Anchoring my thoughts with a sketch
I keep most of my notes in text files. This is great for searching, but the sameness of the typography makes things blur together.
I have to read a lot to remember what things felt like, and I still feel so much is missing. Some people can evoke lush word-pictures. I'm not there yet.
Lately I've been giving myself more time to draw, to colour, to doodle.
Today: A+ kept giving me hugs as we walked home from the supermarket.
Even my simple sketches give me a surprisingly good sense of what I felt, what I cared about.
I made a font from my handwriting, but real handwritten text says so much more.
Comics are very expressive. I wonder how they do that. How do they draw something so specific and yet so resonant?
I take a tangled thought, coax a bit of it into a drawing, and see where that takes me.
"A drawing is simply a line going for a walk." - Paul Klee
Sometimes I do an audio braindump to feel my way around it or to capture lots of details. That gives me a wall of text. Too much, and at the same time, not enough.
I might try to make an outline and expand it, but I often lose steam.
I like organizing and fleshing out the sketch Drawing it is fun.
Then I can write the text. I often add lots of details and links. Sometimes I feel lost in the weeds. The sketch becomes my map.
I want to finish writing so that you can see my sketch! (and so it makes sense to you and my future self)
Sometimes I just keep playing with the drawing until something interesting emerges.