I’ve been a fan of Austin Kleon for a while now — I’ve purchased (and read!) all of his books, I subscribe to his (wonderful) weekly newsletter, and I try (but don’t always succeed) to keep up with his blog. He did a self-directed zine challenge — while the pandemic was gearing up — that is worth looking up.
A while ago, he highlighted a simple project that he’s been working on: filling a five-year, one-line-a-day diary with quotes. I’ve been a fan of collecting quotes for many years, and it seemed like a somewhat easy, low commitment thing to do, so…
I started it in April (May?), and backfilled it to catch up (and move ahead a little bit). And I’ve found that when I go looking for quotes specifically for this project, they’re overwhelmingly quotes I’ve seen for years, almost all attributed to old white guys. (In other words, the quotes filled in for first few months of this year are pretty milquetoast. Not the point of the project, for sure, but a way to catch up for this year.)
To counter that, I’m trying to read more, so I can find quotes that I haven’t seen before, at least some of which are attributed to women, black women and other women of color, LGBTQ+ authors and activists. I love an inspirational quote as much as the next person, but I’m trying to spend more time being challenged. When I see something that catches my eye, I’ll send it to myself or make a note on my phone.
Depth of field not great — but you get the idea.
It’s a small thing, easy to do, and it’s creating a record of the things I’m reading and reflecting what I’m thinking about. Big H/T and shoutout to Austin Kleon for a wonderful idea!
Carmen Yount 