More Things to Do at Home: Start a Book Journal

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I've been reading so many excellent books over the past few weeks: Children of God by Mary Doria Russell; When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro; The Lying Game by Ruth Ware. The only problem is, thanks to isolation and social distancing, I don't have anyone to talk to about these great reads!

I'm sure that like many others in my predicament, one of the things I'm truly missing right now are book clubs. Of course there must be plenty of clubs online and chances to share opinions on review and similar sites, but in-person book discussions (and yes, all those passionate, intense "my-favorite-book-is-better-than-your favorite-book" arguments!) will still always be the best for me. However, there's still one good trick up every reader's (and writer's) sleeve: keeping a book journal, and if you haven't already started one, now is the perfect time to begin.

A book journal can be tailored to any format that suits you best, but I personally like to divide mine into sections and I prefer using lined paper for the simple reason that this is one type of journal that requires order over creativity. My favorite notebooks to use as book journals are those ruled composition books you can find anywhere from the grocery to the office supply store. They're cheap and I can collage and decorate the covers to my heart's content. But after I've put away the glue sticks and scissors it's all business and my next task is to create my various sections with things such as:

• What's on my TBR pile? (Or Kindle line-up if you've switched to reading on a device.) Listing what to read next, and when, can help you from feeling overwhelmed from buying or owning too many unread books.

• Answering the questions sometimes printed at the back of a book in the form of a "reader's guide." When I was able to attend in-person book clubs, I was often assigned the task of finding these guides on publisher's websites if they weren't included in the actual book.

• Listing and writing about my favorite books: books from my childhood; books that motivated or inspired me; how-to books; books that marked significant moments or passages in my life.

• Favorite authors and notes about their lives together with places I might like to travel to in order to visit their homes, museums, or archives.

• Creating a reading wish-list for both myself and lists of books to give to friends or family as gifts.

• Book club selections with records of what we've read, how the group responded to the book, and lists of books for future meetings.

• Lists of books I've given away in case I want to reference them again one day, either by purchasing them or borrowing them from a library.

• Books I didn't like, and why! It's fun to vent about a book you truly dislike, but it's also very revealing to discover the real reasons for liking one book over another. Note: I never think it's a good or wise decision to write one-star or very negative book reviews for publication on sites such as Amazon.com or Goodreads. But in the privacy of your journal you might want to express why a book bothered you so much. It's also a good way to discover more about your own writing: what genres appeal to you? What styles, voices, and types of characters are the ones you can--and want--to keep learning from? What mistakes do you want to avoid? 

• Another tip for writers is to have a section in your journal that can be used for classifying and categorizing "comparison titles," books that you can offer to agents or editors as the ones that influenced you, or that your own book is similar to.

•  Fan fiction. How would you continue the story or plot line if you could? Who were your favorite characters and what more would you like to discover about their lives? Use your imagination and write it down! I especially love doing this when the conclusion to a book is "open ended" and I'm left hanging: do the characters stay friends or become enemies? Are they able to create happier lives? Escape a war zone? Meet new romantic partners or give up on relationships altogether? Enquiring minds want to know!

Whichever way you want to go with your book journal always remember to write for yourself and never worry about what anyone else thinks about your taste in reading material. Go deep and ask yourself what you honestly loved, hated, or wished was different about the story or the way it was presented. 

Tip of the Day: It's lonely out there, but books can still be a great way to connect with friends. As a special treat for someone you haven't seen for awhile, how about making a book journal as a gift? Section off pages with questions and areas for them to fill in and complete. Be sure to include a list of some of your favorite titles and authors to recommend for future reading.

Traveling Light and Going Goal-Free

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Here we are: June already, and the time of year I usually do a goals check-in, asking myself how it's all going, what's working, what isn't . . . Oh, boy.  

What can I say? As much as I'd love to tell you that my cumulative efforts toward goal-completion are moving with rocket speed, the truth is, they are not. In fact, a few weeks ago I actually got rid of my goals journal, and I feel a lot better for it.

As we are all probably sick of hearing (and knowing), 2020 hasn't been much of a joy ride. So many plans have had to be changed, put aside, or dropped altogether. For me personally this has involved abandoning plans to take new art and language classes, as well as giving up on even thinking about overseas travel. What I can do, however is keep working, as in:

• Keep writing, which means continuing with my WIP.
  
• Keep submitting my work for publication.
• Keep learning and practicing to improve my drawing and painting skills.
• Keep beading and building inventory for an eventual business, one that was supposed to start this summer, but now is, well, getting ready for NEXT summer!
  

