Dear Scribblers
To Recap:
Every person in the world has their own story to tell, and I feel that it is important for you to record your own personal history. You can include your own family tree and genealogy, or just begin with your own birth or any other significant point in your journey. It's up to you.
Think about what areas of your past life you would like to record for your future. This is your life, it’s up to you what you would like to add.
Are you going to include past family? Present family and friends? Are you going to go from birth? From school? From adulthood? Will you include photos? Draw? Writing only?
How much details would you like to go into, and how you would like to capture these memories? Are you going to scrapbook? Journal? Art book? Mini book? A4 folder? Sketch book? Canvas panels? Artist trading cards? Film? Let your mind wander, bring forward the images of your life.
Over a number of blog entries, I will be sharing with you my ideas, and hints and tips I’ve picked up along the way on how to journal your life. There will be plenty of writing prompts for you to think about.
… And off we go!
Part 1.
I trust by now, you have some idea how you are going to begin. Are you a happy scrapper? Or are you a raring to go writer? It doesn’t matter how you decide to put your journalling onto your physical or digital pages, what matters is that you are doing it in the first place.
Some of you may want to work chronologically, but you may find your mind wandering off on a direction you didn’t expect. If this happens, don’t worry about it, just go with the flow. Out of this you may find undiscovered pearls of wisdom and creativity.
Remember this project is about your life. You may decide to include your family tree and your ancestors stories too, or you may decide to focus on just your work life. It’s entirely up to you.
It’s your story!
Never forget that. It may take you a few days or weeks to tackle your idea, or it may be a project that will take you the rest of your life, as you add events in the future too. This may sound very daunting, but whatever the reason for your journalling, take each page as it comes. Little steps finally finish the marathon.
I also recommend that you keep each idea or event separate, as it gives focus to your work.
I think that each page, be it digital or tactile, be it writing or scrapbooking, should contain 3 essential items:
The 3D’s - DESCRIPTION - DATE - DETAIL
Description - This is your title for your page. This can be just one word such as; ‘Me!, or a sentence, ‘This is Me!’ or a saying ‘It’s All About Me!’
You can add a sub-title too if it needs explaining; Title: ‘This is Me!’ Sub-Title: by The Crafty Scribe. Your heading can be simple, serious, funny or thoughtful, but it must tell you exactly what the page is about. After all, if a tin of sweet corn was labelled baked beans, you would be mighty disappointed if you had wanted beans on toast!
Date - This is important to add, especially if you are adding it to a time-line of your life. This can include: full date and time - 24 March 2010 10:00 am, or if you don’t remember it could be - Spring 2010, or even circa 2010.
Detail - Now this is the fun bit. This is your journalling. The information and additional data about your page. It can be as simple as a sentence to name the people in an added photograph. Or it can be a quick paragraph, or a whole essay. Once you have your 3D’s you can add whatever you want to your page. It may just be all about the writing or it may be about photographs, embellishments and ephemera, it’s up to you.
If you are having trouble wondering what to write. Jot down your memories using the famous journalists prompt:
What, Where, When, Who, How, Why.
If you follow this, you may recall more details than you thought you would.
To get you started, I would like you to have a go at the following:
Project of the Day: Write a Me page on how you are right now. Title it. Date it. Describe yourself. Do you want to include a description of how you look? Where you live? Your family? Work? Mood? Goals? Add a photo? Write as little or as much as you want. Make it personal. This can become the title page of your entire project - even if you are going to be delving into your past, knowing where you are at this place and time, when you are deciding to journal your life is your jumping off point. Don’t forget you as you are.
So now you have the basics on how to begin a page - (and hopefully a ‘This is Me’ page) - what are you going to write about next? In the next few parts of Scrapbooking and Journalling your Own History, I will be discussing journalling prompts in full. I hope you will join me.
Happy Scribing!
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