Write. Click. Scrapbook.

write.

Happy National Scrapbooking Day! To celebrate, today we're focusing on poetry. 

But wait! Was that a groan I heard? A rumble of "how can poetry and scrapbooking and celebrating all be mentioned in one sentence?"

Because I know:  for many, the word "poetry" inspires anxious memories of writing exam essays on confusing poems, trying to explain what the poet is trying to say. (I always hated that "What is the poet trying to say?" question. The poet isn't trying to say anything, she's saying exactly what she meant.) Or a professor droning on about Prufrock or Tintern Abbey or Hiawatha.

But poetry doesn't have to be dry or boring or difficult. Nor do you (now you're a grown up) have to write an essay about it. Instead it's a wellspring of scrapbooking inspiration! (Both for journaling and for embellishments.) It depends on the kinds of poems you're reading, but poetry adds a certain something to your layouts that nothing else can.

Back when I was teaching high school, I shared at least one "delicious poem" with my students every week. By "delicious" I meant the sort of poem that makes you say "mmmmmmm" when you're finished. The goal wasn't to analyze or argue anything, but to experience—to be surrounded by something aurally beautiful, to get caught up in imagining an image, to admire a perfectly exact metaphor. (Yes! A watermelon is like a buddha on the fruit stand!)

Those delicious poems are perfect for using on scrapbook layouts. Of course, you have to find them first! Some sources for poetry:

The Writer's Almanac on NPR.

     Every day, Garrison Keillor reads a poem and then talks about some interesting bits of literary information. (You can have the almanac sent to you by email every day, or you can listen instead.) He is perhaps the master of delicious poems: the ones he shares are usually accessible but vivid all at once. Similarly, try his "Good Poem" books: Good Poems, Good Poems for Hard Times, and Good Poems: American Places. 

Poets.org

     This website has poetry organized by subject. You can also listen to poets reading their work.

the 811 section.

     Go to your library's kids' nonfiction department and wander down the 811 aisle. This is American poetry written for kids and is a perfect source for scrapbookery inspiration! You'll find anthologies about different topics as well as discover new favorite poets. The more lighthearted aspect of (some) children's poetry makes it especially useful for layouts about your kids. (821 is the British poets if you're on that side of the pond.)

Go forth! Find some poems you love, and then use them on your layouts. They're a deep source for all sorts of layout inspiration; here are a few ideas to get you started.

 1.  Use a small part of a poem as your layout's title.

 

For this layout's title, I used one line from Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem "Spring." I confess that I've used different parts from this poem on several different layouts. It's an infintely useful poem!

 

2. Use some of the poem as a subtitle:

I used a very small section of a much longer poem called "Elegy in Joy." Don't feel like you have to use all the poem's text. Sometimes (quite often in fact!) just a stanza or even a few lines will work with your topic. (See item #6 for more about this layout.)

3. Use the entire poem.

You can: type it out without any line breaks and create a text-based patterned paper. Print the poem on a journaling card. Print it in four long strips and make it a page border. Integrate it into your design by repeating an embellishment within the text. Print it in a huge font so that some of the end and beginning words print off the page. Choose a landscape, floral, or other photographic image that relates to the poem and then print the text on top of the image by creating a text layer in Photoshop. Print the poem in light grey text and then print your journaling on top of it. Create a piece of subway art, like this one:

Download May 2013 write saturday emily d:

Or you can always just print it out in a regular font size and stick it somewhere on your page!

4. Journal about a poem your child learned in school, like Celeste did in this layout:

 

5. Include a poem that your child wrote.

 

Journal about how the writing made you feel, like Paula did.

6. Use the poem to inspire your journaling. 

My "Seeds" layout (number 2 above) came about when I read the Rukeyser poem. It made me start thinking about beginnings and endings and how things change, so I wrote a draft of the journaling and then went in search for some photos to go with my first impressions. There's a fairly large difference between the draft and the final journaling, which is OK; the point is that the journaling was inspired by the poem.

7. Write your own poem.
I know, it sounds intimidating, but it's really not. It's not as if your Pulitzer depends upon it; it's just a different way of writing! Poetry is not much more than a set of structures and ideas you can use to shape your thoughts, but within the structure lies the creativity. You can write a free-verse poem, as Lisa did in this layout:

Or try some rhyming verse:

(I shared this layout before, on February's Write Saturday.)

The structure of the little poem in this layout was inspired by a children's book. Since I already had the form, the lines came together quickly---I crafted it in my head while I was shoveling snow!

Don't be intimidated by poetry. It's one of the most useful scrapbooking "supplies" you can use.

Write.

Maybe writing a post that starts with running on a scrapbooking site is a strange thing. Stick with me, though, because I’ll bring them together! I came across something in my new copy of Runner’s World magazine that struck me about scrapbooking. The editor was writing about George Sheehan, who was a doctor, a runner, and a writer. "To me," David Willey (the current RW editor) writes, Sheehan "personified the idea that running and writing have something in common. Something approaching soul."

