Edith here, during the busy month of May! The Saturday night activity at the recent Wicked Cozy Authors retreat was to create a vision board, so I thought I’d share how that went for me.
I’d never made a vision board, but several others among us had, and reported that they’d had success in having certain visions come to fruition. So I said, Sure! We each brought a stack of magazines to cut words and pictures out of. Liz, Jessie, and Julie brought boards, markers, glue sticks. Barb had a collection of stickers.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but Julie said, “Cut out what speaks to you.” Okay, I could do that. It was fun to see the wide array of magazines we each brought to the table, from self-help to mystery publications to the newspaper’s Sunday magazine to a community college catalog (admittedly on nice paper with cool graphics), and more. It was fun to sit around leafing through, cutting out, and chatting as we passed along the publications.
Then we got out the boards, glue, and stickers and began assembling. Yes, adult beverages might have come out, too. Hey, it was Saturday night!
Everyone’s turned out different, of course. At the end we shared some of the details of how our visions were manifested in paper. I think mine (an in-progress version visible in this picture) came out more a statement of where I am and what I value rather than where differently I might like to aim my life, but I’m fine with that. And I included a couple of aspirations – Anthony Award, anyone?
Readers, have you ever created a vision board? In paper or digitally (because, of course, that’s another way to go)? Did you see direct results?
Looks like a lot of fun to create. Do Pinterest boards count as vision boards? I have quite a few of those. I enjoy finding things I love and putting them all together in one place.
Hope you all had a fun, productive time on the retreat.
I guess pinterest can be one kind of vision board! What’s your pinterest handle?
I believe it’s Laurie I.
It sounds like fun but for me it would be time I should be writing. 🙂 However! In my new book, Brooklyn Wars, out in August, I have a set of them! The teen age daughter of my protagonist Erica has a big school research project and makes them to get inspired. Of course it relates to a subplot…and Erica’s work…and …Sorry for the BSP but the coincidence was too hard to resist)
I love those books, Triss, and look forward to reading about vision boards and subplots!
I keep a constantly evolving one over my desk at all times. It’s a 3’x5′ corkboard, filled with a hodgepodge of images that relate to my series as well as images that inspire me and mementos and family pictures and small souvenirs (plus a few appointment reminder cards and checks to deposit at the bank). It’s not static, and I do look at it daily.
I subscribe to Julie’s idea of choosing what speaks to you–but that gives a whole new meaning to hearing voices, and I’ve got one noisy board!
I bet you do, Sheila!
Never done it, Edith, but it’s an interesting thought on so many levels!
I thought so, too!
This looks like a super fun group activity!
Years ago, when I was trying to figure out my life, post-children, a friend suggested I make a “dream board”. In her version there were different aspects to it: concrete visions of how I wanted things in my life to be different; goals, both personal and professional; and photos of me doing things I wanted to be doing, like walking on the beach. (This involved using tiny photos of my head getting pasted onto bodies of women from magazines.)
A couple years later, I looked at the board and realized that everything on it had happened, in one way or the other, right down to a near-replica of the kitchen on the board. That’s despite the fact that the board had been gathering dust behind a chest for all that time.
So I guess, be super careful about what you put on the board. The power of suggestion is amazing.
I might have to do another one, because I didn’t really do mine that way!
I love this project. My paper artist friend Carol Maurer does vision board and soul collage classes (often with wine), so I have a couple of these inspiring me every day. It’s interesting what visuals speak to you when you’re flipping through magazines.
Agree, Ramona. I remember you came back from a retreat or a class with a board not too long ago.
Pinterest is about as far as I might go; too many other things to do and I don’t get many actual magazines these days.
Yes, I was hard put to find magazines with pictures!
It was a fun project and mine is staring me in the face when I’m writing in my office.
Mine is, too, Sherry!
Reblogged this on Hobby Reads.
Thanks!
I’m having flashbacks to having to create graphics in high school English for books we’d read. Considering how unartistic I am, it was always painful.
There should always be alternatives, Mark!
I’ve thought about creating a vision board, but have never gotten around to it. Maybe I could make a procrastination board. And I say YES to you getting an Anthony Award!
Thanks, Betsy!
I am shocked, shocked I tell you to think of you ladies taking scissors to a mystery magazine! What is the world coming to?