Noisy Ghost Co.

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Check it out at Noisy Ghost Co. 

I have a few journals on rotation for a few different purposes. As of March, I’ll be transitioning from a Leuchtterm1917 (gasp!) into a Traveller’s Notebook, using inserts to manage my daily bullet journal entries. The book in question is currently serving as a scrap-style memory book while I set up my bujo inserts. I finished this spread this morning, and while I’m not a calligrapher by any means, that doesn’t stop me from whipping out my brushes and some gold ink and going to town. #starwars #travelersnotebook #midori#ladyfalcons #journals #artjournals#bulletjournal #bujo #bujotravelersnotebook#bujotn #mnemosyne #noisyghostco#scrapjournal #tn #ladyfalcontravellers#polymerclay #kawaii

I’m pretty deep in wireframe country right now. I usually advise anyone to stop after their eyes start going googly from staring at a screen too long, but I rarely heed my own advice. Today was a good day: wildly productive. I’ve been working on this chunk of the Internet for the past several hours, and now I’m closing my laptop, going for a little stretch, and maybe I’ll make something that doesn’t require much brainpower. 🤪 I’m toast. #bujo #bujoinspire#bulletjournal #bujodesign #bujoux#bujouxlovers #ux #ui #webdesign#planners #bulletjournaldesign #bujoinspo 

My TBR pile never seems to get smaller. I swore I’d work through at least ten titles that are currently on my to-be-read stack before I bought any new YA, but then “The Hazel Wood” came out and I utterly lost myself. I like big books and I cannot lie. This page in my bullet journal was a challenge that I’ve failed preemptively by buying a new book, but I remain undaunted: they shall be read! #ya #books #bulletjournal #bujo #bujoinspire #reading #bookstagram #bujoideas #bujotracker #bulletjournallove #bulletjournalist #bulletjournals #bujobookstoread #bujobooks

February planning has begun in earnest. I’ve got a lot on my plate this month, including the soft launch of my pet project as well as the blog at NoisyGhost.co I sat down when my@stress level was at its peak to try and figure out what I could cram into my schedule this month, and this is what I came up with. It’s so much easier thinking with pen and ink.

Quick and dirty: how I’ve been handling my daily spreads lately on a single page. I find that when I run short on time but I need to plan out my week or my month, simpler is sometimes better. I’ve always liked a little color in my time ladders, and that’s the most involved bit of work on these types of pages. #bulletjournal #bujoinspire #bujo #bujodaily #bujodailyspread #bulletjournalcommunity #bulletjournaldailylog #bulletjournalminimalist #bulletjournalminimalism #bulletjournallove #bulletjournaling #minimalist #minimalplanner #planneraddict #planner #stationary 

Blog post planning for the new year: I like to drop topics I’m interested in exploring further into an idea bank, then once I’ve settled on a balance of themes that work with my site’s branding, I break down actionable tasks for each post. That’s some high-level “how to eat an elephant” right there.  

In August, Michaels starts putting out their Halloween decorations. In August, I started putting out mine. One of my favourite spreads for those times that I want to remind myself that “every day is Halloween.” Tempus Fugit. Memento Mori. Cemetery gravestone headers for the aspiring taphophile in her bullet journal.

Far from being a commonplace book, my bullet journal serves as an archive where I keep notes about things that inspire me. I like holding on to bits of folklore and history, because sometimes an image will spark an idea and an idea will spark a story. Featured from my November notes are “Bella in the Wych Elm,” Pluckley Village (the most haunted village in England), the Gorbals Vampire, and Pennygown Chapel.

This is where we start getting a bit granular: I don’t use mood trackers to log my highs and lows personally, but I do use one that relates to my writing projects. I find it’s helpful to log how I’m feeling while working on a particular point in a story, especially when I know I’ll have to come back later and revise the work. If I was feeling bored or frustrated while writing a scene, for example, I log where I was in the draft and whether my focus was off: I’m hoping that this will offer some extra insight later on how much work those parts of the story need while editing, and if my sentiments while writing were actually reflective of the work itself.

