Welcome to International Fake Journal Month 2013!

What is IFJM?
Please read the page "What Is IFJM" for details.
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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.

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


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

International Fake Journal Month Tip of the Day: Don't Worry about "Bad Pages"


Left: Page 3 in my 2010 fake journal.

Sometimes our pages don't turn out the way we expect them to—or hope. Fake journaling helps us get over the push to have "perfect pages." I addressed an aspect of this in yesterday's post—the need to keep going.

But beyond the push of keeping yourself going when a page doesn't turn out the way that you would have liked or hoped, you also need to let go of the idea of having perfect pages, even in a "special" journal such as the fake journal.

On my third day of sketching in this year's fake journal none of my angles were working out. But because I'm not concerned with the need to make perfect pages I can use this experience to delve deeper into the mind of my character, freeing me even more from the need to be accountable to any internal critic.

So as this drawing started to depart from my initial hopes and direction (the shading was too dark and clumsy in some areas, the angles and proportions not keenly observed) I started asking my character what her expectations and thoughts about this were.

And that's when I really met and connected with the author of this year's fake journal. So I recommend you turn any moments of disappointment into moments of discovery. These are opportunities to understand your character's goals and expectations—which may be totally opposite from your own.

Part of the fun of International Fake Journal Month is the opportunity to try out someone else's approach. This means you have to step back out of the way so that can actually happen.

When you learn to step out of the way in this fashion, without bringing judgment to the situation, you are also building your mental muscles for dealing with your own internal critic.

Accept what happens on each page—but also take a moment to learn from it. Let the "aha moment" of discovering more about your character happen.

If you are really stuck in the concept of "I must have perfect pages," then read my post "Journaling Superstitions #4: Each Page Must Be Perfect," on my regular blog Roz Wound Up.

Keep working.

2 comments:

Timaree said...

All these faces have such character! Wonderful.

Roz Stendahl said...

Timaree, thank you. I think the ones I've done in the last few days are getting a bit more interesting, but it will be a few days before we get to them.

I hope your fake journal is going well.