This idea stayed with me for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I (although famous neither for my running nor my writing) totally get what he means: partly I run because I like writing about running, and they each make the other better.

The same thing goes for scrapbooking. It is the space where art (photography and embellishments) and writing have something in common, and they each make the other better. If we just had words, we’d only have a journal; if we just had art we’d only have something pretty. But when we put them together: well. Now we have soul.

I kept this idea in mind when I was working on my layout for the gallery this month (you can see it here). It’s about how one of the things that makes it feel like spring to me is our tradition of watching for the little crocuses in my front flowerbeds to bloom. We watch & wait & anticipate, and on the day they finally bloom it’s like a sigh of relief: spring’s coming!

The idea for the photos came from Lisa’s Click. post in March. I mean—part of the tradition is taking pictures when they bloom, but I realized I hadn’t taken any pictures of them yet this year. So I got some, and then I wrote what I felt, and then a few weeks later I made the layout. That process—that, to me, is where the soul part comes in.  I’d taken some photos before. I’d not ever written down the story. When I did both I made something that has a stronger impact than the two would separately.

Which is why, in my mind, scrapbooking wouldn’t be as cool without the words.

After I made my gallery layout, I started paying attention. What spring traditions had I not told the story of? I made a list of the small and simple ways I celebrate spring:

1. A strawberry themed dessert or two. Or five.
2. New sandals. (This stems from my mom’s tradition of putting sandals in our Easter baskets.)
3. Making sure I wear something pastel on the first day of spring.
4. Sitting on my front porch steps when both sides are surrounded by blooming hyacinths. Is there anything sweeter than that smell? Maybe only lilacs!
5. Watching the kids in our neighborhood gather again at our old apple tree.

I have pictures for some of those stories—but I’ve never written them down. So I picked one, wrote the story, found some photos, and made a layout:

 

Paula did, too:

And that’s my challenge to you on this gorgeous April morning! Make a list of the small, simple things you do to celebrate spring (or fall if you’re on the other side of the world). Pick one and write the story. Look for some pictures that go along with the story, or watch for the chance to take some this spring. Find your soul in the process!

Write.

Last month I went to a writing workshop with the writer Terry Tempest Williams. Since writing is the art I feel most passionate about, and since I admire her work greatly, I soaked in everything she said. I took copious notes and I am still, three weeks later, thinking about her writing advice. Using it. But the thing that continues coming back to me is the thing I wrote largest (in big block letters so I wouldn't forget) in my notes:

Only I can tell my stories. Only I have my voice.

Then, on Wednesday, I was admiring Aliza’s post about creativity, and I read this sentence on her "On Writing" layout: "I feel like I have found a voice."

And seriously: when the universe tells me something more than once, I tend to listen.

"Voice" in writing can mean several things. The most immediate one is the way your writing sounds—your style, in other words. And while embracing (and developing) that journaling voice is important, it’s not the voice I mean.

"Voice" also means what you have to say. Both what your life has taught you and how combine in this voice. Since no one else but you has had the experiences that have formed who you are, no one else has the same voice as you.

No one but you can tell your stories.

In one of my earliest scrapbooking layouts (made, in, oh, about 1997, go ahead and imagine the gingham patterned paper and the photos cut into hearts and stars), I wrote a bit of journaling from my baby daughter’s perspective. "Mommy fed me" and "I played with toys" and "I love being alive" and other such statements filled up the space. Even before I stuck it down, I hated that journaling. Some people can pull that off, but not me. It didn’t feel authentic to either my style or to her. How could I know what she thought?

I can’t. I only know for certain what I think.

Sometimes with scrapbook journaling it’s easy to lose our individual voice. After all, quite often we’re writing about things that happened to someone else—babies or teenagers or spouses or parents. (This is why I think more of us need to make layouts about ourselves, but that’s an entirely different post!) Unless we had the journaling responsibility over to the subject (something I’m also a fan of!) or only write about what happened, the only stories we really can tell are filtered through our own perspectives.

And whether you’re writing about your own experiences or someone else’s, only you can tell your story in your way. Here are three different ways to write about someone else while still including your (significant!) story:

Your Perspective

When you look at the photos you’re scrapping, what do you notice that no one else might? Or when you took the pictures—when you were involved in the experience itself—what did you think, feel, remember, understand, or feel strongly about? That is a perspective no one but you can write from.

In this layout:

 

the impetus for the journaling is the look of adoration on my youngest child’s face. When I saw it on the print I immediately thought of how often I see this look on his face when he is with his older brother—but how the age difference between them means that his brother doesn’t see it. My perspective on their relationship is necessarily different than their perspective; writing it down helped me get on paper what it might take Nathan (the older brother) a while to figure out.

Behind the Scenes

What happened before the experience in the photos? How did you organize or plan it, or was it totally spur-of-the-moment? What was the impetus?

Here, I journaled about how a comment in January inspired a picnic in March:

 

This is also a story only I can tell because I’m the only one who remembered Kaleb’s cute longing-for-spring comment. (I made sure I remembered by writing it down!)

