To Post or Not to Post, and Where? And Other Pitfalls to Avoid in International Fake Journal Month

New participants frequently struggle with the issue of whether to post their fake journal publicly or to keep a private fake journal.

I encourage all first time participants to consider how they can best serve their creative process.

If the issues they want to confront in their fake journal are intensely private, or simply intense, I think it is best for them to not post their journal entries in their inaugural year. Instead I suggest they keep a private document through the month and after April decide what if any of it will be publicly displayed. (Perhaps only a portion with a wrap-up which they could supply to me to be posted here. See “Wrap-ups” in the category list.)

In this way new participants avoid dealing with a barrage of questions that range from the “I’m confused, what are you doing this month?” to the “You know, you really SHOULD have done X differently, and Y doesn’t make sense in the construction you’ve created.” From the well-meaning to the snide, comments can derail the creator if he isn’t firmly fixed on a goal or a course of action.

If this is your first time going through the process I recommend that you consider this approach. The most important thing about your participation in this project is that you work with and protect your creative process.

If you have consideredthis and decided that you are going to go ahead with public posting read thispost from last year about getting on the participants’ blog roll list for thisyear.

Past participants can still write to me via email immediately and provide me with a link for the participants’ list.

The only thing that is changing for new participants is that you can write to me as soon as you have 6 entries completed (which for most people will mean they will write to me the morning of April 7). The email should come to me at rozjournalrat at gmail dot com and the subject line must read "Participants List."

Please be patient if you do not see your name go up on the blog roll immediately. IFJM is something that I do for fun. Work and eldercare often keep me away from the computer for long stretches and my first duty when returning to the computer is work. If you don’t see your name on the participants’ list in 4 days, then I recommend that you write to me again checking that you have used the right subject line. (It’s how I locate appropriate messages in the stream of mail we all get these days.) I also tend to do things in “blocks.” So if I get one notice from someone but am pressed for time I will often wait until I have 3 or 4 people to add to the list at the same time—time management rules here.

Another question I get about posting publicly is whether or not you need a dedicated blog for IFJM.

The simple answer is no.

But of course it’s more complex than that.

Most participants create a dedicated blog because they like to separate their IJFM entries from their regular work, their regular blog posts, the eyes of their clients or friends and family who wouldn’t understand the IFJM entries, or the project in general.

Our friends and family certainly don’t need to know everything we do. And our clients probably shouldn’t.

Separating your IFJM work onto a dedicated IFJM blog also prevents the possibility of confusing people you know and eliminates the “helpful” comments received from people who aren’t involved in IFJM.

Participants setting up a dedicated IFJM blog insulate themselves from well-meaning “negative” comments or sarcastic comments from passive aggressive types such as “Gee I see you have a lot of time on your hands.” (To which of course the only possible reply is, “Yes I manage m y time very well, thank you. Sorry you don’t.”)

The reasons to create a dedicated IFJM blog are countless and individual. I recommend you stop and consider your unique situation.

If you go ahead with incorporating your IFJM entries into your regular blog post stream be sure to devise a way to link them through tagging and grouping available on your platform. In the link provided in the participants’ list you will only have that FIRST POST’S link. Once readers are on your blog they must immediately see how to navigate and discover your other IJFM post or they will become frustrated and leave.

That defeats the point of public posting—especially when you are frustrating the one definitely interested group of readers.

Another possible way to deal with confusion when posting on a regular blog is to group all your week’s IFJM output into one weekly post. Perhaps each Friday you compile a post giving all your previous week’s entries, or every Sunday. Whatever works for you. This will enable readers to see more of your IFJM work quickly and easily, and the continuity of your IFJM posts and journal will not be constantly interrupted by other posts.

I’ve found in the past that people without dedicated blogs have more frustrating interaction with their regular blog readers about the project and that is not helpful but intrusive to the creative process.

