Wendy Smedley from Big Picture Classes
We all appreciate heartfelt journaling that triggers an emotional reaction and connection. This photo on this layout is a favorite of my older brother Paul and myself. I love how it captures the time with the clothing, faded colors, and the car in the background. It was important to me to write about how my relationship with my brother was my childhood, we did absolutely everything together. Following the suggestions in the writing exercise below helped direct my journaling. Next time you are working on a layout, try out the exercise below. (exercise is an excerpt from Amy Sorensen’s writing workshop)
Journaling Exercise
If your layout is about…
a topic or event that repeats (such as holidays, birthdays, traditions), think about the “real” story. What do you want to remember? How is this instance of the topic/event different from others? This involves paying attention to the small details that make up the larger similarities.
an individual’s personality, think about juxtaposition. What is surprising or full of contrast in that
person? How is it manifested in his or her actions? Where might the contrast come from?
life right now, think about a symbol. What item might represent how your subject’s life is right now?
How is that object evocative of this time in life? How do the item’s qualities connect with your subject?
a relationship, think about a saying. What is something that the people in the relationship say to each
other often? Is there an inside joke, a mantra, or an aphorism that’s only shared between those two
people? How does it affect the relationship?
a unique event (birth of a child, part of a trip, an accident or illness, a new toy or gadget or t-shirt), think about a scent. What does this event smell like? What words might convey that smell? How does the scent connect you to the event?
a moment, think about another moment. What connections can you draw between them? What things
always stay the same? Why did this moment remind you of that moment?
Giveaway
Write Now! A Speedy Journaling Class taught by Amy Sorensen
4 week workshop starts 11/1/2012
http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/writenow.php
One lucky winner will win a spot in the Write Now! Journaling Class Workshop!
Leave a comment here by 9:00 am (Mountain Standard Time) Wednesday, October 24, 2012 on why you think including meaningful journaling in your scrapbooks is important for a chance to win!
Congratulations to our winner!
Susan Fishel says:
I have so much trouble thinking of what to say and how to say it, that most of the time I don’t do anything beyond the names and date. It is very frustrating but it has always been a problem for me.
Watch for an email in your inbox with instructions on how to redeem your prize.
About the Class: How to Write What You Feel
What moves you? What makes you puff with anticipation, hum with happiness, tingle with exhilaration? What makes you so joyous you could twirl off a few cartwheels in its honor?
Now how do you capture that emotion in your journaling?
Writing about emotion requires a deft hand and an open heart, the willingness to dig a little bit. More than anything, writing about emotion requires honesty. But it’s also really, really fun.
In four weeks of class, you’ll learn:
● storytelling techniques and creative processes for getting to your original thoughts
● how to make mere facts more interesting
● how to write imaginatively about repetitive topics
● how to find words when your journaling space feels more intimidating than asking your boss for a raise
● how to write about emotion without sounding like a Hallmark card.
There’s even a smattering of useful grammar tips!
Get the complete scoop here.
Meaningful journaling is important because I forget! Even layouts from a few months back sometimes surprise me with their journaling because I’d forgotten about some detail or how I felt.
This sounds like a great class–it’s such a good idea to put the words with the photos–either in scrapbooks or journals we leave for our children and grandchildren, so they know how things were like at the time.
This is such a beautiful page!! Meaningful journaling in my scrapbooks is so important, because it leaves pieces of us that can be discovered again in the future. I worry that someday my memories will leave me, and I want to have things like this to help me remember.
Meaningful journaling does not always have to be long stories. Sometimes, just a quick snippet of everyday life or happening is great. I love journaling and learning and taking it further with a story. This class would help me tremendously. Sometimes i struggle with what to say. Thanks for a chance to win this great class.
I’m a writer and love words, but for my scrapping, I almost always just stick a title and date on my pages. These are great ideas to really dig in and make a page unique!
i think meaningful journalling is important because it makes me think about my life and notice it more in the moment.
Meaningful journaling is important to bring out the story behind the pictures other than the who, what, when, where, and why.
I used to fret about what to write. I wanted it to be perfect. Over time, I have matured in approach to journaling. I just write something, anything. Sometimes it’s perfect and sometimes it’s not. But what is always there is that I have recorded a memory, a memory that I will be happy to remember years from now! I would love to go through the class to challenge me to journal even deeper and even more heartfelt.
