Visual Goal-Setting for Writers
Like most of us writers, I love words. But as a visual artist as well, I love images too. I’ve found a writing secret about them. When words and images are put together, physically or in the writing process, they enhance the meaning, impact, and delivery of what you’re discovering or expressing.
For instance, your goals for this new year. You write down your goals, yes. But do you also add images to make the words more magical, more powerful?
If this intrigues you, read on.
Start with words
Most writers journal. (Check out the links in the exercise below for an incredible journey through famous writers’ notebooks and journals.) I’ve journaled since I was in high school. Journaling, as a writer, isn’t just a way to track story ideas. It opens up my less linear thoughts, accessing ideas I would never have landed on otherwise. Have you experienced this?
I have my first journal from 1971, a black sketchbook with stickers on the outside. It gives a very strange look into the young girl I was then, all the angst and yearning. My journals get filled fast—I write every day, a dependable ritual that keeps me sane. And instead of hardback sketchbooks I’m using soft cover throw-away’s. I don’t overthink my journaling. I just take dictation from my inner worlds, in a way.
Julia Cameron told us about Morning Pages in her well-known book, The Artist’s Way, and I basically do them. About 3 pages each day. It’s predictable that around the third page I begin to bypass the linear and access the unexpected.
To do that even more, I use images.
Collage your journal—cover or interior pages
Sometimes words don’t capture the idea that’s coming through during my Morning Pages, and I have to use images. Rough sketches of a character’s weird hat or the view of their kitchen. A collage of photos torn from magazines or printed from the internet to nail down some view out their window. Sometimes it’s just a swatch of color that expresses an emotion.
I also love to use collage on my journal covers. I’ve mentioned before in these newsletters my New Years Day ritual—inviting friends to hang out over good food and music and a table full of collage supplies to create vision boards for the new year with glue sticks, scissors, stickers, magazine photos, colored pens, glitter.
My vision boards end up on the covers of a stack of blank journals I buy at the beginning of each year. They become images of my future.
Indirect goal setting with images
This year I have specific goals for my writing life and I talked about them a few weeks ago in a post on goal setting. What I don’t have—or didn’t until I began the collages—were images of this future I’m wishing for myself. When I collage, I gather those images. It’s a very subconsciously driven activity. I simply choose pictures that draw me. I paste them in a way that pleases my eye.
Here’s what happens: The journals, completed with their collaged covers, sit in my writing room until I need them. Then I pull out one to start and I’m always, always amazed at how the collaged cover connects with where I am that month in my goals.
Words are limited. Images go further, beyond the conscious mind, pulling in memory and inspiration I didn’t count on. For instance, one of the images might trigger an idea for a character or setting, and I will write to that picture. Or a color will feel incredibly relevant to a place I’m working on in a story. Whatever I am going through when I select one of the journals months after making those magic collages, somehow connects.
A good example: I took my last journal for 2024 from the pile I’d created last January. It was October when I opened to the first page of that final journal, and it happened a few days before our family left on a 2500 mile roadtrip. On the cover were photos of trails, highways, travel, and the words “Enjoy the adventure.”
Almost eerie, yes? At the time I made that cover, I had no idea we’d take a roadtrip that month.
Intrigued? Pretty interesting, isn’t it. I totally believe that images are powerful in this way to the creative spirit. And if you want to try this new type of goal setting for your new year, since we are still in January when all kinds of resolutions are made, here’s the exercise for this week.
Your weekly writing exercise
Here are the two links I mentioned above: A great article from Lit Hub on the journals of famous writers and another from The Marginalian on authors who believe in the benefit of journal-keeping. Worth a read, both of them.
If you’re already convinced and keep a journal or writing notebook, here are the steps to collage its cover this week. (Consider the magic of this simple act of visual goal-setting: as you choose images for your writing journal, some part of you knows what you’ll need as visual support—now or months from now.)
From the internet (Unsplash is a great resource) or print magazines, collect 10-15 images, photos, color swatches, or other visuals.
Find a journal that needs a collaged cover. It can be one you’ve saved for the future or one you’re using now. It can be your writing notebook or your dream journal. Whatever!
Tear, cut, arrange, and paste the images in a way that is pleasing to you. Glue sticks work well since you can remove and redo for a while if you want.
When finished, cover with strips of clear packing tape.
Share your questions and insights!
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash