About five years ago I started writing almost every morning and it’s helped my photography and my business. Below I explain how.
“The Artist Way”
“The Artist Way” is a book/workbook by Julia Cameron. It had been recommended to me by a fellow artist (or two). When I first got it I read through it just to get an idea of what it was about, what it could help me with and if it were something I would really invest any time into beyond just reading it. I will still go back and ‘do’ the exercises at some point but one of the first things she asks you to do is write what she calls Morning Pages.
Every morning I write three pages on 8.5-by-11-inch paper. I started last June. Initially, I thought it would help me deal with my mother’s illness but it has become part of my daily routine and so much more.
Ideas
One of the things that writing daily helps with is ideas. When you sit down and write whatever comes to mind some days you feel like the fountain of ideas will never stop and others you may just have one or two. The thing is, now you have them down on paper. When I’m doing my writing I make quick notes in the margins so I know I can go back and find certain ideas to act on them. For instance, when I have ideas for articles for Photofocus I put a quick “PF” in the margin, “Blog” for a blog idea, “See!” for my mentorship program, etc. I can then go back to those notes to remember what ideas I had and take action on them.
If you’re working on a project for a client it’s a great way to get all of the ideas for the project out of your head. Just spill it all out, whatever comes to mind and from that other ideas happen, write those down too. Give yourself permission to just do a mind dump on paper. Working on a photoshoot? Writing is an excellent way to get all of the ideas you have out as well, backdrops, locations, logistics, equipment … anything that comes to mind that has to do with that shoot, write it down.
Problem-solving
Sometimes no matter how much we try to think of a solution to a problem — maybe with a client, our equipment, our software, editing or a particular shot — we can’t seem to come up with a solution. Try writing it out. Don’t hold back and nothing is off-limits. You never know what wild idea may come out of your head that will fix the issue you’re having.
Clear your head
Oftentimes on Monday mornings, your mind is already racing with all the things you want to create this week. Stop. Sit down and write. Just dump it all out on the page. This will help you start your week off with a clear head, and a good idea of what you want to accomplish and you’ll feel much less anxious about everything that was going on in your mind.
I never thought I would still be writing almost daily three years after starting, but I am. It has helped me stay more focused, plan, follow through and come up with ideas for my own work and business that I’m not sure I would have otherwise had. Give it a try, start today. Let me know how it goes.
Awesome. This is something that I will start doing. I kind of scratch notes here and there but nothing really cogent.Thanks Lauri!
It’s been helpful to me in so many ways, Gary. Even if you just have your notes in one place is helpful…I tend to write things on squares of paper that end up all over. At least with the daily morning pages I know I can search (manually haha) through them to find things.
A couple of years ago I started a blog, with the idea that if I could generate some traffic it would boost my domain’s search rank and maybe my photos would get found. Well, that plan hasn’t really succeeded; but I found I sort of liked writing the blog. I think there’s something about it that focuses my mind and lets me see my photos more objectively. I have more of a sense of whether other people might find a particular photo interesting.
Thanks for your comment Jim. This is also a very useful practice. This past year I committed myself to write 2 blogs posts per week, one for each site I have. It’s a great way to get those images out of the archives, process them and put them out there somewhere.
Getting traffic to your site is a whole other article!
I keep a journal and write in it daily, I write in it every day, usually late mornings and it has a little bit of everything in it, health (pain levels, new symptoms, flare or not.) Ideas of photo ideas, places to look up, Ideas of things to shoot, for example Old Steel Railroad Bridges, Old Train Tracks. anything to do with old saw mills or logging camps. all this goes into my journal. I also have a separate Journal where I write down where each photo was taken, the date, weather conditions, if its a “thing” I look up… Read more »
That’s amazing Sassy! Keep it up. I used to write down my image information when I shot film. That notebook went with me everytime I took my camera out.