I never met my father and what little I know is not enough for me to fill out a whole side of my family tree. In fact, a couple of years ago, my mother told me something that genuinely surprised me about her relationship with my father. I have since asked her a few times to tell me how she met my father and we even signed up for a memoir writing workshop with Nancy Slonim Aronie.
My uncle, whom I also had never met, became sick “unto death” and she left the workshop hoping to make it to his bedside before he died.
She didn’t make it.
What stories I carry are vague and I always dreamed I would one day marry a man, having children with him, and we would share out stories together, pass them on to our children, learn our cultures and become rooted. Instead, his alcoholism inevitably tore our family apart and, when I divorced him, although he swore he would never do to his children what our fathers had done to us, he disappeared.
I want to share what stories I can with my children and now, with my granddaughter. Perhaps I can learn more of the stories from my mother before those are gone forever. I have a collection of materials–mini-albums, beautiful papers, ideas and stories I want to share; but I feel overwhelmed every time I sit down to begin even though I know, if I don’t find a way to start, the stories will be lost forever.
I know myself well enough to know that when I’m held to a schedule and have some accountability, there is nothing I can’t accomplish. I graduated from college with honors while raising three children, going through a divorce, and sometimes working 2-3 part-time jobs. I know a class like this will be enough to give a nudge and even a kickstart in the right direction.
Meaningful journaling is important so my voice is there for those who enjoy my scrapbooking and so I can remember the moments. So often I look back and the only way I remember is through the journaling.
Without the inclusion of meaningful journaling on a scrapbook page, I feel like the page just isn’t complete. Even the best photos can’t tell the whole story, so journaling completes and/or adds to the story the photos are trying to tell.
Amy your class sounds wonderful! I love to create LOs but then I stumble when it comes to the journaling part. When I have added meaningful journaling to a page and I read it weeks/months later I am so happy that I wrote it all down because I realize how much I forget over time. And I want my kids and grandkids to remember the ‘good old days’. Yes a photo is worth a thousand words but meaningful journaling is priceless!
I’ve always loved writing so about 99% of my pages have journaling on them. I think it’s so important to describe the rest of the story that the picture may not tell. It’s good to relive those memories through the written word. After all, those photos may fade more through time. Journaling enables me to tell the little details or the background story of a photo.
The longer I have scrapbooked the pages that mean the most looking back are those where I told a story, especially things like a funny conversation with my niece that we never would have remembered if I hadn’t written it down and scrapbooked it. And the deeper and more detailed the better.
Pictures are important, but without the reasons behind the photos, the events, the thoughts you have about them, they mean so much less. I could definitely use some help, particularly in the ‘repetitive’ topics. Thanks for the chance to win!
I think everyone could use some help with journaling, including me!
I have so much trouble thinking of what to say and how to say it, that most of the time I don’t do anything beyond the names and date. It is very frustrating but it has always been a problem for me.
I have recently lost my SIL to breast cancer and it was so meaningful to find items that she had written, putting her thoughts into writings for her daughters. We all need to preserve our thoughts for our generations to come.
I envy people who can capture the feelings and put expressively into words ( a few words) the meaning associated with a photo(s) and a scrapbook page or album. I usually leave journalling to the last when I am creating a page and then realize that I have way to much say and no place to say it. Still, I am making progress with learning methods to journal. Would love an opportunity to devote ‘real’ time to learning more about journal writing!!
Journaling is what keeps a scrapbook relevant over time. We always want to know what was the story behind the photo, and making it more than who and what and where is what people really want to know. They want to understand the people and the meaning.
I really like journaling…not always writing it, but having it done. I, too, forget too easily and need it. I often ask my boys to come sit with me when I have finished a project and will ask them their memories of events. Sometimes that sparks me to write more or differently than I would have before. Another quick and easy trick I often encourage people with is to imagine that you are showing this great picture to someone that has not seen it before or was not there. What would you tell them? We never just hand a picture to someone and say, “Here it is.” We always have something additional to say, like a favorite memory of the day, or something special about the people in the photo… and you don’t have to journal EVERY picture on the page.
I would love to learn more tips!
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