Make it as easy as possible for those who want to find your IFJM entries to do so. Going through a lot of unrelated posts is something you think might be fun for them and maybe you would like feedback on your other work, but in reality the fake journal people are often only interested in your fake stuff during April (they can return another time) and will skip most of the other posts. They are busy and have to get back to their own fakery. (In the past several years several participants have asked that I make dedicated blogs mandatory and these are just some of the reasons they have expressed.)

Also, think hard about what your topic and parameters in your fake journal are going to be. Will it be something you can post in a general purpose blog or a general purpose art blog?

Blogger and Word Press are two entities that offer free blogs if you decide to go with a dedicated IFJM blog. You can then link your fake journal blog to your original blog with an opening and closing post.

In the past some participants have used Flickr to post their fake journal entries. Personally I find Flickr difficult to use, navigate around, and just get to where I want to go and have a sense of flow. Because of that I am always frustrated when trying to view entries posted there, and frankly give up at the first frustration.

I have feedback from others that I am not alone in this. If you post on Flickr because it is easiest for you to do so, that’s great. Keep  your posting process as simple as possible for YOU, so that you will be able to spend your time working on your project. But remember to make it as easy as possible for people who are trying to view your Flickr entries.

This year we have a new way to post entries. There is now a Facebook Group for International Fake Journal Month. 

Currently this is a public group and you can contact me at the group to get admitted. Past participants have suggested that this group become a private group once the month starts. This will enable new participants to post “publicly” to a public who knows what they are doing and can be encouraging. Whether you post there or not you are encouraged to join us there in IFJM-related conversations (though we probably will be all busy working on our journals?).

Go forward whichever way works best for you—because the focus should remain on the creation of the fake journal and NOTHING should get in the way of that—do what is easiest.

And speaking of making it easy—I have written numerous times in tips, tips on fake journaling, and book selection (to name just a couple categories) that you need to consider how easy it will be to scan or photography your  fake journal if you intend to post it (or digitally archive it). If you keep your journal size to a size that will fit open on your scanner so that you can scan a page spread in its entirety you’ll have one scan, not two which need joining in Photoshop. Believe me this time adds up and takes away from time you could be working in your journal.

(Take a moment to look through the category list for tips on media, paper, book selection as well as writing tips. There is also a blog search engine. This stuff is all there for you to look over. It's there to help you strategize some of these issues so that you can have a more effortless and creativity focused experience.)

Last year I deliberately went with an oversized page: 22 x 30 inches. I made this choice because that was what was necessary for the character. But I knew going into that year that I would not try to post entries daily. I knew I would only photograph a couple images as I went along. Most of the images would not be seen until the end of the month “show” where they were all up up on a wall. At that point I had a professional photographer shoot gigapans of the fake show. These images allow the viewer to zoom in on the details to a higher degree than even a quality scan allows.

EVERY CHOICE you make for your fake journal will impact the ease with which the project runs and finishes. The easier the housekeeping aspects of your project remain the less frustrating your month will be.

With that in mind take a moment to consider the media you have selected for use this month. Is it something that will be easily scanned or photographed? For example graphite works are notoriously difficult to photograph (believe me I always groan when given graphite work to use in my work projects).  With most scanners graphite work is a bit easier to handle, but even then there are some pitfalls requiring extra handling so that the impact of your work comes through. Consider such constraints as you move forward with your choices for International Fake Journal Month.

It is my goal in sharing this project and encouraging people to participate that the focus stays always on the creation of their work and the value this exercise can return to them at the end of the project.

Let’s have a great April! 

2014 International Fake Journal Project Participants—Public and Private

Public Participation
If you are participating in this year's celebration and you are posting your pages publicly on either a blog dedicated to IFJM related posts or an album on Flickr or some other public digital venue I'm not already savvy you can appear in the 2014 IFJM Participants list in the right column of this blog.

There are already names posted there as you can see. (For past years please scroll down to previous lists which are grouped together at the bottom of the column.)

Participants listed already have all participated before.

If you haven't participated before please write to me as soon as you have 8 days of entries completed. Send a link to your blog or Flickr album where you have them grouped. The email should come to me at rozjournalrat@gmail.com and the subject line should read "Participants List."

I'll check the link out and add you to the list.