My "modified goals" are simple, doable, and fit into my new 2020 routines and schedules. To make things even more streamlined, I've been doing some packing, putting away art supplies I'm not using at this exact moment; placing various unfinished works-in-progress into plastic storage containers; discarding old writing exercises that I know for sure I don't want to edit or publish, ever. 

I feel a lot lighter and a lot happier. With only a small amount of projects on my plate I feel as if I'm on a kind of creative vacation, the kind that only requires a small overnight bag and plenty of sunshine and rest.

Traveling light suits me and has always been my preferred way to see the world, whether it's a quick trip to Santa Fe, or a longer journey to Taiwan. Not only is a small suitcase easier to carry, but I never have to pay for any unwanted baggage fees. Most importantly, a small case makes me focus: What do I really need to have with me every day? What items will only create clutter, take up too much room, and will probably never be used anyway?

I weighed these same types of concerns to evaluate what it was I truly wanted to have with me for the rest of the year, if not beyond. As I was packing up my old first drafts and unused sketchbooks, it got me thinking about what else I could let go of, things that might be causing more trouble than joy in my life. You might recognize some of these in your own life and feel the need to let go of them too: 

• Emotions revolving around creative work. Something I've learned about creativity is that it's never going to be free of anxiety and stress. Stress that something isn't "right." Stress that a project or manuscript will never be "good enough." Heck, I can even stress over finding a typo in an old blog post! So often our expectations are light years beyond what is required to achieve or complete any given project. The sooner you can let go of worry and just create without expectation, the better your work will naturally become. Ironic, isn't it?
  

• Over-achieving. For me this means the need to work on too many projects at once. I fell into this bad habit when I read--and believed--a very stupid book that claimed multi-tasking was what highly-motivated professional writers and artists did: spin plates while walking on high wires and jumping through hoops with paintbrushes in both hands and a manuscript in their teeth. All day long! After hard experience and a lot of burn-out, I now know: tackling one project from start to finish is a far more productive, and satisfying, way to work. It's also a whole lot less to carry around in my brain.

• TBR pile. I love to read, more than anything else on earth! But sometimes I can have such a huge pile of books to get through it feels like I'm in some never-ending high school English class: read those books, write those reports! Better to have just one book that I really want to read than a stack of homework assignments.

• Too big of a to-do list. Another of my really bad habits: sitting down to write a daily to-do list that should only include: "buy milk, check post office box, pick up dry cleaning." Okay--that makes sense, one round trip should do it all. But then I start adding things like: Finish novel (which requires at least another six months). Practice drawing faces (well, maybe I have time for that over the weekend). Gesture drawings--twenty of them (which would take probably three hours). And it doesn't end there. Usually I need to get a second piece of paper to write down everything I want to do for the rest of my life. And it's all so counter-productive! Believing that I can accomplish all of this while going to my day job and buying the milk is a good guarantee that I end up wanting to do nothing but read one of those books from my TBR pile. From now on, my to-do list is going to be the size of a post-it or I won't even bother writing it.

• Too many ideas. Although I've done a good job of packing up my various projects in order to concentrate on finishing one manuscript in the form of my current novel, I still keep getting IDEAS. I don't want to ignore them completely and I don't want to lose them, but really, there are days I wish they'd go visit someone else. In order to semi-solve the situation, I've taken to simply writing them down and putting them away in a folder. I want to add "never to be seen again" but who knows, there might come a day when I'll be glad of them. The one thing I'm certain of, though, is I'm not going to a) dwell on them, b) drop everything else I'm doing to pursue them, and I'm especially not going to c) purchase anything they might cry out for such as new paint sets or special supplies. No, no, no!

• Too many online obligations and interactions. This is a difficult one, I know. But there's been something special about having this extra alone time to befriend myself, getting to know what I really want from life, and what types of goals will suit me best when I do come out of isolation. None of us need a thousand "likes" to know our work has value, just a strong inner voice reminding us to show up and do whatever we can at any given time.

To me traveling light means the ability to travel well and to travel easily. It means going where your heart calls you, not where the guidebook says you must. It means being able to stop and smell the roses right in front of you rather than  rushing off to find and paint acres of magic orchids just because it sounds so grand and accomplished. For now simplicity is truly the key. Happy Trails!
 
Tip of the Day: What's weighing you down right now? There's no reason to carry anything other than what you love, but even those things might need to be re-examined in order to navigate our current world with greater ease and a lighter step. Take some time to consider what to keep, what to get rid of, and what you might want for later but don't want to discard completely. Pack it up and save it for next year!

