Never heard of IFJM? Neither had I, until I started reading Roz Stendahl’s blog. Every April she hosts (sponsors? facilitates? masterminds?) a brilliant idea to make a journal you would not normally make. You can choose to pretend to be someone else doing the journal, you can work on something you don’t normally do, and you can just have fun. It’s all about exploration. Because who cares if it’s successful? It’s fake!

I’m going to try to join in the fun. I’ve got my journal, a spiral bound Daler-Rowney watercolor book, bought on sale. It’s got 25 pages, so it should last about a month. I’m going to watercolor the pages beforehand, because this is something I’m not very good at. I like to plan and plan obsessively before I even start a painting. I’m going to try to break out of that. Then I’ll use pencil and pen for the drawings.

My theme is going to be divergent thinking, because, again, it’s something I’m not very good at. I’ve found a good website that offers some strategies for creative  thinking. Hopefully their instructions will help. And I’ll lean on my Mathemetician heavily for help, as he’s excellent at the sport of wild-thought voyages.

And I’m going to add another ripple to it: The person writing it is going on a trip, to the land of Divergencia (yeah, silly, I know, but who cares? It’s fake!) so that I have something on which to hang my hat. Or wear my hat. Or just dance around my hat.

Where will I find the time? Well, there is an hour every morning that I normally spend surfing the net, reading blogs. To try to break that routine, I’m going to jet off to Divergencia during that hour.

Bon Voyage!