Have you heard of the “56 Things to do as a writer this year” list? I’ve been mulling mine over as I start preparing to write my goals and ambitions for the upcoming calendar year. I wanted to try making something a little more long-term too: this page will be the big goals I want to accomplish in my writing career, Octavia Butler style — the title header for my Writer’s Bucket List.

Real talk for the writers out there: In the aftermath of NaNoWriMo, I thought I'd start revisiting what my process looks like and how I'm applying the bullet journal system to being generative (i.e. forcing myself to develop my craft, write more words, and stay on top of things when I'm in a draft cycle.) I have a few daily practices in operation, and I'm using my bujo to guilt myself into doing more, daily (blank spaces in a tracker are anathema.) I track my "Five Things a Day" for writing fiction, which includes (1) writing (2) reading (3) craft study (4) research and (5) ideation. I'll break this down a bit: you want to be a writer? You have to write. Set a daily target and smash your keyboard until you get there. You want to be a writer? Read widely -- within your genre, outside of your genre, fiction, non-fiction, articles, criticisms, reviews. Read stuff that makes you uncomfortable, read things that inform you, and read things that scare you; read things you wouldn't consider ever reading to broaden your horizons and feed your muse. You want to be a writer professionally? Learn about your craft. Learn grammar and syntax and literary devices and story structure and excellent dialogue and character design. Learn the rules and learn how to break them. You want to be a writer? Devote time for research: watch YouTube videos or listen to Podcasts about things that interest you, and see what kind of ideas are born from being constantly, hopelessly inspired. You want to be a writer? Put the pen to paper and write down your ideas; ideas about characters and strange places or interesting turns of phrase that you snatch at from thin air when you're on the cusp of sleep. Record those sensorial impressions or vague images, and ask yourself, "What if..." Generate at least one idea a day pertaining to story -- new stories and old that are on the back burner, characters who are learning to think for themselves. I put them in a dedicated book that I return to when I'm ready to shape them into something meaningful.

Books! I love them. I read them, I collect them, I hoard them. My biggest problem in life right now is that I'm a) running out of shelf space b) need more time to myself to read c) have a TBR pile that is teetering on my night stand, or d) I am not reading right now. There's also a fifth option to choose from in this multiple choice: e) all of the above.

I’m still parsing through a very large backlog of dailies. This is another favourite dailies spread from June. I’d received a very large cache of origami star paper and, armed with an equally large apothecary jar, went to town. This layout has a built-in secret, though: Noodler’s Blue Ghost fountain pen ink. I was hell bent on not just hanging the stars, but getting them to glow under black light as well.

Not sure why I feel like I'm on the cusp of things, but I reach these points in life or in my career when things get a little fraught and the wind starts blowing in a different direction, tugging at my clothes. We're not clouds getting pushed along. The most stubborn of individuals resist change like it was a bad gust of wind (Hi! Meet... me. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.) I dug up these #bujo dailies from a while back partially because I really liked the headers, and partially because I was squinting into the winds of change at the time and they were throwing all kinds of salt and grit at me; keeping me from seeing the path under my feet. Where the hell else do you go if you don't stumble off into the bracken once and a while? How many cuts and scrapes would you have missed if not for those adventures you had when you thought you'd gotten lost?

Hi! I'm Bedlam! My mom is letting me haunt this space. She wanted to let you know that she's working on a SUPER SECRET PROJECT that involves her #bulletjournal and #travellersnotebook, but I wanted to introduce myself first. She says I'm her "polty-geist", but I don't know what that means. I'm here to help if something seems too spooky because mom likes creepy stuff: macabre, horror, oddities, wonders, and nightmares... but she also really likes working with paper and ink. She wants you to know that she's getting ready to start sharing some of the things she's been experimenting with in her #bujo and how it's helped her writing. Won't you come and play with us?