Memory as Inspiration

Is there a memory of yours that your photos take you back to? Write it down! I’ve found that many of my own childhood memories come streaming back when I watch my kids just being kids. Sometimes they like hearing those stories—sometimes they’d rather stay in the moment of their own experience. Weaving your old memory into the experience in the photo is a way of telling your story without interrupting.

 

On the day I took these photos, we were swimming at my sister’s pool, and for a few minutes I was overwhelmed with memories about her husband, who was killed a decade ago. But as I witnessed my boys run, splash, shriek, and play in the water, I thought about just how happy those sights and sounds would’ve made my brother-in-law, and I decided to be happy myself as a way of honoring that. I tried to capture that same idea in the journaling.

How do you convey your perspective in your journaling?

Write! Saturday

I confess: Valentine’s Day is my absolute least-favorite holiday. (You can read HERE if you’re curious as to why!  ) I don’t like overly-sentimental novels or schmaltzy love cards, and romantic movies have to work really hard at avoiding cheesiness before I’ll watch them. I think I’m allergic to sappiness.

Now that I’ve perhaps painted myself as a crusty anti-romance Scrooge, let me also confess: even I am not immune to the February explosion of hearts and roses. All the Valentine’s Day hoopla reminds me that it’s important to make a record of our love stories of all kinds—the romantic sort, of course, but also the love between parent and child, between siblings or parents or friends.

But, holy cow, have you ever sat down to write about how you feel about someone? It’s hard to write it without sounding mushy! (Which makes me admire even more the writers—of novels, screenplays, poetry, and yes, even cards—who manage it.) For example, think about how you feel about your husband. How do you put it into words? Writing "I love you" doesn’t really convey what you mean, and adding modifiers ("I love you SO MUCH!!!) doesn’t change it. So sometimes we go to cliched language: "I love you so much my heart just wants to burst!" And then your pinkie’s reaching for the backspace key because that doesn’t really say it either.

It’s hard!

Here’s the strange thing about writing about emotion: one of the best ways to do it (without getting trapped in sentimentality) is to not to describe the emotion. Instead, try writing about something specific and concrete that evokes the emotion. Let’s go back to how you feel about your husband. You love him, but "love" is pretty generic. So, get specific: the emotion that fills you up when you see him doing something altogether ordinary for you, like taking the garbage can to the curb. There’s not really a word for that emotion, but something specific about the emotion can convey what you feel: you could write about how it builds on pieces of your history (that fight your once had about the garbage can, maybe) or what he knows about you (you’re just never dressed early enough to get it out on time) or what it reveals about him (he’d never let a Tuesday go by without dragging the can to the curb), and you’ll have written about how you love him without, possibly, ever even having used the word "love." The concrete (things we can see, hear, touch, taste, smell) and the specific (not "I love you because you’re helpful" but "I love you because you make sure our garbage can always gets dumped") bring emotion to real and sincere expression.

Without cheesiness!

So! Here area few specific and concrete ideas to help you write your love stories:

 

1.  Write about something you say that expresses emotion.

Whenever my teenagers leave for a night out, I send them with a little cash, a hug, and this admonition: "Don't kiss any girls!" (or boys, as the case calls for!) Those four words stand in for the 5-minute-long talking to I'd like to send them off with, something about not doing anything stupid and trying to make good choices and not drinking anything they shouldn't and definitely not smoking anything at all and not getting in cars with drivers they don't trust and be good and strong and oh yeah, have fun and I love you. None of which they want to hear but all of which must be conveyed, and I've said my "don't kiss any boys" phrase for so long it stands in for everything else.

We all have things we say in our relationships that stand in for what we really feel but might not be able to say. Recording them on a layout is a great way to express how you feel about a person without getting too mushy. Here's a layout about a little ditty I still sing to my now-7-year-old son:

 

2.  Write about something your relationship is teaching you.

I believe that the shape our relationships take is formed by the experiences we have within them, both good and bad. If we pay attention we can always learn something about improving them. What is something you are learning right now in one of your relationships? Here, I journaled about my marriage and its current knowledge:

 

 

3.  Write about a memory that is a touchstone in your relationship.

Love is also built on memory, and some of those memories we return to over and over. Because we revisit the important ones, they take on even more significance. Writing about the memory and why it is important to you is a form of expressing your affection. What memory is particularly important to you in one of your relationships? Francine shared this layout about the last time she nursed her son, with a photo of one of the first times:

 

And I wrote about a memory from a trip that continues to remind me of what's important:

 

 

Christa wrote about the contrast between her memories and her reality:

 

4.  Write about a habit the other person has that has become endearing to you.

Sometimes habits are annoying. Sometimes they just don't get noticed very much. But they definitely help to define a person, and you taking notice of them is a way of making them important.

I wrote about my daughter's tendency to make puns:

(I realized as I was making this layout that I've never written any of her puns down. So I left all that blank space on the bottom for writing in future puns.)

 

5.   Write about one small and specific thing that the person does which you love.

Remember: specific things express emotion better than emotional words do. What is something one of your special people does right now (these things are sometimes fleeting!) that makes you feel loved? Journal about it!

