a prompt to get inspired

A guest post by Katie Clemons.

My grandma didn’t think she had a story worth telling.

I started asking her little questions about her life (how my grandfather proposed, how she paid for college and earned her degree unlike few women of her time, what happened the first time she was in a state where liquor was legal…). As if a piece of her heart opened to the world, my grandma had story after story to share. I think she was shocked to discover these pieces that were still in her. They were pieces that made her who she is today at 93 years old.

Do you have a story?

I suspect you do. Your art and creative business are filled with little bits. Sometimes we don’t even realize how these moments in our lives shape us until we’re prompted.

If I handed you a blank page and said, “Now write your life story,” do you think you could do it? It’s a pretty overwhelming task. It’s also why blank journals often become records of all our sadness and frustration.

Use writing prompts to expand your creativity. See how little questions and reflections can open your heart. I think you’ll find your inner voice speaking up in journal pages. It’s going to nudge you to dream bigger dreams and celebrate more of the victories of being you.

Interviewing my grandma forever changed my life. Listening to her stories, I started wondering about all of the other women who have stories deep inside of them. I created an online journal shop, Gadanke. The store is filled with writing prompt books, travel journals, baby books, love letters, and places to unearth your inner self. It’s my creative small business, and it has given me wings. Much more importantly, I’ve been helping other people find their wings just by helping them look deep inside themselves and helping them celebrate. A big favorite? Gratitude journals where you can just focus on all the really amazing gratitudes in life.

Try journal writing with prompts. I promise you that your journals can become something so much more this way.

When you have passion for what you create and dream in your small business, write about it. Write about the fears trying to keep your potential locked up. Write about plans. And above all, write about you.

You have a story that is so very worth hearing.

Katie Clemons is American; her husband is German. They split their time between a 480 square foot apartment in Berlin, Germany and – get this – a house made out of hundreds of recycled tires in the Rocky Mountains. They ride their bikes just about anywhere they can, eat their vegetables, fly small airplanes, and have an enormous passion for seizing life. Katie’s shop, Gadanke, offers inspiring and handmade travel journals, personal diaries, baby books, and Christmas journals with 100% recycled paper, Italian papers, and embellishments.