My 20-year ongoing (and deepening) relationship with doing stuff -- thinking, feeling, asking, answering, emoting, reflecting, envisioning, processing, remembering, planning, organizing, shaping, discovering, rethinking, and AIMLESSLY MESSING AROUND by hand, on paper = the very foundation of my skill, knowledge, ideas, advice, and forthcoming work about creativity. Establishing a notebooking habit [with some guidance] is my #1 piece of advice for an accessible, non-elite (no art studio or masters degree required) cheap/free doorway to becoming fluent in your own Creativity dialect and developing new synapses in your brain, which can transform your life.
In 2016, I started THE SECRET LIFE OF NOTEBOOKS, a series of occasional bite-sized posts (a bit of writing + one image of my own art) about notebook-keeping as a simple yet powerful way to exercise and develop your creativity.
The series still lives HERE, but may eventually migrate to this site.
Estrangement from paper is a huge mistake, and goes right along with all the other trends in terms of increasing separation, distraction, and depression — chronic estrangement from physical tactile reality and the intelligence of our hands i.e. the interdependent intelligence and mechanics of nature and spirit that defines life on the planet.
My highest recommendations for starting your own notebook-filling habit are all books: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, and literally anything by Lynda Barry — but especially What It Is, Syllabus, or Making Comics.
-Dana