Here, I fully intended to write about how my son Nathan is always willing to let me have a bite of what he is eating. I ended up feeling like writing about something completely different, so I went with the inspiration instead of the goal:

 

Lisa wrote a list of specific things she loves about her daughter:

 

While Aliza wrote a paragraph of them about her son:

 

6.  Finish this sentence: I love you as much as _______________.

This prompt comes from the children’s book I Love You as Much...by Laura Krauss Melmud. It uses specific things (animals and the things they love) to express how the mom feels for her new baby. It's really a sort of magical prompt if you let yourself get carried away with it—the concreteness of the objects you're using bring a vividness to the journaling because we can imagine them in our heads. This was one of my kids' favorite board books, but Kaleb loved it especially. I used the rhythm of the book to infuse my silly rhymes with a similar beat:

 

(Instead of Melmud's animal images, I used objects that are common to our autumn experiences.)

 

And Valerie finishes us up with this layout that also makes a comparison:

Make sure to share with us one of your love stories.

 

write.

I spent some time last week flipping through all of the layouts I made in 2012. Partly this was so I could write my 12 Favorite Layouts of 2012 post for my blog; partly it was to sort them all and get them into albums. Mostly it was to revisit the moments I’d captured on layouts, to see what I missed and what I did well and how I might improve.

One thing I noticed was that while I write a lot of journaling, I write what I think is important from the day, moment, or experience. Which is probably all I can do—write my version of the story, but still, it suddenly feels like my kids’ voices are missing from their layouts.

So I decided to set myself a journaling resolution: Find more ways to include my kids’ words, perspectives, ideas, and thoughts in my scrapbook journaling. To accomplish this resolution I’m going to: 

 

1. Pay better attention and write more stuff down.

I used to be really good at this, when my kids were all little. I kept notebooks everywhere and would jot down the funny things they said or did. As they got older, though, I somehow got out of that habit. So I’m going to work harder at getting back into this habit. Facebook and texting should make this easier, and I’ve just signed up for the Oh Life service, which sends you a daily email prompting you to tell that day’s stories. (Plus, as anyone who knows me knows, it’s not like there’s a shortage of notebooks in my life. I’m sort of addicted to buying them!) Capturing more stories when they are fresh—especially when I can remember the gist of conversations—will help me get closer to telling their stories.

Since I don’t do Project Life, I’ve resolved to make a month-in-review layout for at least one of my children each month, using the details I'll be writing down. Here’s the one I made for Kaleb’s December 2012: 

 

2. Ask my kids to write more journaling.

I’m the first to admit that this is tricky. I have three teenagers and none of them are ever excited about more writing assignments. (My youngest is seven, and he’s happy to play along!) It takes a little bit of patience (or a lot, depending on the kid) and a willingness to be persistent. The payoff is that you get an authentic slice of their personalities. Take this layout: 

I asked my son Nathan to just write down his ten favorite memories of a recent trip we took to Disneyland. Some of what he wrote surprised me (who would’ve thought that falling down in the parking lot would become a favorite memory?) and some of the things he remembered I’d forgotten. But what I love the most about this is how his writing voice sounds so close to the way he talks.

Make it easier for your kids to write their own journaling by:

• Asking them specific, leading questions. "What did you like best about the beach?" is easier to answer than a vague "write something about our Florida vacation" request.
• Getting them to write about something fairly soon after the experience. On the plane or in the car on the way home from a trip is a great time to ask them to jot down a few details.
• Giving them a suggested length. Top ten lists are good, for example, because they’ll know they only have to come up with ten facts. Or, ask for one paragraph or at least eight sentences or a half page.
• Creating fill-in-the-blank surveys.
• Using a format they’re comfortable with. One of my kids has awful handwriting, but he’ll cooperate better if I ask him to send me an email.
• Copying pieces from longer things they’ve written for school or their blogs. Or, if they are journal keepers, ask them if they will share something with you.
• Avoiding questions that can be answered with "yes" or "no." (This is actually for your benefit, because if they can answer in one word, they will, and then you might find yourself getting just the tiniest bit frustrated...not that that’s ever happened to me!)

 

 3.  Find new ways to tell stories.

This layout

was inspired by a flex slip (the little blue paper in the layout) my daughter Haley left in the car one day. The flex slip is a print-out the students at her school get each day with their grades; if they don’t have any F’s they can have a longer lunch or do other activities. I thought it told quite a bit of her life at the time—her class schedule, the names of her teachers, her grades. I tossed in a playlist of songs she’d burned for her car and a few random facts about her activities at the time, and it felt like I captured some of her life.

Putting the layout together made me start to think about how objects tell stories. Of course there’s the ephemera of daily life: what do you find in your son’s pockets when you do the laundry? Under your kids’ beds or in their backpacks? But you can also tell the story of an object, like an outline of where a  favorite pair of shoes was worn, the history of a beloved soccer ball, a catalog of scratches and dents on a bike.

