Our geography affects our actions. It simply does.
I could give you a big historical low-down on the matter (all very interesting, if you have time for some talk on island cultures, peace in Switzerland, and Alaskan ice fishermen) or I could state it matter-of-factly, based on my experiences in teaching art and writing.
You see where this is going. Matter of fact: I have watched artists, poets & writers produce wildly different writing and art simply by providing them with different kinds of paper. Post-It Notes© versus rolls of brown butcher paper. Lined versus plain. Rough versus smooth. You name it. Paper has a geography, and it affects our creative actions.
In just a couple of weeks, our Mastering the Elements of Story Workshop will begin. Maybe you have chosen that as part of your creative geography. Maybe not. If you have, it will change your creative actions, I assure you. But either way, you can give yourself the gift of a new creative geography today, on the most basic of scales: your paper choices.
Why not create a writing box (or corner, or bookshelf, or drawer)? Start simply with paper. Stock different sizes, shapes, colors, textures. Make that part of your poet’s & writer’s palette. See what comes. Then tell us about it. We want to hear your adventures.
Photo by Claire Burge. Used with permission. Post by L.L. Barkat, author of Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing
Thanks to Maureen Doallas for recommending the Moleskine notebooks in our comments! Check ’em out…
________________
Buy a year of Every Day Poems, just $5.99 — Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In February we’re exploring the theme Purple, Plum, Indigo.
The post Poets & Writers Toolkit: Paper appeared first on .