The delay for new participants is simply so that there will be something there for visitors to look at. I try to do as little housekeeping as possible for this project so that I too have time to participate.  If someone falls off the project after 3 days or so I might not find out until a long time later. A week of participation is still long enough to even generate a wrap up. (Keep that in mind if you aren't up for a 30-day trial period. Maybe doing a two- or one-week project is what would best suit you. It's a great way to start.)

If you are sending me a link to a post about your first entry to IFJM 2014 on your regular blog be sure that your blog post for that entry includes some sort of wording and tagging along these lines:

This is the first entry in my 2014 International Fake Journal Month Journal. Each day in April I'll be adding a new entry. You can view all my journal entries on this blog as I post them by using this blog's search engine and searching for IFJM [or Fake, or whatever you're indexing it under] or go to the category cloud and click on "KEY WORD YOU'RE USING FOR TAGGING."

You can create an end paragraph to your initial post that explains how people can find your future posts without sifting through the rest of your blog posts.

If you don't include a statement like that in your post past experience shows that people don't return to see the rest of your pages because they can't find them. And if you send me a link and I can't find them I can't assume others will be able to and I won't add it to the list.

We're only 6 days in and if you haven't started your project there is still plenty of time to do so. And there's plenty of time to be added to the list. Based on my guidelines above for 8 days of entries you have until April 23 to start and complete 8 days. If you contact me in the first few days of May when you get your items scanned or photographed I'll add you to the list. People return to the blog throughout the year to look at participants so it's a good thing to get added.

At the end of April I'll start asking participants to do a write up about how the project went for them. Past participants have found this helpful to understand what value they derived from the project and how to plan future such projects. It's also helpful to others who are just reading about the project. There is no obligation to provide a public wrap up write up about the project. In fact if the project becomes emotional or difficult in a variety of ways you might not want to discuss it publicly. But if you do complete a wrap-up post I ask that you send those links in to me at the beginning of May. Sometime around May 10 I post about them and list links to the wrap ups in a single post.

Private Participation
I've written before that IFJM is something you can do on your own and keep private. I encourage that. If at the completion of your project, however, you would like to participate in the wrap up please feel free to do so. I would ask that you send a jpg of one of your pages to accompanying your link in the wrap up post, so people have a sense of what you were doing.

That's all for today. I have to switch gears now and turn out today's page! I hope you're having a great month. I have already found out some fun things I hope to share with you at the end of the week when I have a moment to scan or shoot these massively oversized pages.

Using Your Fake Journal to Fight Creative Blocks

I've been getting a lot of private notes recently from people who are interested in using IFJM as a tool to fight creative blocks. The blocks all vary and are individually tailored (of course, that's how it works), but several are "blocks to keeping a journal." And keeping a fake journal can be used to clear that block in a variety of ways. I wrote about a few of those ways in a note on my other blog to a reader who asked about this publicly on Roz Wound Up, and I think my note might be useful to some folks reading this blog.

Keep in mind that in order to get your April experience going you will need to do a little bit of work in the next couple of days to prepare—you'll need to sit with your REAL journal and ask yourself a few questions so that you can avoid the same issues in your fake set up.

Here's my advice:

IFJM can be a great tool for fighting blockage, for really looking at the cause and finding ways to work around it in your life. 

Be sure to find a way to really limit the time involvement you require each day for your fake journal so that working in the journal doesn't become yet another instigator of blockage, e.g., "I don't have time for the fake journal I really have to do such and such." 

Find something that you can do in 15 minutes or less. 

Think about a character who always puts art or observation first. Imagine what it's like to have a regular appointment for that 15 minutes, or set up situations for the month where you will have outings or instances where you will have 15 minutes at odd times to sketch and journal. 

I would also suggest you keep you supplies to a minimum so you aren't side-tracked with thinking "which medium will I use today?"—picking one medium to use for the whole month and to explore with is something totally doable in 15 minutes a day. 