 

Some of the other write. click. scrapbook. members also set some journaling resolutions. Aliza’s explained hers:

One of my recent goals is to document stories about my parents. It's always easy to do layouts about my kids, because they are cute, and funny, and mine, and it's easy for me to tell them how much I love them.  But at some point I realized that I have lots of stories from the generation before me, that are just as important, and just as much a part of me as my children are.

She shared two layouts that illustrate her resolution:

Her resolution made me think about stories I haven't told yet, about my parents and my husband's and about the things I've learned from them.  

Celeste also has a journaling resolution: to forget the who, what, and where and focus more on the why and how, like she does here:

 

Focus more on the why and how: I think that is the perfectly succinct way to state the best path to significant journaling.

So! Tell us: what are your journaling resolutions and how will you accomplish them? I hope you’ll share!

write.

Lately I’ve been re-reading the book A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. It’s a fairly remarkable book that explores each of the five senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. It’s reminded me of just how necessary it is to include sensory details in our journaling.

Why necessary?

Well, first consider this thought from Ackerman’s book:

There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses. . . [they] don’t just make sense of life in bold or subtle acts of clarity, they tear reality apart into vibrant morsels and reassemble them into a meaningful pattern.

It is through our senses that we understand and experience the world—so when we include sensory details in our journaling, we help the person reading it experience what we are writing about (a trip to the zoo, a moment in time, a birthday celebration, an injury, a funny story) along with us.

Sensory details (words that describe how something looks, tastes, sounds, feels, or smells) bring an immediacy to journaling that cannot come in any other way. They help readers to imagine something similar to what is in your head, because they also add specifics: a flower can be pretty, for example, but how do you see "pretty" in your head? But if the flower is violet, with a tinge of green on the tips and a delicate scent like powdered sugar—you can start to imagine that flower. (I'd like to plant it in my yard!)

When you are thinking about your journaling, spend some time on the sensory details. A carnival, for example, wouldn’t be a carnival without its alluring and mysterious combination of scents—the hot smell of the grease on the rides’ gears, someone’s cigarette smoke and someone else’s sun screen and, underlining everything, the sweetness of cotton candy.

"Smell," wrote Helen Keller, "is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived." Though it might be the truest for smell—which is the sense most closely associated with memory in our brains—it goes for the others as well. Engage the reader’s and you bring her along whatever miles or years you need to in order to get to the one experience you’re describing.

Most of the time, sensory details are woven into the fabric of the writing, like here:

 
(the holidays are full of sensory experiences!)

In this layout’s journaling, the sensory details include touch (warm, silky, squishy), sight (the twinkly lights that sparkle off glittery ornaments), and scent (the dusty air from the heater). They help tell the story without being the point of the story.

Other times, you might try writing just about the sensory details, like Aliza did in this layout about the textures she discovered during a trip to Israel. I love how her photographs, supplies, and design all connect with her journaling—which includes touch and sight—in a thematic way.

In my layout, I wanted to focus just on the scents that go along with autumn:

Writing about the sensory details is a great way to develop journaling for photos you're not sure what to journal about. They help your journaling sparkle—but the thinking and writing itself will help you remember more than you think. So that's today's Write. challenge:

Grab a photo or a group of photos you want to scrap but aren't sure how to journal about.

Spend a few minutes thinking about either the textures or the scents associated with something from the photos.

Write some journaling that focuses on those sensory details.

As always, I'd be delighted if you linked us up to your words and stories.

write.

Today's Write. Saturday is going to be missing something you usually see in all of our posts: images. 

I'm doing that on purpose, not just because my October was stressful and busy and sad and wonderful all at once. In fact, I'm not including any images because I want to make a point: you don't have to immediately make a layout with the journaling you write.Creating a layout and writing your journaling don't always have to be two parts of one process; they can be done at separate times.

In fact, I've often gone years between the time I write a piece of journaling and the day I actually pair it up with a photo and make a layout with it. I tend to think of my journaling, in fact, as an extension of the photos. A snapshot in words, if you will, that adds something extra that the photos don't convey. If you write it as an afterthought, after you've made your layout and are trying to find a little bit of space to squish in the story, it won't be as vibrant as it could be.

And really, how often do you make a layout with photos you took just a few days ago? Or even a month ago? Yet I'm certain you copy them somewhere safe to wait until you are ready to scrapbook them.

Journaling doesn't have to be any different.

Let's take Halloween as an example, since it just happened a few days ago. If you're anything like me, you took fifty or so photos, and you've already downloaded them, deleted the bad ones, and found a few you fell in love with. Maybe you've even processed them already. (If you've already printed them, you're my hero!)

Now's the perfect time to write the story to go along with those pictures, when the memories are still fresh. Writing your journaling within a few days of a big event helps you to capture the small details that otherwise get lost to the vagaries of memory.

