When I was a kid, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” left a lasting impression on me.

The image that was burned in my mind was the journal of doctor Jones, Indy’s father. The entire story was about the character searching for a treasure based on the clues hand-written in that leather bound book. Scrawly notes, drawings, loose leaves stapled in, Jones’s diary was a veritable mess, and yet an unvaluable recourse. It contained not only his knowledge, but his life, his feelings, his art. So I grew up wanting one day to have such a diary for myself, stained with coffee marks, so that one day someone might look at it for knowledge, or for history.

Maybe this idea was in the back of my mind when I started writing my “rants” (blog was not a word yet at that time), which I kept for a very long time, and brought many friends and changes into my life. But I would long, from time to time, for a physical book, marked with use and smelling like old words. Once someone who knew about this dream of mine gave me a notebook. But there was too much of that person in that book, and unfortunately it eventually joined my stack of unfinished projects.

Last week I was talking to a friend about this, and was encouraged to take up paper journaling again. To avoid putting too much pressure in these ideas, I was encouraged to only write a sentence a day – a key sentence to express how I was feeling. Of course I couldn’t do it like that. “New Idea Passion” struck in, and I was doodling the entire weekend in that notebook. The second idea was to take a summary of what I wrote and use it to write blog posts twice a week. That at least I am doing right, as I spent a significant portion of my time writing about writing.

Maybe it had an effect. Or maybe it was the barbecue/camping I went to, but I was quite energetic today at work.

See you tomorrow!

Also a link: a cool short story that won the Hugo award this year: “Cat Pictures Please”
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_15/