May 22, 2013 – Pinay New Yorker

If you’re reading about my Journal on a Journey project for the the first time and you’re interested to find out what it’s all about, please go to this page where I have the mechanics and will regularly post updates.

I have realized that my composition notebook is not going to go very far or will not hold up too well through the wear and tear that this journal(s) is(/are) supposed to go through. So I have scrapped the idea of using composition notebooks. The paper was also too thin that writing with a regular fine point signpen caused some blotting to bleed through to the back page. I’m not a fan of that.

As an alternative, I’m actually creating several decorated pages I will reproduce randomly in the different journals I’m creating for this project, printed/drawn on good paper stock legal sized paper which I will sew into a journal of around 100 pages. (Ambitious, yeah!) I guess the stitch piercer tool I bought two weekends ago has inspired me to be brave and makes me think it’s going to be easy. (We’ll soon find out, won’t we?)

I’m cutting magazines and doing collages. There are some catch phrases, quotes and others I will literally draw. This will make each journal unique and different from the next. It also gives me a chance to use some of my stock art work like previous letterings, doodles, ATCs, etc. and it will also give me a new excuse to create more — not that I need one.

I know there are a lot of text journalers out there who would welcome the chance to participate in this project. Our goal is to see how far the journals can travel before being filled and what kinds of entries find their way into its pages. I will write one journal entry somewhere in each journal, not necessarily as a starter entry. Art journalers are also welcome, or even photojournalers. It’s very free form with only a few rules, the most important of which is that you are committing to write an entry and return the journal to me.

Any ideas on what you would want to see in this journal? Email me at journalonajourney@gmail.com or leave a comment here. Let’s see what we can come up with together.

When you started your blog, did you set any goals? Have you achieved them? Have they changed at all?

I started this blog in August 2004 although I already had an online journal in my private domain, sans the blog interface. I did the page layouts via longhand html and tried to write on focused topics revolving around my life and interests here in New York.

As I’ve repeated time and time again, I blog for the selfish reason of wanting to keep an online diary of my life. This blog is and has always been for my own benefit. I am happy to see others find something amusing, educational, or helpful in what I share in my little corner of the blogsphere here, but I speak in my own voice, and I speak about my own thoughts and feelings.

In August 2004, my son was months old and part of my fascination with motherhood was my desire (bordering on obsession) to document everything about him and me. In many ways, his coming into my life inspired me to be more diligent about writing, because there was suddenly so much to write about.

I write very spontaneously and let the words come freely. I censor myself only to maintain a semblance of privacy, but as those w ho have read me regularly say, there’s a brutal honesty in the posts. From time to time I find myself going back to something I had written about and I feel as though I’m pulling a book out of a shelf and reliving the feeing as I read the words I had once read.

I had tried to write to bring in more readers or to write for remuneration, but in the end I gave it up to return to the spontaneity that I am used to. I am part of affiliate networks, but I hardly, if ever, utilize the membership to try and bring in some revenue. Good if I do, okay if I don’t. I have long ago realized that to continue doing what I’m doing — writing for and about me — going commercial was not an option.

After almost a decade, I’ve stopped writing “other” blogs, focusing only on this site and my craft blog, Gotham Chick, which is actually slipping into limbo for inactivity. (I keep promising to revive it and post more regularly there.) The only reason I’m keeping that separate is I want to have a blog dedicated to my crafts and provide a springboard for advertising for my Etsy store with the same name.

Almost ten years now to the day that I started blogging, I am proud to say I’ve stayed true to form, growing as a blogger but always keeping my personal goal of being able to document my life and to write about the things that matter to me. My blog continues to be the embodiment of who I am — here, you become a part of my life. You see where I’ve been, what I do, and what silly or profound thoughts are running through my head. You see the things I see in the photographs I post. If you are a regular reader, then in many ways, you know me very well by now.

I just wanted to write. And here I am still doing that. The recent move to wordpress has helped me to want to be better at writing and blogging in general — but my goal remains the same: to write for and about myself. I have enjoyed the freedom of being able to express myself — and I can say that I have achieved the goal, and nothing has changed. I am proud to say that my blog has kept its focus through the years, and I don’t see myself veering away from that towards another . When that happens, I will probably close the doors of my tiny place and bid the blogsphere farewell to start a new journey under a new banner.