“The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It’s not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.”
— Augusten Burroughs

Before we write the pages of this new year- I wanted to real talk with you for a moment.

I am constantly documenting my days with photos. Whether it’s my phone camera or my big girl camera- chances are I end each month with a few shots that capture what made these days a little special. I bet you do too!

The hard part, for me, is putting the words to the stories and then the words and stories into a layout.

That can create a log jam of creativity and the next thing you know I’m playing catch up with my memory keeping and that’s not really fun.

If we are to be the Authors of the stories of our days- then we must write.  Sometimes our stories will be told with a photo, sometimes with words, sometimes just a quote or a phrase- but no matter what it has our voice, our perspective and it needs to be documented.

Here’s a trick I started a few months back and I have to say- I’m really happy with it.  It helps me get about 90% of my stories pulled together with photos and words and I can do it almost anywhere. Sometimes I don’t even type!

I set up a new (secret!) email account for myself, then:

• A few times a week I scroll through my photos on my phone and when a photo hits me as a moment I’d like to push pause on I email it to this secret account.
• I tell the story in the body of the email- (I usually use the dictate function so I don’t have to play with the keyboard)
• I follow the following format for my subject line: ScrapIt | (month) (subject)
• So- ScrapIt | Jan | New Year   just something that will sort orderly and let me choose which stories I want to tell easily.
• When I get time to scrap, I open my emails, download the photos and copy the journaling that I’ve already written. Whether I use it word for word- or just rely on it as a story prompt- having thoughts already written down makes the creative process so much easier!