07-08-2023, 03:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-08-2023, 09:11 PM by Quixilated.)
I used to to write in notebooks.
It started in my grandmother’s office when they were going through her things after she died. I saw two unused blank-page journals with Japanese paper art on the covers. One of the journals had an abstract image of a person with a mountain in the background.
So I opened the first page and drew a mountain with a little hut on one side and on the other side I added sheep made out of scribbled wool and little stick legs. Then I added a stick figure man walking toward the mountain. I wanted to pull the image from the front of the journal into the pages of the book, so I wrote a story for him on that first page. I gave him a house and a sunrise and a grandmother waiting at home to tell him a secret that will send him on an adventure. I hope he was pleased with his world. I hope he forgives me that we never solved the mystery.
That was the beginning.
I filled several journals during that time with chicken-scratch stories (none of which had endings) and doodles and outlines and horribly executed maps. It felt like magic to open the pages and watch the words drop onto them. I told my friend the Muses brought the words.
These days there are no notebooks, no doodles, no Muses with baskets filled with words. I type unmagically on my phone in the dark while waiting for the night to finally bring out its sleep. Perhaps that is why there are also no poems or stories, but instead my Pinterest boards are filled with quotes from Doctor Who and weird history facts.
Maybe I should buy a gel pen.
It started in my grandmother’s office when they were going through her things after she died. I saw two unused blank-page journals with Japanese paper art on the covers. One of the journals had an abstract image of a person with a mountain in the background.
So I opened the first page and drew a mountain with a little hut on one side and on the other side I added sheep made out of scribbled wool and little stick legs. Then I added a stick figure man walking toward the mountain. I wanted to pull the image from the front of the journal into the pages of the book, so I wrote a story for him on that first page. I gave him a house and a sunrise and a grandmother waiting at home to tell him a secret that will send him on an adventure. I hope he was pleased with his world. I hope he forgives me that we never solved the mystery.
That was the beginning.
I filled several journals during that time with chicken-scratch stories (none of which had endings) and doodles and outlines and horribly executed maps. It felt like magic to open the pages and watch the words drop onto them. I told my friend the Muses brought the words.
These days there are no notebooks, no doodles, no Muses with baskets filled with words. I type unmagically on my phone in the dark while waiting for the night to finally bring out its sleep. Perhaps that is why there are also no poems or stories, but instead my Pinterest boards are filled with quotes from Doctor Who and weird history facts.
Maybe I should buy a gel pen.
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara