Monday 4 October 2010

Journal editing & life cut-ups…

…It has been an objective of mine to edit my journals and reduce the paper clutter of my life.  I reason, that if I don´t do this, my poor son or husband will have to when I´m dead and I want to make that task as smooth as possible for them.
I have a storage box of journals and 3 remaining scrapbooks (having already edited the rest of those last year).  It is my clear intention that the journals should not and will not spill out of that box to create clutter somewhere else in our small place.  The box is already full, with journals dating back to the end of the 90s, so I decided to act!
Yesterday, I took the few clippings that were still relevant from the last 3 scrapbooks and destroyed the rest.  That turned out to be an easy exercise, as I have been building up in stages, rather than plunge straight in.  That gave me the confidence today to start with editing a journal.
I decided to start with one from 2008-2009, with a Kali cover (I give all my journals a unique cover, to set the intention and direction for the whole book).  I choose this one because I had written it in a cheap notebook, rather than the £10 a throw art books that I have an expensive penchant for!!
I wrote the following “rules” comments before I started:
A pedantic editing style will bore me totally and the task will become abandoned.  I have to keep it fresh.  I will keep whole pages, if they look attractive and contain meaningful and relevant content.  I will otherwise cut the gems from the rubbish.  “Gems” can be grouped by date, or by type: e.g. tarot (which can go into the ´also badly needing an edit!´, tarot folder), insights, mind maps, dreams, life stories etc.  Unfinished thoughts that are nonetheless inspiring, can be clipped out and stuck at the top of a blank, ruled page, to be used like Sanna´s “Plinky Prompts” for future writing.  When I am stuck for something to write about, these prompts will give me useful topics to journal.
The picture below shows the Kali cover (I decided to keep the covers in their own section to remind me of what my focus was at the time) and the Plinky Prompts wallet, awaiting further work.  I also wrote a Timeline for the journal, briefly noting what I was up to myself, the wider picture, any emotions I expressed, insights I had and any observations I made while editing.  A whole A4 notebook has been written up in 4 sides on the Timeline.
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I also decided to share the random-play soundtrack that I was listening to while editing:
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I hope you find this useful.  Feel free to use any of these ideas if you like them.

2 comments:

Sanna said...

I started editing and destroying my old journals too. :)

It is astonishing, how few of all the stuff I wrote is now redundant.
There is very few stuff I want to keep.

Since I started my blogs, hand written journal entries got less.

Buuut, my SO gave a big BoS to me, with a wooden pentagram on the front page. I intend to fill this with all the stuff worthwile. :)

I will put pics up, but it will take some time.

Vipera Kernewes said...

Funny, my SO gave me my BOS too, although it is small size, so I can carry it around :)