Welcome to International Fake Journal Month 2013!

What is IFJM?
Please read the page "What Is IFJM" for details.
Learn the difference between Faux, Fake, and Fake Historical Journals.

2019 IFJM Celebration
IFJM has been suspended indefinitely. Please read the pinned post about this below.

Participants who Post Their Journals
A list of 2018 participants who are posting their fake journals this year will appear near the top of the right side bar of this blog around April 6. Lists of participants who posted their pages in 2010 through 2017 appear lower in the same column. Please pay them a visit and check out their fake journals.

View a Couple of Roz's Past Fake Journals
Roz's 2009 fake journal takes place in an alternate Twin Cites, where disease has killed the human and bird populations. (It ends up being an upbeat tale of friendship.) Watch a video flip through of Roz's 2009 fake journal here.

Read an explanation of Roz's insanely complex 2011 fake journal.

Tips on Keeping a Fake Journal
Click on "tips" in the category cloud.

Remember, "Life's so short, why live only one?"


Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Wrapping Up International Fake Journal Month

There will be no public celebration for International Fake Journal Month in 2019.

I am suspending public celebrations indefinitely. 

Reasons for Stopping International Fake Journal Month


I have many reasons for doing this which I will share here:

First in the ten years that I have publicly promoted the celebration it has grown to contain many participants. It is difficult for me to keep up with the letter writing and managing this endeavor takes with a large group of participants. I'm left with no time to simply keep up with viewing their posted work.

At the same time my own life has become much more complicated and busy. I can no long put this much intense organizational labor into something that takes me away from eldercare and my job.

In recent years many people signing up have expected a "class" from me, or free mentoring through their participation, because I am known as a visual journaling teacher. I have been inundated with requests for information and for help before and during the month-long event even though I have explicit guidelines already provided on the blog for every aspect of the project including selecting a journal, media, character, and adjusting your time involvement.

Additionally I've been frustrated by the number of participants who have joined in recent years but who have have been unable to grasp the basic concepts involved in Fake Journaling—that your character must be human, and that you need to journal in real time. (I have posts written about the guidelines, but those are the two most important ones.)

I think some of this is the result of the growth of other one-month projects like writing a novel in a month in November and so on. I have encouraged people who want to do "faux" journals or write fiction to join one of those projects. There they will find people working with the same intention.

When participants don't make the effort to follow even the most basic of the guidelines I feel it not only wears me down (because I have to try to guide them back to the path), but it dilutes the fellowship of those other artists working hard at the task at hand.

The exercise of keeping a fake journal is a psychological exercise first and foremost, designed to encourage creativity by asking the participant to step out of his life and into someone else's shoes for a short period of time every day for 30 days. 

This can be difficult for some people. In smaller groups and in-person classes I am able to help participants negotiate the adjustments that will ensure a productive month-long project. As things currently stand I can no longer afford to give away that time.

Readers who have known me for a long time, or taken a class from me, will know how frustrating it is for me that I cannot help those people genuinely struggling and striving with the guidelines to make this a productive month.

Therefore it's necessary to shut down the public celebration of this month indefinitely.

What Happens Now?

I know that some of you have been successfully participating in this on-going project for several years now. Some of you have even made it the complete 10 years of online celebration. You may wish to continue privately to keep a Fake Journal. Because you have successfully negotiated the guidelines in the past and completed your end of project evaluations, I know that for you it can continue to be a useful practice, if not every year, perhaps every few years. 

I will continue to keep my private fake journal during April. 

But, as I like to say, "for now" the public celebration will cease. I don't know how long "indefinitely" is. I hate to think it's final, but all the characters I have been in my fake journals, kept since I was a child, have led me to accept letting go.

Thank You

I want to thank everyone who has participated in the past 10 years, and also my students from 2000 through 2009, with whom I first shared this project off line.

I have loved seeing your work. I have been excited to see the results of your work when you take the insights you've learned back to your regular work. I have loved seeing the growth of understanding and intention that has come out of your end-of-project evaluations.

