burnout, digital gardens, and commonplace books
I’m dealing with a bit of creative burnout right now, something that any long time readers of mine know is a semi-regular occurrence for me. I want to be one of those people who can write something every day, but the reality is I work in bursts. I’ve been having a creative burst since mid-January - inspired largely by my anger over what is happening in our country - but the tide is rapidly receding on my creative juices, and I’m feeling a bit creatively exhausted. So, writing is drying up for while, as I read and recharge and enjoy the spring storms Oklahoma is bringing this year.
I do have one thing on the burner that you’ll see more of here soon. I’ve always been interested in the concept of the blog as a commonplace book. Alan Jacobs has written about this quite a bit on his great blog, for instance, here and here. I’ve tried it out in the past over at my blog, but never found a method that worked well for me. So, I’m trying something out, and we’ll see how it goes: when I read a book, I underline and notate and just generally mark up the pages, with the intention of noting passages for future contemplation, or to use in writing.
I’ve always wanted to do a better job of collecting those, and I’m going to try it here, by having posts named as “Commonplace Book”, which will then collect passages from a particular book that I highlighted or noted. I won’t be providing commentary or opinions in these posts, but I will likely revisit some of the passages in future posts. This will mostly be a way for me to organize my thoughts from the reading I do; if you aren’t interested in reading through these collections, that’s fine. I would hope you would peruse each one a bit though; you may find something that grabs your, or piques your interest in reading a particular book.
As much as I’m writing here, I’m also constantly thinking about how to best use this online space and the audience I’ve cultivated. I’ve been struck by this post on Wild Rye about the blog as a digital garden, and I’m currently thinking about how I can make The Radical Ordinary into more of a garden, and less of a list of posts like an old blog. I’m not sure anything will come of it, but its on my mind, and you may see the fruit of it here in the future.