I may have told this story in this spot before, but years ago I worked with this book called “The Artist's Way”, which included fun exercises meant to unlock the creativity most of us adults don't access regularly.
The main ongoing exercise done throughout the whole process of the book was writing three pages a day. Just writing whatever you want, getting three pages on paper, every damn day. An interesting process! Sometimes it was easy to fill the pages and sometimes it was incredibly difficult. Once the chatter of the mind was emptied on the page for a couple days, and the hopes, fears and plans were written down once or twice, and some memories explored, or “journal” type entries about the day's events…well, after a while, I'd hit a wall.
“What do I write about now?”
There were some interesting effects that came from this exercise; they definitely had an impact on me. After a week or ten days, I began having extremely vivid dreams. They were pretty scary, actually - being trapped in a crowd of decaying corpses, stuff like that. But far more vivid than my dreams usually are.
The other was that I became much more emotional than usual. A couple times it came out in negative ways. Whereas I would normally keep my anger or annoyance to myself, in my tightly wound and rigidly controlled way, I found myself expressing those emotions to my friends when they ticked me off.
It was very much NOT what I was used to and it kind of freaked me out, so I stopped doing the pages.
Over the years, I've tried doing it here and there when I remember it, but have never kept it going long enough to notice any real effects like I did back in the day.
But I like the idea of this. And the memory of this just came back to me today. I'm thinking I'll try it again and see what kind of thoughts, ideas and emotions it churns up. It's nice to stir the pot, mentally, once in awhile!
Have you ever heard of this? Keep a journal or diary? Or does your webcomic function that way for you?
Happy Thursday, y'all!
-Banes
Daily Pages
Banes at 12:00AM, May 17, 2018
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Banes at 3:07PM, May 18, 2018
Amelia - I was thinking that we webcomicers probably have less trouble accessing that childlike or creative side than most! Yeah, keeping a record - and celebrating - are easy to not do!
AmeliaP at 11:00AM, May 18, 2018
"fun exercises meant to unlock the creativity most of us adults don't access regularly." Maybe I'm the weird one. I have a problem to go back to the adult mode XD "Keep a journal or diary? Or does your webcomic function that way for you?" Keeping a journal is important to keep track of your schedule, not only for the job, but for everything. Nope, I don't have any journal. I tried many, MANY times, but I always fail in keeping a daily journal. And it's bad, because when I finish and conquer something, I don't celebrate. I forget all effort quick and easy. It's sad!
Banes at 5:50AM, May 18, 2018
If you do, let me know if anything interesting happens!
KimLuster at 8:14PM, May 17, 2018
Hrrmmm... I've never done this... nor heard of this!! I'm tempted to try it, as it's been many years where I've had a nightmare lol Seriously, it does seem like you opened up areas of the brain normally kept at bay! Does sound scary but also mighty tempting!! But... will I take the time to do this!! So many 'want to's, never enough 'do's...
Banes at 1:29PM, May 17, 2018
Daily memos are easy, yeah - I think the point of this daily page writing is to go deeper than that, hence the three page requirement!
Banes at 1:29PM, May 17, 2018
Aside from the time I did these pages for about 10 days, I've occasionally kept a journal and noticed that it can purge a lot of the surface 'chatter', confusion, or racing thoughts that are obscuring the real stuff!
bravo1102 at 9:07AM, May 17, 2018
In this day and age with social media and smart phones daily memos are so easy to do.
Ozoneocean at 2:11AM, May 17, 2018
Do it again and keep it up this time. I diarised during a trip when I was having a very stressful time. It helped me exorcise and understand bad feelings I had and lesson the confusion I felt.