Three Good Reasons To Keep A Journal

Hello hello hello

So I'm nearly at the end of this challenge, and it's been a pleasant experience. Taking photos and keeping a diary admittedly hasn't been very challenging, but it's been a nice thing to do at this very busy time of year! So I thought I'd cap it off putting a few more photos up and telling you my three reasons to keep a journal.

So here are some photos.


Lovely flowers :) I've started to think a lot more about angles and everything now, and I liked getting low for these, it sort of felt a bit Alice in Wonderland esque - when she's tiny and in the flowerbeds!


I realise that I hardly ever put a subject in the middle - I almost always have it to the side with a big space beside it. Just something I like doing I suppose! Does this mean I'm developing a style...?

And another thing I apparently like doing is capturing sunlight between trees! I love getting direct sunlight in pictures and having that strange glow. It allows you to see something you can't actually see properly in real life because otherwise you'd go blind - which would be unfortunate. But yes, when the sun is out I love to get it in the shot. I love how its sort of between two big branches, like the tree has the sun wedged into it. Some great shadows too. I am quite an outdoorsy person so it's been nice to be capturing some of that this month.









And now...

Three Good Reasons to Keep a Journal

1. It stimulates your creativity. Even if all you are doing initially is sitting down to write about your day, you are still sitting down with a notebook and a pen in your hand. Things are much more likely to happen when you give yourself the tools. Since keeping my journal I have written a couple of new poems, so there you go.

2. It helps you to keep focused. You can use a diary to write down all your appointments and contacts and keep yourself organised, but you can use a journal to actually remind yourself what you want to achieve and why. Every night I have been writing down three things I want to get done the next day - and I've been doing them. It's nice to go to sleep looking forward to what you're doing the next day. I feel like I've been waking up with loads of purpose because of it.

3. It can be therapeutic. Now when I was younger the ONLY time I wrote in a journal was when things were going badly. Now, I'm using it for a more positive purpose, but it does still have it's use in that respect. When things get shitty, it's good to write down how you feel and then read it back, it helps you to get a bit of perspective. Also, when you're having a bad time your thoughts can be a mess and your mind is just racing. Writing stuff down helps you to slow your thoughts down and figure out what you really think.

And there's not much more to say on the subject! It's been really nice, and I hope to keep these habits up. I'll be announcing my next (and last!) challenge soon. Till then, taraar.

Some Pictures and Some Thoughts

Phew! I am having the busiest time of my life right now. I'll be leaving universtity soon, and so begins the desperate search for jobs, the praying that an agent will take me on, and the mighty mighty business plan.

So I haven't found much time for blogging, to be honest! But here I am with a precious spare hour, and I thought I would share some pictures and thoughts with you.

Some of my photos are lazy and rubbish, some are kinda artistic and cool. But the important thing is that I am taking them! Here are some of my favourites from the last week and a half.

I went for a few morning walks and this is one picture that makes me feel really happy! This place is right by my house in York, I used to go running there all the time. And striding across it early morning filled me with all sorts of positivity, especially as it was such a beautiful day! This pictures stirs up that hearty feeling I had that morning. Early morning walks are good. I may even make a challenge out of them.

Here is another photo of the same place, but on a very different morning! Beautiful, but in a different way. I really love this picture, I think it's one of my best. There's a wee artist in here somewhere! All of my best photos for this have been taken outside, and to be honest it's made me quite appreciative of the beauty of the world around us - I'm glad this challenge has made me go looking for it.


Another good example of that would be this tree! This photo doesn't quite do it justice, but trust me guys, this is an effing great tree. Gorgeously silver. I had been staying in a rented house with my boyfriend and his family for his sister's wedding, and this tree was just outside. I didn't even notice it until the last day. A friend of the family was helping unload left over wedding stuff from the car, and he stopped to have a good look, which of course made me have a good look. And we both marveled at how eerily beautiful this tree was! So I took a photo. I love how photos serve both as a record of your experience but also something on its own. In many ways this photo can't come near the original view, but in many ways it is more beautiful too. I think the camera has brightened the blue somewhat, making a really pretty photo that I wasn't quite expecting. So I have the image vs my memory - both slightly unreliable reflections of a nice moment experienced, which is now gone.

And here is a photo that I wanted to show you more for the content rather than the artistry - I bought a brilliant new suitcase for me to fit my life into! As a self employed actor I need to be travelling light - and so I invested in an uber case that I could realistically go on tour with. I was such a nerd when I got home, I couldn't wait to pack it, so I put all my stuff from the big holdall I had brought home for the holidays into it. And I packed it all fancy so that it would look nice. And there's still loads of room! This perhaps wasn't the most productive use of my time - but I am the queen of active procrastination. And at least I'm mostly ready now for going back to Birmingham on Sat. While I was packing it, I was imagining all the jobs I might do in the future where I will be living out of this bag - and I got super excited. Sometimes it's really nice to do something like that, something that excites you about the future. This week has been a good week for things like that.

And now, let me tell you a bit about the diary writing part of this challenge! I have a lovely story for you.

