Image by Galia Alena
It's been the week from hell. No, the week from buggery shitty bloody hell, and I say this through gritted teeth, dear reader. One minute you're up and the next you're so far down that you cannot even see the bottom of the pit you're free-falling into. When I received a rejection (the only one so far) for a collaborative project that took over most of last summer, it didn't even seem bad, all things considered.
At times like this, I wish I were a bit like Anne Frank or Samuel Pepys, people who were evidently able to write down their innermost desires and preoccupations relentlessly, beautifully and consistently, not only leaving a literary legacy to generations but demonstrating the healing quality of writing per se. It all seems effortless in their case. My writing diary? I haven't got one right now, or rather, you're reading it. I soldiered through last year with my first red Moleskine and those months were so trying and just plain bad that I threw the Mole in the recycling bin in December. It's the first diary I've got rid of in my life. Perhaps I shouldn't have done so.
After all, it's always life-affirming to re-read about the bad times once we're over them, isn't it? But I don't like doing that either. My past is a trunk in the attic and I never open it. The bad memories dance around, still throwing shapes, and they remain as stomach-churning as when I was living them. The good ones inject my day with a very pungent sweet-and-sour, Keats-like nostalgia. Maybe that's precisely what I found most disappointing about my diary: I had stellar, life-affirming plans for it at the beginning of the year and, barely one quarter through it, I realised that my musings were about as penetrating and as interesting as Kurt Cobain's, except he placed the ultimate exclamation mark at the end of his and I'm not interested in that sort of punctuation. You see, his diaries should never have been published. Certain things should remain unread. I hope that the red Mole got well pulped.
And this brings me to the best bit, just in case you think I'm going all doom-and-gloom on you for no apparent reason. I've found something stellar, uplifting, sparkly, fun and fabulous as of late: Andrea's 101 Creativity. If you get The Creative Times (and if not, why not?), you will have already read about her in last Monday's issue. This online course guides you through the good and the bad times and applies the principle I often refer to: your journal shouldn't be a place for gripes but one for celebrations! And even if you have gripes for five minutes, exorcise them in your journal and see how a so-and-so day turns into a damn fine one. You'll think this is airy fairy hocus pocus for idiots, but I assure you, it's not. Writing and journaling provide us with comfort when we can find it nowhere else, even when our prose isn't half as compelling as Anne's or Samuel's and our drawings ain't a patch on Michelangelo's. And who says they have to be anyway? Head over to Andrea's digs and see for yourself.
Indeed! I've just started a creative journal. The first time I've used colour in a journal, to be honest, and it's quite fun and liberating.
Posted by: Sophie Playle | 07 April 2011 at 16:28