All of this has been very special for me. I am extremely grateful to have been part of your artistic growth.

I hope that you will all continue to connect with me through my blog Roz Wound Up or other online communication such as my YouTube channel and Instagram.

My wish for you is that you step out of the way of your creativity and create a safe place for yourself in which to exercise that creativity. Over the past 10 years I've helped provide guidelines for one way you can do this. I'm so glad you participated.

Whether you're making real or fake pages I wish you years and years of happy experiments.

Monday, April 30, 2018

Day 30, April 30, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
When I was eleven things were –––––––––––––––––––––.  

List B: Questions
Which matters most?

List C: Quotations
What is the most important thing in the circus? Time. Hovey Burgess

List D: Found Dialogue 
I reached for it and the entire curtain came away in my hand, the fabric just disintegrated.

List E: Objects
First thing your character sees at lunch.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Day 29, April 29, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
Seems sad not to go ahead with…

List B: Questions
What did I learn at the retreat?

List C: Quotations
I like to explore things. I don't expect to enjoy them. Jerry Seinfeld

List D: Found Dialogue 
That's your problem. You need to pay attention to your dreams; they contain crucial information.

List E: Objects
Something metallic.

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Day 28, April 28, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
He wouldn't say that if he knew… [You can change gender if desired.]

List B: Questions
Agree to disagree?

List C: Quotations
Still I rise. Maya Angelou

List D: Found Dialogue 
Whose truth?

List E: Objects
Something bumpy and lumpy.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Day 27, April 27, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
I'm interested in any secret which…

List B: Questions
How elaborate do I need to be?

List C: Quotations
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. Frederick Douglass

List D: Found Dialogue 
I've never met such a taciturn and talkative man.

List E: Objects
Something dust covered.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Day 26, April 26, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
Get –––––––––––––––––––––.  

List B: Questions
What am I trying to say?

List C: Quotations
It's fun to be on the edge. I think you do your best work when you take chances, when you're not safe, when you're not in the middle of the road, at least for me anyway. Danny De Vito

List D: Found Dialogue 
We should discount that. He has advanced dementia.

List E: Objects
Your character's prize possession.

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Day 25, April 25, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
I'm not trying to offend you…

List B: Questions
Why do I reduce everything to nonsense?

List C: Quotations
Never explain—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway. Elbert Hubbard.

List D: Found Dialogue 
Better say nothing than make a mistake.

List E: Objects
A series, i.e., a series of objects that your character sits down to sketch at a specific moment in the day, or at different moments throughout the day, but all sketches that are on the same page spread.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Day 24, April 24, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
It all started Saturday when…

List B: Questions
Oh why am I so suspicious of [other character's name]'s motives?

List C: Quotations
I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability. That's what we really pay attention to anyway. We don't talk about planes flying; we talk about them crashing. Timor Kalman

List D: Found Dialogue 
I bet it was him. There was such a tone..

List E: Objects
Beauty- or health-related product in a container, tube, etc..

Monday, April 23, 2018

Day 23, April 23, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
Yoga might be the…

List B: Questions
What is the real reason [his/her] actions bother me?

List C: Quotations
Doing great. Living the life. Glenn Rhee on "The Walking Dead."

List D: Found Dialogue 
If I thought you were able to understand it I would have told you at the time. This proves it doesn't it? [One side of phone conversation.]

List E: Objects
A container. [Nothing beauty-product or health-product related.]

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Day 22, April 22, 2018 International Fake Journal Month Prompt

Here are the five prompts which YOUR CHARACTER can respond to or incorporate into his journal today.
List A: Finish This Sentence…
I'm tired of delineating the obvious…

List B: Questions
Am I willing to make a sacrifice to change this?

List C: Quotations
The question is not what you look at but what you see. Henry David Thoreau

List D: Found Dialogue 
I don't care what he calls himself—he's an absentee slumlord.

List E: Objects
Something mechanical.