the creative notebook: full days and full pages

after a slow summer (the Spanish sun will do that to you), I'm ready to fill my days - and I'm starting by filling up my pages.

Sep 12, 2025

a page stuffed full: melon sticker, mail envelope, sugar packet, napkin, lotion packaging, back to school shopping list.

I’ve never been a real habit-keeper. Never had a “standard” breakfast I make every morning, never stuck to a routine very well–I’ve been very much a scheduler and planner, but not a “every day in the morning at x hour I…” kind of gal. That was all fine and good when I had a kid to get off to school at an early hour, and a job to get to at a specific hour, or meetings on the calendar to attend… even if they didn’t fill my day, those timed appointments and requirements built in a structure to my day that left just enough space to plan in everything else. It worked for me. Outside expectations created a half-full structure that then limited the time I had to do my own projects and finish my to-do list around it. That limitation, it turns, out, resulted in more getting done.

But this summer, my daughter wasn’t in school, and I didn’t have a job to go to (though I had plenty to do) and everywhere around me were festivals and events and people taking full months off work… there were no outside expectations. That, combined with some health problems (that we are figuring out and working through, thank goodness!), means I really was not my regular productive self this summer.

In the past, I would often get the “how do you get it all done?” question. People were impressed by all the projects I managed to take on, and finish. But these days it feels like I get very little done, and I’m frustrated with my own lack of internal motivation. I completely see why retired people get bored, frustrated, and their health starts to go down as their days have no structure to keep them moving. There’s got to be a healthy middle ground, doesn’t there, between the nonstop grind culture of America and the Spanish holiday attitude… somewhere?

Well, this week the daughter starts back to school and the neighbors are all back to work and I am also finding that my need for more rhythm and routine has hit a changing point. One of the things I am stitching into my day is writing and journaling. I spend about an hour at my desk, writing on my “thocky” manual keyboard (like if you turned a typical typewriter sound down with some soft cushioning and a deeper sound, that’s when the clicky-clacky turns to thocky) for an hour a day with the London Writer’s Hour, and opening my journal every day, even if it’s for five minutes, to fill a page.

And when I say fill a page, I mean lots of different things- but one that keeps coming up is really chucking it full of paper bits, all the way to the edge, or filling it mostly with paper bits from my days, and then filling any remaining space with writing. It’s not my typical manner of journaling-I am usually more minimalist in style-but this is a good exercise, and it pushes me past what I would normally do. Of course, pushing yourself past where you would normally go is often a very good practice.

And so, as we all get back into our fall rhythms, hopefully glad to have schedules and plans back into a more structured existence as I am, let’s not forget to give ourselves that time to play, to explore and practice beauty, a routine as important as anything else on our to-do list in this overwhelming world. Even as our schedules fill, it’s important to take some time, even if it is just five minutes a day, to take a deep breath and fill a page. Whatever form it takes in your own life, may the healing powers of beauty be a part of your everyday rhythm.

And now for the prompts:

Visual play: As is usually the pattern for me, actually, today we’re starting with our visual prompt. On the left side of a two-page spread, fill a whole page with papers and ephemera. Not a single square millimeter of that left side page of your journal peeking out. Fill it all. Stuff it full. Get messy. Maybe even have it spill onto the right-side page a bit. You’ll write on the right hand side but there’s no reason the two sides can’t talk to each other, or banter back and forth. Got it all filled? Okay, now we can move to the writing.

Writing prompt: Pick out a favorite song, and two or three different pens/markers, at least one of them creating a nice and thick line. While you listen to that song on repeat, write out those lyrics on the right-hand side of your two page spread. Get all angsty and expressive like a college girl just discovering the smiths. Use a fat marker or a calligraphy pen or brush pen, you know, something that can really make a mark. Maybe write a line or two of those lyrics over top of your page full of paper bits, right on top of it all. Be sure to get messy, with your writing just as you did with your visual play, and really fill the page with the lyrics.

For some of you maximalists, this set of prompts today will feel good, it will feel comfortable. For others, like me, oh boy is this a push for us. But that’s okay, remember: journals are for exploring and trying things out. Don’t like it? We can turn the page, simple as that, and have a fresh new start. A new blank page.