Wreck This Journal - Week 1

I just got the book today. I’m ready to go! I’ve already decided that this is going to be a lot of fun.

Funny, before yesterday I had not even heard of this book but I had been intending to widen my circle of friends and interact with more creative people. Well, ask and it is given. I was visiting An Eager Soul's Journal and saw that she and her daughter were participating in this thing called The Next Chapter: Wreck This Journal. The name “Wreck This Journal” was enough to peak my curiosity so of course I had to go check it out and I’m glad I did.

First of all, the book looks really fun. The exercises are crazy, creative and carefree. Here is just a sampling of some of the things I have to look forward to as I wreck the journal.

* Find a way to wear the journal.

* Glue a photo of yourself that you don’t like to the journal page and then deface it - I’m looking forward to this one because pretty much any photo of me taken in the 80s could be used. (Not one of my better looking decades for sure)

* Bring this book into the shower with you.

* Chew on the page.

* There is also a page to collect the stickers you get off of bought fruit – this one is so silly I think I’ll do it first.

This book is also providing me a wonderful opportunity to interact with other deliberate creators. I’m widening my circle of friends, being creative and having fun all at the same time.

Now, off to collect my fruit stickers.

Ok, the first part of this post was written right after I got back to my office after buying the book. Here’s what happened as the afternoon progressed.

I decided to wait until I got home to start “wrecking” the book but then it occurred to me that this is my usual pattern. I’ll wait until… boy there’s one of my creativity killers. I’ll do it later - when I get home, when I have more money, etc.

I put the book beside me at my desk and every time I looked at it the book seemed to be taunting me to engage with it. I imagined it saying, come on, wreck me, I dare ya. So I did.

The first thing I did was draw a smiley face on the front of the journal to remind me that this is going to be a fun process then I opened the book to a random page that instructed me to poke holes in it with a pencil. I had a funny reaction to this page.

The page had some small circles drawn on it and I didn’t like it. At first look I took that to mean that the book was telling me where to poke the holes and what instrument to use. I don’t like being told what to do or how to do it because that feels limiting to me but I poked the holes anyway with a pencil. Then I purposely started poking holes all across the page with all kinds of different items – a toothpick, a letter opener, different colored pens, etc. After I had my fill of poking holes I took a fresh look at the page. I laughed out loud when I realized that there was nothing in the instructions that said I had to poke the circles that were drawn or that I could only use a pencil. The only way I was limited in my creative expression was in my thinking.

Now, onward to my fruit stickers!

Day 1: Poked holes, realized that “I’ll wait until…” is a creativity killer for me and that I can only be limited in my thinking. Guess I poked some holes not only on the page but also in my limited thinking.