fill up my life. 

Half-finished journals
Notebooks filled with books to buy, blogs to check out, movies to see
Old letters 
Scrapbooks
Collage Journals
Used Calendars and Day Planners (I save them all)
To-do lists, Goals, Plans written out
 Diaries
My Idea Journal
Postcards (new and used)
Old library cards
Typewritten memos
Old Letterhead paper found at garage sales

What fragments fill up your life?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Mixed Paper Journal

I got this gem of a journal from elisejoy who sells them on Etsy. It's a mixed paper journal and has the cloth cover that you see plus envelopes, different types and colors of card stock and a couple tags. If you click on this link you will be able to view multiple photos of the different pages in the journal.

I've decided to make this a monthly journal. This one will be January and for the rest of the year I will make my own versions of this journal.

Being halfway through the month of January I could include:

* A picture of our NY Eve celebration
* Ticket stubs from going to see Sherlock Holmes
* My current to do list
* List the books I have read or listened to this month
* My goals for 2010
* A photo of the wintry wonderland after a fresh Minnesota snow
* A copy of the cover for the prototype of Letters & Journals
* A stamp from a letter from my penpal, Jane, who lives in France

If I'm a good blogger (and I do aspire to be), I would post the completed pictures on Flickr at the end of the month and blog about the process of keeping this unique monthly journal. Check back in February for that.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Idea Journal

I started my Idea Journal in February 2006. I got the idea from visiting some some web sites that talked about the concept of an Idea Journal. This little booklet has been in my purse or work bag for most of the last 3 1/2 years.

Basically, with an Idea Journal, you have a ready place to write down thoughts, names, inventions, story ideas, jokes, a humorous incident, a funny/sweet comment your child or loved one made. Whatever you want. I enjoy writing and thinking of story ideas, so a lot of my ideas are geared towards that, but not all of them are.

I number my ideas and sometimes add the date. Here are some entries:

3. Letters & Journals magazine (Feb 2006)

10. Grothe Road, St. Louis, MO I was traveling in St. Louis and came across a street sign that was the same as my maiden name. Grothe is not a name you see everyday, so I wrote it down to remember it and to remember where I saw it. (Feb. 2006)

19. "Baseball is back in the news. Life is good." My husband is a big sports fan. One morning, while reading the paper, he made this comment and I wrote it down.

41. Giants Graveyard- Imagine visiting and walking among the gravesites of giants and how big their headstones might be. I think I had seen a giant rock that looked like a headstone and then just imagined a bunch of them and wondered what that would be like.

81. In defense of senility- I had misread a headline and thought that this is what it said and I was drawn in by wondering what the argurment could be for defending senility.

89. Edworthy- I thought that was a cool name

121. Arctic Smile- what must that look like? An author had used it in a book and I thought it was a great description.

I have found that when I have the book with me, I am more apt to look for or think of things to add to it. If I don't have it I may not always take the time to write my idea down to be transferred later. Sometimes, but not always.