Keeping A Journal

Since the rein of horrible 2015 (It has undoubtedly been one catastrophe after the other, 2016 better make up for it.. big time) I have been keeping a journal. I was in a very dark place, and wanted to use this book in oder to express my feelings without the whole Dear Diary cliché. I popped into a Waterstone's and picked up my favourite notebook, googled around a little bit, read about what everyone else was doing with theirs, and got to work. You lucky lot are getting a peak into my little pocket sized book, which can hopefully inspire you to maybe start up one of your own, get the creative juices flowing.

~ The Journal ~

This part is crucial if you want to really get into keeping a journal. An A4 pad may be perfect for jotting down huge rambles, or an A2 flipbook would work for someone who wants to draw out a few animations. Me? Well I wanted something small enough for my SuperDry jacket pocket, but nothing insignificant either. Luckily, Waterstone's have a great section jam packed with a beautiful display of notebooks. Moleskins for the classic folk, Game of Thrones decoration for the Netflix buffs, textile prints for the fashion conscious, and PaperBlanks for the intricate lot. I spent about ten minutes getting a feel of each product before I found one that really stood out to me. (PaperBlank Vert French Ornate - With metal clasp and lined paper) As long as you mind something that you will enjoy writing in, thats all that should matter. 

Can we all just take a minute to Ooo and Aaaah over how beautiful the design is? Glistening gems pressed into a metallic green design, with gold and red accents? Yes pleaseeeeeeee.......

I opted for lined paper. Blank paper makes me feel a little intimidated, and thanks to my wonderful school days, I am use to writing for hours on faint lines. 

~ The Content ~

This, I struggled with. I started off writing story stories. Scratch that, 'flash fiction'. (A form of story that only uses 150 words. They're beautiful, but a challenge. Here's a few of my favourites if you're interested.) But it didn't draw me towards writing. I didn't bother to look back over them, nothing compelled me because it wasn't personal. And then, I stumbled upon "berlin-artparasites" on Facebook. They post deep and thought provoking quotes and ideas along with interesting pieces of art. As I scrolled through the page, I had to restrain myself from sharing everything, and quickly found their Instagram account too. I decided to start writing these down, and before I knew it I had a beautiful selection of my favourites, along with random drawings to match. I found that doing one a night, for as little as 5 minutes, really relieved any stress, and allowed my mind to focus on something artistic. Scroll down to get a gist of what I was doing...

 I think that keeping a journal, whether its to write down memories, draw stupid stick men figures, articulate monologues or just to have for a do to list, is essential. They can help calm down a swirly mindset, and are also something really significant to look back over when times seem hard. I've managed to share the journal love, how about you lovely lot? Let me know what you do with your journals too, we can all be notebook nerds together....! x
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