Here are 13 (oooooh, spooky!) prompts to get you started writing your Halloween journaling:

1. Write about something funny, cute, or surprisingly intelligent your child said. ("I have walked out all of my wanting for candy," my 7-year-old told me when I asked if he wanted to trick-or-treat on just one more street.) Or recreate an especially memorable conversation (my daughter Haley, for example, told me all about the hipster Disney princesses she’d seen somewhere. "You’ve probably never heard it" was, of course, included!)
2. Write down the bare facts: what did you do, who did you do it with, and where? 
3. Write about a detail of a costume—a color, an accessory, a prop, for example—that made it feel unique in some way. (One year, the beads on my daughter's hippie costume were so fabulously, wonderfully perfect that they are the focus of all the Halloween journaling.)
4. Make a list of all the kinds of candy in your kid’s bucket.
5. Write about a reaction. This is perfect for Halloween because it practically begs for reactions, what with all the scary, gory, silly, scanty, or startling characters about. There are also reactions to trick or treating by little ones, or to your neighbor's scary porch decorations, or to the enormous pile of candy. Or the sheer pleasure of taking off an obnoxious or itchy costume! (This year, my husband tried on his sister’s blimp costume and I was pretty certain my son Nathan might pee his pants he was laughing so hard.)
6. Write about how Halloween has changed since you were a kid.
7. Tell the story of a costume. Why was it chosen? Where did it come from? Does the costume-wearer have any sort of emotional or historical connection to the costume? (My 18-month-old niece Lydia is in love with all things Toy Story, so her affection for her Jessie costume was exceedingly cute!)
8. Use numbers to tell the story: what was the temperature? About how far did you walk? At how many houses did you trick or treat? How many times did your little one drop her candy bucket?
9. Write about something unique that’s never happened before. (Like my two oldest teenagers, who had a brawl over an extra-large Mountain Dew and who might’ve drank it all and then five minutes later they were happily answering the door for trick-or-treaters.
10. Describe your Halloween dinner. Do you eat before or after trick-or-treating? Do you always have the same thing? How do you fit (nutritious) food into the sugar-laden experience?
11. Write down the at-the-door process of trick-or-treating. Who knocks at the door? Does everyone say "trick or treat" or just one kid? Do your kids say thank you?
12. Respond to this starter: In twenty years, what I want to remember about this Halloween is:
13. Write about how Halloween smells. There’s something magical—I haven’t quite figured out yet what the key ingredients are—about the way a bucketful of Halloween candy smells. It takes me right back to being a kid. What scents do you associate with Halloween?

Once you've written your journaling about Halloween 2012, save it somewhere you'll find it when you scrap the photos. Put a copy of the file right into the folder with the pictures, maybe. Or put your journaling on your blog. Doesn't matter where, so long as you can find it! What matters is that you'll have gotten down a story, experience, or little bit of memory that might otherwise be lost when the time came to scrap those photos.

write.

A few weeks ago, an old friend of mine came to visit. She moved to North Carolina ten years ago; we’ve kept in touch by email and Facebook and random texts at odd times. When she walked into my office and saw my shelves full of scrapbooks, she said, "Wow. That is a lot of scrapbook layouts."

She wasn’t making fun of me—she’s a scrapbooker, too—but her observation made me stop and think of the sheer numbers of layouts we have the chance to create. Every single one is a chance to use lovely supplies and to make something visually appealing. But each layout is also an opportunity to say something significant.

Every time we write journaling, we probably write about what happened: we went, we saw, we did. And that is good, of course. What happened is important. But what we feel about what happened—sometimes that is the crux.

Of course, some layouts only really need the "what happened" kind of details. But sometimes you want to dig in a little bit more, and that’s what we’re looking at today: journaling that goes deeper than the surface details.

Quantity isn’t the issue here. You can write something significant that’s short. It’s the real, memorable bit of something that you’re trying to get at. Here’s an example.

Consider this journaling:  Today at Grandma’s start-of-summer party, we had an impromptu photo shoot. All the grandkids were there, so it was fun to get everyone in the picture, even if there were a few goofy faces.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that—it gets the who, what, when, and some of the why. But if you look beyond the surface (remember: not what happened, but what you feel about what happened) you might write something like this:

Looking through the lens at 18 grandkids and 2 grandparents, I couldn't help but really see: the similarities, the differences, the gentle happiness on Grandma and Grandpa’s faces. You might not always get along or see things in the same way, but you are all from the same tribe, and having all these people in your life with the same history? Well, it is a hedge against loneliness.

Writing this kind of journaling sometimes just happens. (Don’t you love those moments?) But sometimes you have to push yourself a little bit. When you want to dig deeper, you have to think about the topic from a different angle or ask yourself different questions. Here are some ideas that will help you shape those deeper thoughts:

• What does this event or experience illustrate about your family, traditions, perspectives, or general way of living?
• How did the experience change you? Did you learn something about the subject, realize a truth about yourself, or see something in a different way?
• Can you draw connections between this current moment and something in the past, or between this person and someone else, between a place and a memory, an activity and a personality?
• What about the experience did you love, or want to always remember? Or, from the opposite perspective, how do you wish it had been different, or what was difficult?
• What inspired you to take this specific photo? Or what sort of picture do you wish you had about this subject?
• What did the event or experience cause you to hope, feel, or remember?
• Is there a color, scent, or flavor of which the experience or event is particularly evocative?
• How does some characteristic of the subject—age, knowledge, skill, history, habits—change the way he or she experienced the event?
• Why is this event or experience important?

