Now what? Creating an inspiration journal
Several years ago, my husband gave my daughter and me each a binder filled with notebook paper, graphing paper, plastic dividers and no instructions. On the front of the binders, he had drawn a little figure and the words ‘Inspiration Keeper’. At the time, I had no inspiration to speak of and no idea what to do with this empty binder full of paper. To be honest, it was intimidating.
I may have been lost among the blank pages, but my daughter wasn’t. She knew exactly what to do with her ‘Inspiration Keeper’. M loves bright colors, rainbows and cute things…so many cute things. These are the things that inspire her, the things that get her excited, bring her to her happy place and stir her creativity. For a while, she had been asking us to take pictures of random things she wanted to remember. A cute stuffed animal at the store. A cute mascot in an ad for frozen ice pops. An interesting pattern on a pair of pants or a design on a t-shirt. We had been collecting these pictures on our phones, not realizing that they were more than a waste of space. They were her inspiration. After my husband bought her the binder, she realized she now had a place to store all of these pictures. She had a place to hold her inspiration. We printed out a bunch of these pictures and she started carefully gluing them onto the blank pages.
Unlike my daughter, I found a less visual approach for my inspiration keeper. I used the blank pages to write. I went further than inspiration, I started writing whole chapters of my novels, using the notebook as a place to store my most recent writing, before transferring it to the computer. Even though we went in different directions, the journals have still led to inspired creation and allowed us to store little gems for later.
An inspiration journal is a great idea for both kids and adults. The best part is, there is no right way to keep one. A binder, like my daughter’s, with pictures pasted to the pages is one way. This allows my very visual child to keep all the images she can’t fit inside her head close at hand. If you’re more inclined to writing, keeping a lined journal, perhaps small enough to fit in your pocket, is great for jotting down words and ideas when they pop into your head. You could put up a bulletin board filled with inspiring pictures, shapes, textures or words. Perhaps you’d rather have a playlist of music that inspires you. A folder on your phone or computer can hold visual inspiration that doesn’t even require you to have a physical journal. These are all different ways of achieving the same thing, keeping inspiration at your fingertips and helping you remember the things that bring you joy or spark your creativity.
Don’t just save inspiration that you think you can replicate. Save a picture that you know you’ll never be able to draw, but you think is gorgeous. Save those quotes you love from authors you know you’ll never be able to match. The idea is to gather together the things that move you.
I think you can guess what the Gently Guided Activity will be for this one. Put together your own inspiration collection. It doesn’t matter where you keep it, what it looks like or what you put in it. Start collecting slowly. There’s no need to fill an entire inspiration journal, or fill your phone with inspiring pictures from Google, in one day. Just take some time to look around your environment. Notice the things that make you smile or capture your attention. Notice colors, patterns or particular words that you like. Take pictures of video game scenes or write quotes from the latest novel you’re devouring. Whatever inspires you, keep it, jot it down, hold it close. Don’t judge. From this inspiration, your creativity can flow. When you don’t know what to do, when you don’t have any ideas, look to your inspiration journal to give you a little push.
