It's been a really long while since I put thoughts down in a notebook, and I'm convinced this practice is a vital way to connect your internal dialogue with your physical life. I know that for myself, getting things in my headspace down tangibly lends so much clarity to what I need to do next.
True, there are our blogs, on which we can choose to sift through some things. Yet...there is something uniquely satisfying about letting thoughts spill out of a pen, filling a page with images, words, colors...that simply cannot be duplicated with text on a flat screen. I ponder and halter far less when physically writing. For me, it's vastly more cathartic, more action-spurning, more idea-churning and honestly much more spiritually fulfilling to give myself permission to scribble, scratch and earn an ink-stained wrist bone (fellow left-handed comrades, you feeling me on that one?) than to labor over a few paragraphs for an hour while staring into a lightbox that I am quite sure will eventually be the annihilation of my eyesight.
All of that being said, along the lines of fostering creativity and productive thought, I'm going to share with you some excerpts from what I wrote yesterday in my new giant red notebook, after wrestling through a creative block and doubts as an evolving creative professional:
"It's difficult for me to accept that I can or should expect or even ask for any sort of compensation for the assumption that what I do would be considered a talent. The fact that I continue to fight, battling myself over the idea that this is all too personal to risk being rejected in the light of the rules of commerce, that I must be willing to separate myself from my fears enough to demand even half a living at it...it's a stifling thought. ... ... This is the time for renewal :: and participation. ... ... There is no reason you cannot produce SOMETHING every day. ... ... Regret less each day."
