Made a zine about joy
My writing group prompt was 'joy' and I went a bit overboard in the brainstorming. I said to myself "I can't do all of them" and then in fact did 'do' almost all the ideas by putting them in a zine. I'm going to get kicked out because I keep making zines instead of actually writing. (I'm not. I hope.)
First thought on the prompt was about Barbara Ehrenreich's book Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy. It has one of my favourite quotes of all time, right at the end:
the samba school turned into a crowd and the crowd turned into a momentary festival. There was no "point" to it - no religious overtones, ideological message, or money to be made - just the chance, which we need much more of on this crowded planet, to acknowledge the miracle of our simultaneous existence with some sort of celebration.
The 'miracle of our simultaneous existence' is something I think about a lot. I might even write a post about this, consider yourself warned.
It also put me in mind of Ingrid Fetell Lee's book, Joyful, which I have also read, and her TED Talk Where joy hides and how to find it.
In an attempt to avoid being kicked out by my writing group I included a couple of pages of creative writing.
I feel joy a lot. Joy as in delight. I have worked to cultivate the ability to get excited about the little things. Actively finding joy. But also there's that deeper emotion, behind joy, of happiness and contentment. And then behind that, feeling alive. It's the 'feeling very alive' part I try to concentrate on more.
I don't know why I thought about a zoetrope, but I did, then I thought about the significantly simpler to make thaumatrope. So I put a little one of them in and thought I might whip the idea out with the niblings some time. That would be fun.
Wondered briefly how I can make finding joy into a game. Would it be a journalling prompt game? A Consequences or Exquisite corpse style game where people add a line or word about joy?
The plan was to have a colour cover and insert but that got tricky with the printing. So I ditched that. It takes its colour cues from The Snail by Matisse, which also gets some coverage. To add joy for myself - or at least minimise despair - none of the pages go full bleed so I didn't have to slice any edges. It's A6, so one slice only.
Problems: I bodged the pages a bit - I had a last-minute shuffle and ended up with an unhelpful number but it was too late to write two more pages. And just generally it always feels a bit flat. Need to get on that graphic design studying. It's all a learning experience. In a rare moment of restraint I opted to call it Joyride, rather than Joygasm.
