Creative Journaling: playing it forward
In a couple of previous entries, I mentioned the ways in which Creative Journaling helps inform and inspire my writing efforts co-mingles work with play. (If you missed those entries, you can access them here and here.)
I’m not the only one, of course. Earlier this week, author R L. LaFevers wrote a related entry for the Shrinking Violets’ blog. Here’s an excerpt of "Envisioning the Coming Year" (reposted with permission):
No lesser authority than Carl Jung has claimed that our best work originates in play.
The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, which belongs also to the child, and as such it appears to be inconsistent with the principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. – Carl Jung
Now before you roll your eyes and think you left all that back in grade school, let me gently point out that collages and vision boards are a highly effective tool in helping focus your creative energies—either in a personal direction or in a project-related one.
There are a couple of different ways to approach a vision board. You can create one that focuses on:
Personal growth aspirations for the coming year
Professional goals
Creative goals
Spiritual areas you’d like to work on.
Qualities you’d like to more fully embrace or invite into your life
Whatever whispers to you, that’s what you should use for the focus of the board.
But perhaps you’re more comfortable working on something to do with your work-in-progress, and that’s fine, too. Some story collages capture the overall mood and feel of the book.
They can also be representative of certain scenes or parts of the book, maybe even parts you’re having a hard time nailing down. When you work on a collage, you let your subconscious take over and then, watch out!
We’d LOVE to see some of the vision boards and collages you create! If you get motivated over the next few weeks (even after the holidays) please do send us a jpeg of your collage/vision board and we’ll feature them here on the blog. (We can absolutely share them anonymously!) And while sharing your project is definitely not required, we might even have a prize drawing for all of those who participate. If you’d like to share, send your jpeg to us here at Shrinking Violets, and we’ll do the rest.
I think I might adapt the idea of a vision board, maybe glue the images into the pages of my sketchbook instead of creating something poster-sized. The possibilities are endless–form and function, entirely up to me.