International Fake Journal Month
What is International Fake Journal Month?
International Fake Journal Month is the brain child of Roz Stendahl, who from time to time teaches visual journaling and bookbinding courses at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. She tries to fill up a journal with writing and art (sketching, painting, collage, etc.) each month. One April, she decided to write a journal from the POV of someone other than herself, recording daily events that hadn’t happened.
While Roz would capture April in more pictures than words, I am a fiction writer, so I decided to write a story in journal entries instead. I made my first solo attempt at International Fake Journal Month in April 2007. It can be found starting here.
I tried again in 2008, but I wandered a bit too far from the original point of keeping a journal for a month and tried writing a series of short stories instead. This didn’t work out as well, though I did finish a short story and start two others.
One of the reasons that National Novel Writing Month is so successful is the sense of community and the ability to encourage others to complete the full month and be encouraged in return. This is what I’ve been missing the past two years, and what I would like to inject into the upcoming April 2009 round.
Anyone else want to play?
How can I play along at home?
At the moment, we have no shiny forums, no widgets, and no t-shirts. I will, however, put together a page of links to participant blogs and resources for ideas. You don’t need to tell a story, either. You might want to write a poem a day, or draw a picture a day. Any of these options are valid examples of journaling.
But I don’t have a blog! (Or: I don’t want to do this on my blog!)
There are plenty of free blogs available. For starters, check out the following sites:
See the links page for participant blogs.