With those ideas in mind, here are three journaling challenges to try some time this month:

1.   Write about a sport, but not from the perspective of an individual game.
Celeste focuses on the little details that make up the season:

and here, I focused on what I hope my son learns from basketball:

2.   Write about a day you loved.
Alexandra wrote this journaling about the day her first baby was born, and I think she captures exactly what that moment feels like:

Celeste journaled about a specific day on a trip, one that didn't go as expected but still held some great moments:

In my layout, I tried to explain why I loved this particular wintery day:

3.   Write about a connection between a recent experience and one from your childhood or adolescence.
I bump into this kind of connection quite often now that I have teenagers. Here's one that's a little bit raw, but honest, too:

Make sure to share your layouts with us!

write.

"We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing."

That idea comes from one of my favorite books about writing, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I think it applies to all kinds of writing, even scrapbook journaling, because honesty and openness are qualities that create good writing. Coming to love the details—including lots of specific ones—does, too, and that’s our topic today: getting the details into the stories you tell.

Details make your journaling come alive because they give the reader something specific to imagine. They give us a place to attach our senses, making the reading experience that much more vivid.

What do I mean by "details"? I mean getting the specifics down, and using the word that comes closest to capturing the true meaning of what you want to say. It means including words that appeal to the things we can experience with our bodies—the way a thing tastes, for example; not just good watermelon, but juicy watermelon, or sweet, or ice-cold, or even watermelon made salty by the sweat on your lip.

Here’s another example of including details. You might write:

We had such a good time when we went out to dinner to celebrate Amanda’s birthday. Good food plus good friends equals a great birthday celebration.

Basic journaling there; it conveys something about the event. But it’s hard for a reader to picture the event until you write with specific details:

We celebrated Amanda’s seventeenth birthday by going to dinner at her favorite little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant, NYCP. Gabby was there, and Sophie and Tyler and of course her boyfriend Chad. Fettuccini Alfredo, garlic bread, and cannolis might not be the traditional way to celebrate, but an evening laughing over good food with awesome friends is perfect.

Sure—the second example is longer. It might take up a little bit more space on your layout. But the details (the name of the restaurant and guests, the food that was eaten, and the year of her birthday) help paint a much more complete picture for the reader.

It really is all in the details!

Inspired by September's gallery, here are some layouts that use details to tell the story more completely.

The journaling on Katie's layout, "Little House," is full of specific details about her grandparents' house: the foods they ate, TV shows they watched, celebrations they had. Her writing makes the little house come alive with memory; it left me itching to write about my own house:

 

In my journaling, I wrote about both what I wish I could change about my house and what I wouldn't change for the world, and about the intersection between house & home. Some of the details I included: the year-to-date count of Christmases we've had in this house (19!), the list of changes I wish I could make, the fact that I planted my daffodil bulbs the year I was pregnant with my daughter and the tidbit that my irises came from my dad. The details give a more complete image of my emotional connection to my house; the types of details you include will always lead back to the emotions you have about your topic.

 Vivan's layout, "A Day to Remember," includes the details about long-ago vacations to the beach when she was a child. The little snippets of story—the sand in the sandwiches, the seaglass collecting, the digging of sand mansions—relate entire summers' worth of simple vacation memories. Her layout made me want to make a layout about my own childhood vacations, but until I can get some photos from my mom I made a layout about a slightly more recent trip:

This is about a family trip to San Diego we took almost six years ago. I took a broad approach to the trip, trying to summarize it all on one layout, but I still used specific details. I wrote about one memorable thing from each place we went to, focusing in on one small piece of a much larger picture. Then, in the narrow journaling space, I wrote the Sorensen-family-favorite "good samich" story, using details like where and when we were eating and the exact menu item that inspired all that cuteness.

Lastly, I was inspired (and touched!) by Celeste's lovely "Here's the Story" layout. She writes about her parents' experiences with cancer and how they have affected her life as well. Medical issues are hard to journal about because they are so wrapped up in how we feel about our loved ones, but they are still important to document. (Even if you only look at it from a medical history perspective.) Using specific details—dates, the name of the diagnosis, the doctors, or the medical facilities—along with the truth behind your response to the experience helps you work around the fear a little bit.

Emily S. shared this layout, about her daughter's early medical experiences:

Her use of the specific names of tests and procedures that were performed helps give us an idea of what was happening, and her response to them helps us see what she learned from what happened.

In this layout by Jennifer:

we read about specific places, medicines, and treatments for her son Rowan's reoccuring bouts of croup. Those details help us imagine the medical situation through Rowan's eyes while others (the toys she brought, the knowledge she gained) give an image of Jennifer's connection.