So I was originally doing the diary writing on my PC - because I wanted to use the pictures. And I actually started to enjoy it! Long gone are my teenage years when I would use a diary to moan and lament about how dreadful my life was. This is different now, it's simply a record of my activities, my feelings on the day, and my plans for the next. It feels like a really nice way to wrap up the end of the day, just getting some thoughts down onto a page, and I go to sleep thinking of my plans and hopes for the next day, and also the future. It's been a good thing for me to do at this point in my life, when the future is very much now! However, it's not great doing it on a computer, as staring at a screen and typing is not an ideal bed time activity. So I decided to go classic and use a notepad.

I have loads of notebooks on my shelves many with barely anything written in them, so I dug out a beautiful one my friend gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I took it to LIPA when I did my foundation course, and used it to write down funny quotes my housemates said. So the first ten pages are full of quotes, but the rest is blank. Reading the quotes that I had almost forgotten, I was filled with that gorgeous nostalgic feeling you get when looking at old photos. What was even better was that I hadn't written down who said what, so many of the quotes I can't remember, and can't even picture who said them! But still, because I wrote them down they are here nonetheless, making me laugh and remember the awesome times I had.

My favourite was this: "If you draw on an X instead of writing it, well then that, my friend, is a kiss - unless it's drawn on a map, because then it's probably important."

I don't know who said that - but it's wonderful.

This was a bit of a serendipitous moment for me, because its showing me the value of writing things down, so that you still have the memories years later. (even if they are only gentle reminders!) When I started this challenge I said I was fairly cynical on the effects of using a diary - but now that cynicism is gone. Now that I feel I am in a good place to actually keep one, a positive place where I can use the diary to keep me moving forward, I think it's a really great thing. And now I have seen how wonderful it is to be able to read these recorded moments again.

And I find that when I am writing, ideas begin to spill out of me. It's like the writing of my thoughts helps to slow them down and organise them, and suddenly I have a steady stream of new ideas, simply because I am writing. And of course, those ideas can go straight down onto paper too. I actually think keeping a diary could help me to become a better writer. Now there's a thought.

So yes, wonderful thoughts on this challenge, which I wasn't actually expecting. I felt like I had kind of wussed out this month because I needed something easy, but it's turned out to be perfect!

One last thing - I'm adding a mini challenge. Next month is my last month and I have a special mega challenge all planned out, but I came up with this the other day and thought it was great so I'm throwing it in - a fifteen day challenge! To keep me going through this busy time and to help fight off laziness and procrastination: I must complete at least one thing on my 'to do' list every day. Yesterday it was making a CV, today it was applying for some jobs (and I've ticked this blog off too!) - a productive few weeks ahead.

Thanks for reading, much love to you all.

xx

The Photo Diary Challenge

Happy Easter Everybody!

I didn't really announce this challenge and I am now six days in, but actually I think it's worked out quite well because now I have something to show you.

I was looking at this list of challenges that accompanies the ted talk that inspired me to start this whole thing. It was good to look at it again. I wish I had looked more because there are some on the list that I wish I had tried this year, but never mind I have forever to try them :) Some I think I am not quite brave enough for (talking to a stranger everyday for example!) but maybe that's a good reason to do them.

Anyway, I had a scan and I saw 'take a photo every day' and I thought brilliant! I can put my new camera phone to good use! It also reminded me of the 365 day photo challenge I see on facebook, which I really like. I think it's a really nice way for people to share their lives with eachother and also get a little creative. Then I saw 'keep a journal' - something I attempted to do in my youth but never stuck with, and I thought why not. So I've combined the two and I am doing a photo diary each day.

Here are the rules:

No Selfies

This is not me saying I hate selfies. Far from it. I think selfies are good fun. But I just don't want to use them in this challenge because I want it to be 'look at what I've seen and experienced today' not 'look at me with this cool thing'. So no selfies. And also, I have to take the photos myself, so basically I am not going to be in the photos.

The Journal Section is Not for Public Reading

I may occasionally post some extracts on here, but I'm being very careful when I write the journal NOT to think of it as something someone else is going to read. Over this year, this blog has essentially become my journal, but obviously when I write it I'm writing it for other people to read. This is just for me. Now, as a fairly open person, I don't have any deep and dark secrets that I desperately need to confess to a journal. However I want to see if there is anything in having a little written self reflection every day. I'm actually fairly cynical on the idea (which I don't think most people would expect!) I'm really not sure if there's much use or good in keeping a journal, but I have never really done it regularly, so I'm putting it to the test.

And so, here is my photo of the week: Which is actually todays photo, because I wanted to share with you the madness of easter in my house.

Ok. So basically, we are big children and my mum is one too. And she loves buying us this stuff. Like, she really goes in on it. We get more now than when we were little (because let's face it giving a kid this amount of chocolate would be a baaaaad idea.

There are three piles, me, my sister, and our lovely friend Ailish who we've known since we were babies and we spend nearly every easter with. Usually the piles would be identical but this year there is one hilarious difference. Because I loved my no sugar challenge so much, I have committed to it for a full year now. Which means no chocolate today. So that pile on the right, full of fruit and nuts and nakd bars, is for me. I love my mum. She is actually the greatest person.

Hope you all have a lovely easter, and I'll post some more photos soon!

Twenty four days to go

X