Compose Yourself!

I've been feeling very creative lately. Yesterday I went to play bingo and while I didn't win. I did walk out with a handful of colorful cards. I don't know why but it just kills me to throw them away and since Big Daddy wasn't there to give me the "are you hoarding bingo cards now?" look, I brought my losers home. (I did linger over someone else's cards that they left on the table but I decided that would be overkill.)

While Papa Grande napped in his recliner, I sequestered myself in the craft room and made bingo composition notebooks. I have a love affair with composition notebooks that spans back twenty years. When I first got sober I had way too much time on my hands and way too many thoughts in my head so I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I wrote creative stuff and journal stuff and I also played this free writing game with friends that was a lot more fun than it sounds. There was a little place called Boxies at Preston and Beltline and I used to go there and order a banana nut muffin and a vanilla latte. I sat at the table outside and I wrote until I couldn't see the page anymore. I filled dozens of composition notebooks and while I thought I was writing in preparation for the great American novel, I now believe I was learning to enjoy my own company. I found composition notebooks for .50 during back to school so I bought half a dozen.

I've been doing a lot of web searching about doodling, visual journals, art notebooks and creative lettering. I am drawn to these forms and have been for a long time but lately the art books seem muddled to me. I enjoy the layering process a lot, but the product sometimes seems bogged down. I love the idea of doodling, but have found that doodles tend to be floral, and while I like that a lot, I've been noodling about using a less girly motif. I'm searching for something, a light switch of sorts, and it's very exciting.