I finally scrapbooked about my son Kaleb's heart condition, nearly two years after his diagnosis:

The specifics I included were the family history of aortic valve troubles and some statistics about it, as well as the doctor's name, the date of the diagnosis, and his probable prognosis. Even though it likely will never be a problem for him, Kaleb's bicuspid valve makes me anxious, but journaling about it helped me feel like I have a better grasp on the situation.

So! Here are three journaling challenges. Sometime or other during the upcoming week, write some journaling about the following three topics, trying to focus on adding specific, concrete details to the story:

1. Journal about a house
2. Journal about a trip you took at least five years ago
3. Journal about a medical condition or a disease

Notice I didn't challenge you to make a layout—just to write the journaling. Save it somewhere and make a layout when you're ready. And, as always, let us know, we love seeing what you are working on!

write.

I love writing.  I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
~James Michener

Hi there! Amy here, and for this month’s write. Saturday, we’re going to be looking at that tangle from a few different perspectives. One of the keys to good journaling is getting yourself involved in what’s happening in your journaling space—not being afraid to share your thoughts, ideas, and emotions, even if it’s a layout about someone else. This month’s gallery had several layouts that did just that, and I used them as a starting spot for three journaling prompts that will help you get what’s real, fresh, and true tangled up with your words.

1.  Combine memories.

You know how it feels when you see your child experience something and it takes you back to yourself as a child, experiencing the same thing? Write a piece of journaling that explores that feeling. It can be short and sweet: this reminds me of back then. Or you can develop it a little bit more: how is it the same, how have things changed, what do you miss about that long-ago moment?

Sarah’s gallery layout, Choose Your Own Adventure, explores her memories of riding her bike as a child, combining them with her daughter’s experiences. For my layout:

I journaled about a trip to Lagoon, which is an amusement park here in Utah. I used to go every year with my family, and I wrote about those memories bumping up against the experience of watching my daughter run around the same place I used to.

When you combine memories this way, try to look for connections. Sarah’s journaling, for example, explores the freedom of imagination that bike riding gave both her daughter and herself. In mine, I wrote about what’s changed but also what's remained the same. The mingling of present and past memories makes journaling that keeps the reader's attention. 

2. Document your food feelings.

I confess: I don’t love ice cream. I mean, I like it. But it has to be really, really cold and hard before I can enjoy it enough to justify the calories. Hand me a plate of warm-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies, however, and I am powerless in the face of such buttery, sweet, chocolate perfection.

Kathy’s gallery layout, Ice Cream, however, made me think that a nice bowlful would be delicious! Our reactions to our favorite foods are made of fairly powerful stuff and it’s a fantastic thing to document.

Erin kindly shared two food-related layouts. In the first one

she writes about her affection for shaved ice. Notice how she doesn’t just write "I love shaved ice" but she gets the details tangled up with her affection? Her favorite flavor, the place she buys it, a the side note all get us wrapped up in the story.

When I was 15, I worked at a little pizza joint my cousin owned, called The Pizza Pan. A few years later he closed the place, but I still remember exactly how good that pizza was. I wish I had a photo and my adolescent thoughts about The Pizza Pan, because sometimes our food favorites are connected so strongly to a place. In this layout:

Erin makes both herself and her reader hungry for pizza! She does this by taking us along to Lu’s Pizza and sharing her connection to it. She doesn’t have to describe the pizza itself; just the long-standing connection helps us know how good it is.

Marnie also shared a food layout that includes a great story:

By documenting the restaurant experience she tangles up her fondness for a perfect piece of beef and how it might bump up against stereotypes—but it doesn’t matter in the face of a rare steak.

I also wrote about one of my food affections:

In my journaling I focus on the history of why I love berries so much, telling the story of one of my earliest memories. I think we all have foods we’re emotionally bonded with; we love them not only because of how they taste but of what they help us remember.

3. Focus on the deepest connections.

Try responding to this idea:   _______________________ is your element.  (As in: sand is your element. Or autumn. Or the desert. Or whatever!) You can use it as the first sentence of your journaling or as a writing prompt to see where the idea takes you, but I think you’ll find you land in a good, strong place. Think about a setting that is essential to the person you’re writing about, one of the places, seasons, or elements without which they would just not be who they are. Then find a photo to go along with what you write.

This idea came from Katie’s You Summer Girl gallery layout. In her journaling she draws us in by expressing the joy her daughter takes from summer. (I have my own summer girl so I can relate!) I think her words brim with sunshine!

Marnie shared this gorgeous journaling:

 
wherein she writes about how, even though she’s landlocked, the ocean is her element. Not just because she’s happy there but because she feels her greatest sense of peace there. What place do you go to that sparks a similar response? (For me, it’s the mountains!)

My son Jake also has a strong response to the great outdoors:

In this journaling, the details of the hike itself didn’t really matter; what I wanted to capture was his response to hiking in general. Especially as he’s entered the I-hate-everything phase of teenagedom, I wanted to make sure he knows I know he doesn’t, really, hate everything!

I hope you’ll respond to one (or all!) of these prompts. Link us up if you do! But even if you don’t make a layout right now with the journaling you write, you’ll have gotten your emotions tangled up with your words, which is the perfect place for them to be.