New Messy Journal

Once again I am moving onto a new journal. This one is sort of endearingly ugly (I like the idea of using ugly as a positive term, maybe? Not sure if that's a terrible or great idea!), with wavy lines and a glasses design at the header of each page. I've slapped on some things to the front of it to give it a personal touch. This seems to make it easier to use a journal. After decorating the front, the inside doesn't seem daunting or precious. It's officially just my thing to tape stuff into and scribble inside and systematically destroy.

I like the size of this notebook. It's somewhere in the a5 region, which I find has a really good amount of space. I never feel like I am struggling to fit things in or fill pages up with this sort of size. The spiral binding also makes it so that the pages are easy to turn and the movement of the notebook is nice and smooth. I usually use non-spiral bound notebooks, but it's nice to branch out a bit. The main problem with these types of notebooks is that they can be difficult to scan, but that's fine. I'm trying not to be too picky about journals.

I think I've spent too much time caring about what my journals look like and what the pages will look like scanned and worrying about the pen bleeding through to the next page, instead of just enjoying journalling. This is probably why I end up keeping multiple journals at once, because I end up wanting to do certain things and starting new ones for specific purposes or aesthetics. I want to let go of that a bit. There's a place for taking care with what you make, but I want my journals to be more purely about genuine self-expression.

A good way to start journals, I find, is to just stick a bunch of random things in there. I always keep some bits of loose scrap to use for collaging, as well as leftover little drawings made on paper that have nowhere else to go, and I generally accumulate little bits of various things after a while too, so it's nice to just shove a bunch of those things in a new journal. It really encourages me to just get going and build up some pages. This one is going nicely so far!