Also think of what it is you want to say and do in your REAL journal and then ask yourself why you don't do that. (This is best done before IFJM begins. Set an appointment to write, or also do it in small bursts of time as thoughts come to you during the day—just write down what pops into your head and look at it all at the end of the day.) 

Next think about a character who 1. either doesn't want to do those things in his/her journal so you'll do the exact opposite of what YOU would do during the month in his or her journal, or 2. someone who does those things and what does that person's life look like? All of that will help you get into the character for 15 minutes a day. 

And lastly realize that your character is going to have a totally different dialogue with his/her internal critic because he/she isn't blocked. What is that dialog like? That character won't write or journal about that because it is just a fact of life, so you might, when you think of this (maybe before you go to bed at night) take a few minutes to write in your REAL journal about that.  

Remember habit building happens in 28 days. It's more important to get something done in the habit building time than to create something great! First you have to get the habit in place. That's another reason IFJM and fake journals are a good way to start a journaling habit—because you are doing something daily for 30 days. (Remember you don't run a record marathon your first day of training, you may only run around the block. If you're using IFJM to break a creative block on journaling focus on running around the block each day, the rest will come later after you have the habit.)

Also keep in mind that life happens. If you're using IFJM to combat a tendency not to journal and already have a habit of avoiding or putting off journaling when life happens you'll need to work harder to avoid that habit during IFJM and find ways to meet that 15 minutes a day you've set for yourself. That will be difficult for most people in this situation.

And it will feel UNCOMFORTABLE, because breaking a habit (here the habit of avoidance) is an uncomfortable process. Habits (either good or bad) feel good and comfortable to our minds and our bodies because they are habits (ask anyone who's ever tried to change his life in the smallest way). But if we persevere in the breaking of bad habits, by creating new habits, we have much to gain. It's worth a bit of discomfort.

If your blockage is not about journaling but instead is about using one particular medium or one technique more the equation is a bit simpler—you simply substitute that medium or technique into the time you already spend journaling, just for the month. This doesn't mean you won't do any regular journaling, but you may find you do less of that in April. Any habit change is going to take some accommodation and adjustment in the rest of our life.

Again, it might feel uncomfortable to use the different medium you elect to stick with, or it might be difficult to start at the beginning with a new technique. You are still breaking out of your comfort zone and your internal critic is going to jump out and let you have it.

All your character latitude to deal with the internal critic in his or her own way—you might learn some new techniques you can bring back to your real life.

Remember too to be kind to yourself. If you miss a day don't beat yourself up. Just make sure you work first thing the next morning, or set a watch alarm for a time later in the day and keep that appointment regardless of how you feel at the time. It's "just do it" time. Get into your character's mode. Remember too that your character doesn't have blockage, doesn't have a reason to stop so you can be assured that the next day he/she won't even see today's miss as a blip on the grand continuum of life. That's where you want to put your focus too, on that continuum.

One more thing. However wonderful it may be to share your work with others as you go through this journey, and however much you count on people's support when you share your work, if you are working on a block of any sort it may be best not to share your work during April.

I tell my journaling students this about their regular journaling work all the time when I have multi-session classes where we work on good journaling habits. It's fine to share work within the confines of the class where everyone is working on the same plan and developing good boundaries, positive "critique" methods, and understands what the goals are. But in the general world, and even in your own family there will be people who just don't "get" what you're up to.

Would you rather spend all of April not just explaining to those people that you want to journal more and why that is, but why you're using IFJM to find a way to do it? Or would you rather get down and busy at actually changing something?

Why risk a stray comment from someone who actually might even mean well—a comment which could derail you?

If it's time to do serious work and you don't already have good boundaries and techniques for dealing with your internal critic the best time to share your fake journal is in MAY,  AFTER IFJM is over.

Why? Because then no comments can derail you. You're already finished with the project. And you hold it in your hand. You know exactly what it took for you to do it. You may never be able to explain to anyone what it took, or how you even did it, but you don't have to. You just need to know that you did it. And that's the gift you give yourself for getting through the month.

Besides, this year it's "NO Explanations" remember?!

So think about those considerations to as you set up your plan for IFJM 2014. Good luck.