Words and journals

 Where are Toadwords going?

Fossicking in the undergrowth of ideas 
and swapping stories with 

rooks and rats and midwinter wrens
....that's part of what writing is for me...

and music...working with Gifts from Crows

 

Adventures in print....the last couple of years have been lively for keyboards and scribbling pads (I usually write long-hand first, or at least cover an A3 sheet with notes!). I paused to look at where my writing had gone in these months. There are my new books: Waiting for the Snow and Baba Yaga: tales of an old witch that came out this year and Sacred Animals from last year. And then there are reviews, articles, poems and bits in all sorts of other publications....These pick up that Creeping Toad principle of looking creatively and emotionally at the world around us and explore past projects or unpack ideas and possibilities or are just delighted* wanders through the woods of imagination

 

Forget-me-Not Press: online art and poetry journal from Canada: I have work in Issues 4, 5, 6 and 7

Touchstone: the journal of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids

Faith Initiative: Issue 47 June 2023: the aim of the magazine is to open windows on the beliefs and practices of people of different faiths and cultures to foster understanding and reduce racially and religiously motivated violence. 

Homecoming: Aurochs 1, 2 (2023) and 3 (2024): journal of new animist writing

Primary Geography, Autumn 2024 the Geographical Association's journal for all Early Years and Primary Teachers and is published three times a year

Northern Earth, September 2024: exploring earth mysteries in Northern UK - and further afield

Pagan Dawn: the journal of the Pagan Federation

Magnet: 2024, an article on gardens as sanctuaries - both for humans and other-than-human people. Magnet seeks to nurture Christian faith in thoughtful, challenging ways, encouraging, enabling and equipping people of all faith traditions for life. 

Natterchat: the magazine of Froglife: I've hopped (and crept) into most of the latest issues

If you are associated with a publication and would like a Toad-piece, get in touch! Email is probably easiest: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

 

And there is music! a collaboration growing over the last year with the wonderful trio Gifts from Crows has grown into a release on bandcamp of "Whisper along the wind" combining Gift's music with my words and the beautiful images of Johanna Ronn

 

* delighted: at least I enjoy writing! hope other people enjoy the reading of it all!

Opening image: a white-faced owl who spent a day with me (recovering from flying into a window!) in Malawi in about 1984!

 

 

write, scribble, sketch, glue...start a journal

build the spring into your notebook

a pencil and a notebook

Give a gift that endures

How are you planning these next few weeks?

If you are one of our essential workers, thank you. I hope you find time to rest and recover between shifts and I hope the rest of us are supporting you in any way we can

If, like the rest of us, you are in a splendid isolation, then I hope we might be able to offer some ideas to keep you going

Creeping Toad along with Stone and Water, the BabblingVagabonds and the Green Man Gallery in Buxton are going to start posting activities. For Creeping Toad, these will often be the things we would have made/done in sessions at Buxton Museum or in the library. We’ll take it in turns to post and between us offer activities that will cover a variety of ages, abilities and interests (we hope!)

We would love people to come back to us with the results of these activities; the triumphs, the disasters and the complete detours you went on. We can’t promise to post everything but we will share what we can and keep our creative community communicating!

Email: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Facebook: Creeping Toad or Stone and Water

A starting point: but now, why not start by giving something to someone else? I like journals. A mix of diary, sketchbook, scrapbook and scribbling pad, my journals generally make very little sense to anyone else but are important to me. Why not start your own? Or better still, take a moment to order a notebook and a lovely pen or some coloured pencils to send to someone else. Smart notebooks are good, something classy, or just different (black paper always feels like a treat until you loves your silver pen!)

Then use your journal as a personal routine: first thing, last thing, somewhen. Stop. 10 minutes will do (it will almost certainly grow)….Me being me, my journals are about the world around me: looking, listening, feeling the weather, the plants, the animals, history, dreams and wonders. We'll come back to nature journals over the next few weeks. I make no apology for this: your journal should go in a direction that works for you. Nothing big or profound needed: just stop and make marks on a page: words, sentences, emojis, drawings or a carefully dated blank page

leaf print

When I look at useful journal sites or books (a couple of links below) they talk casually about sketching and seem to produce wonderful art just like that. I don’t.

This is yours. Your book. Share if you want to. And do not be ashamed of the mess you make. Writing, or drawing, practice helps. If something doesn’t work. Try it again. Try something else…..

When I am making books in workshops (building little books is a different activity and also lots of fun: concertina, 1-page folds, al good fun, for another day maybe) we have a working list of “things I could do”

• Write
• Draw
• Scribble (very useful)
• Sketch
• Stick (magazines!)
• Make pockets
• Patch (coloured, patterned paper to write on)
• Cut windows
• Make pop-ups
• Add maps
• Add fold out pages
• Do rubbings
• Print (remember potato printing? Or leaves,,, more printing will follow, hang onto your Styrofoam pizza bases)
• Paint
• Stick
• Enjoy

we always bring too much stuff

Enough to get started?

Go for it….

....and persist. It takes time for this to get going. Journals can become a place for you to have a conversation with yourself or with the world or just to pause and reflect but sometimes that takes time.

Journals:

What to choose

Personally I use softbacked sketchbooks from Ryman. (no, I don't get any product placement allowance!) If I buy spiralbound notebooks I always manage to dismantle them. You could visit Papersmiths for some lovely small notebooks and beautiful fountain pens! Mayfly notebooks are just lovely but their journals are sold out just now (so many brilliant minds sharing the same idea?)...go window shopping online for lovely notebooks for someone else. Then get one for yourself! No money? Start working on scrap paper and we'll build books in a week or two....

Ideas for journal processes….

Try these sites for ideas - there are lots out there but don't spend so long looking at other sites that you don't have time for your own notebook!

Lily and Thistle

Nature Mentor

Whatever you do, no matter how beautifully or how trollish (I go for a certain boggart style myself) , your journals are your own and are wonderful for that!

Boggarts often influence my drawing and writing...untidiness accepted