Things to Do at Home: Urban Sketching, Picture Book Style!

Baby werewolf in a coffee mug. Every home should have one!

Greetings from Albuquerque! And greetings from another day of, well, stuck in the same old place with no relief in sight. But stuck doesn't have to mean running out of ideas or things to do. Sure, there may be days (weeks) when it feels impossible to wring another ounce of inspiration out of lock-down, but, hey, we're creative people--we can do it! 

Like so many others in the world right now, here in New Mexico we've had to place our lives on hold while we wait for our health statistics to improve. The two things I personally miss the most are 1) the library, and 2) meeting with my various creative groups. I especially miss my art groups, but fortunately Albuquerque Urban Sketchers has done a fine job of staying in touch, encouraging members to keep drawing, even if it's just sketches of our home life. 

With the instruction of "drawing in place" however, comes the caveat of "drawing the truth." Didn't wash the dishes? Show us those dirty plates! Laundry piling up? We want to see! Be real, be honest, be exact. No fancy-pantsy Architectural Digest staging for us sketchers! 

I have to admit that when I read these "be honest" guidelines I wasn't particularly thrilled with the idea of using my sketchbook as a visual to-do list ("Mop that floor!" "Scrub those sneakers!"). Instead, I needed to shake things up a bit, color outside of the lines, as it were. That's when I thought of sketching at home from the viewpoint of a child: What if I crawled under the bed? Or, What if I lived upside-down on the ceiling? In other words, I could sketch out a picture book.

Some of the tips I considered to help me get into picture book mode included:

• Thinking in terms of height and size: e.g., what do the items on my kitchen counter look like if they're above my head? Or, if I were only four years old, would a flight of stairs seem as deep as the Grand Canyon? 

• Ask what a child would find interesting about a house. While the neighbors might admire a well-kept lawn, a child might notice that there's a gopher hole right in the middle, or that birds are building a nest in a rain gutter. Adults might disdain an old piece of furniture, but to a child it's a time machine or the entrance to Narnia.

• The same goes for any ornaments or household objects. For instance, you could bring a cat figurine to life, invent new uses for a potato masher, or create an entire story around the items in your closet.
  

• Explore small objects: egg cups, button collections, jewelry; even the junk drawer can be a source of interesting things to draw. 

• Toys and their varied surfaces and textures can provide an infinite amount of sketching ideas. Try posing and arranging them in unexpected places. (For some of the best examples you'll ever see using this technique, I suggest viewing the work of Dare Wright--my absolute favorite children's book creator.)

• Don't overlook your own backyard (if you have one, of course. For me it's a balcony, but I do see trees!).  Is there a mysterious, neglected part of your yard? Use it to the full. Make a "fairy garden" and sketch the results.

• Study and copy patterns found on wallpaper, draperies, bed linens, or tile work. Patterns can be useful additions to creating a lively border or background to a picture book page.

• Think back to your childhood home and/or the place where you grew up. Can you reproduce from memory anything you loved or that was unusual or visually interesting? Don't worry about quality, just get the general ideas down and worry about perfection later.

• Even though we're temporarily cooped up for much of the day, it's important to get out and into the fresh air whenever possible. Can you visit the exterior of a museum or playground to sketch for a little while? How many details can you observe? Taking your own photographs can be a quick and easy option if you choose not to linger anywhere.

• Go wild: if you're sketching your toaster, why not color it pink and covered with gold stars? Or replace the cars in your garage with a herd of antelope? 

• Sketching for children is a good opportunity to consider your color palette. Rather than just aiming for primary colors or anything "bright and shiny," give some thought to mood. Are you feeling happy, sad, wistful, or nostalgic for your own childhood? Play with watercolor washes and draw over them later.

•  Set up some reference files from magazine cut-outs or sites such as Pinterest.com, e.g., Toys, Children's Clothing, Play Rooms, Bedrooms, Animals.

Can we go play??

I must say it's been an eye-opener these last few weeks lying on the floor sketching chair legs--and not just because I discovered my base boards needed a good dusting, but because it's made me think seriously about illustrating a children's book from the perspective of an urban sketcher. Sketching is, after all, a way to explore ideas, collect data, and experiment with mediums, palettes, and composition. And where better to start than at home? 

Tip of the Day: If you find yourself getting bored with your own supply of pots and pans and coffee mugs, experiment with designing an entirely new set on paper. Draw a household from your imagination, one set on Mars or ancient Greece. Place your characters on a pirate ship or living in a log cabin. You don't have to be accurate, just playful. Have fun and let me know how it goes. See you next time!