Category: books

10 tips on how to journal

Journaling is a great activity: it helps you get creative and think about your feelings and emotions. It reprents a moment in which you think about yourself, and allow your thoughts to get alive.

On the other side, journaling can get hard at times: when you lack inspiration or feel overwhelmed, writing or sketching something on a page can become difficult. In this article, you’ll find a few tips to help you through these moments.

  • Take inspiration from a magazine or a newspaper. Magazines and newspapers are great tools to organize the visual layout of your pages. Don’t just copy something, but try to rielaborate it through your own visions.
  • Use pictures, post-its and sketches to fill up the space. At times, what we have to write just doesn’t cover two whole pages. It’s ok to use stuff that’s not completely related to your topic, it’s your journal, you don’t owe anyone an explanation.
  • Don’t stress over something that’s not perfect. Nobody’s perfect, we are all humans, and perfection is an ideal noone will ever achieve. It’s ok if your writing isn’t as cute as usual today, or if your sketch didn’t come out the way you wanted it to. Art isn’t perfect, and that’s what makes it meaningful.
  • Choose a main color for every page. Colors are what makes your journal visually attractive. Whether it’s black and white (yes, I know they actually aren’t colors) or pink and yellow, colors attract people and please the eye.
  • Go floral. Don’t set limits to flowers: they keep you in a good mood and help you fill up space, they’re easy to find in magazines and nice to draw.
  • Put some effort in the typo: change it from time to time, try out different styles and don’t be afraid of using colors and forms. Working on the typo is actually really pleasant: it helps you relax and keeps you busy while processing your thoughts and organizing your ideas for the pages.
  • Take inspiration from your surroundings and the people you meet. Inspiration comes from the most different elements: from a feeling, a smile, a landscape, an object. Don’t underestimate anything and value every little thing of your surroundings.
  • Listen to some music and sit outside while journaling, or sip some coffee, it will all help you get into the right mood and let out that little madness that’s typical of an artist.
  • Don’t force yourself into journaling if you don’t feel like it. Trying to fill out your to-do list is great, but remember that, at times, you just won’t feel like doing anything. Rest, get out with your friends, watch TV, it’s ok not to always stick to your plans.
  • Don’t be afraid of trying. Write the poem that came to your mind yesterday, draw that female figure: who care if it’s not perfect? It’s your own journal, your own choiche. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, you cannot improve without experience.

10 narrative books to see the world with different eyes

Your mind needs to be fed just as your body does. As a big fan of books, here’s a list of ten books that you absolutely need to read and that will help you see the world with different eyes. Most of them are classics, well, I guess there’s a reason they are.

Most of these books have different layers of meanings, so be careful while reading them:

  • The secret garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I had read it as a kid and absolutely loved it. Recently I decided to read it again and found out there was more to discover than what I had perceived as a 9-year-old.
  • Invisible cities by Italo Calvino. This is the only book, except The secret garden, that I’ve read twice. It’s my all-time favourite and I could not let it out of my list. It’s a book about Marco Polo, an Italian tradesman, and his conversations with Kublai Khan about the cities he has visited.
  • 1984 by George Orwell. I don’t have much to say: an incredible classic, that shapes your political views and helps you think on your own in this world.
  • The alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read it a lot ago and have confused memories about it, but what I surely remember is the feeling I got at the end: absolutely a must.
  • The little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The French writer had a simple narrative style, that’s comprehensible for everyone, but that hides all the deepest meanings of life.
  • Into the wild by Jon Krakauer. A biographical book about Alexander Supertramp’s incredible trip to Alaska and the people he met along the way.
  • The bell jar by Sylvia Plath. Not sure if this is a classic, but you should definitely give it a read. It’s a semi-autobiographical novel by the American poet, mainly describing her thoughts through the events of her teenage years.
  • The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini. A great book to understand the reality of Afghanistan, which looks so distant from us but is, in fact, so close, and the characteristics of a true friendship.
  • Lolita by Vladimir Vladimirovič Nabokov. A disturbed love-story between a grown-up man and a young girl, through the eyes of the protagonist, that makes you question your values and views.
  • The old man and the sea by Hernest Hemingway. One of the greatest books of all times, through a simple, linear story, Hemingway was able to describe both a great friendship and a though character, withouth ever mentioning emotions directly.