Creative Videos Can Provide Inspiration
Like other people, I enjoy watching YouTube videos now and again. I’ve fine-tuned my algorithm on YouTube to show only what I want to see. I don’t watch the news, and I don’t want to see anything news-related. Yes, I know it’s like sticking my head in the sand, but for this moment head-in-sand works for me.
My YouTube feed shows slow living, artistic, writing, and BookTube videos. That’s all I follow and that’s all I watch. I enjoy videos that add something positive to my life. When I’m not writing, I read as well as pursue creative activities like playing in my mixed-media journal and journaling in various forms. Several creators on YouTube give me wonderful ideas that help me overcome creative blocks.
If you’re looking for creative inspiration, here are five YouTube channels that can spark your creativity.
Writing
I’m pretty sure anyone reading this blog knows how important writing is to me. Even though I’ve been writing for decades, it’s nice to see others talking about my favorite subject. All writers, no matter how long we’ve been at it, need inspiration from time to time.
I don’t write fantasy, but I love Brandon Sanderson’s channel. He has a great personality, and he has some videos that talk in-depth about his writing process. It’s interesting to see how he creates his fantasy worlds. Sanderson is probably one of the most prolific writers working today.
Christy is a young writer from Australia. She has a positive, upbeat personality, and she talks about writing and reading in a realistic way. She shows her experience writing her fantasy novels step by step, along with how she found her agent. She’s honest about the fact that she has a job (creating content) and that her writing has to be done around her work. I’m always happy when writers are honest about things like that. Her videos about the writing routines of famous writers, including my main man Charles Dickens and Octavia E. Butler, are some of my favorites.
Mixed Media
I love playing in my mixed-media journal. I love that the purpose of an art journal isn’t to create a work of art but to play with paint, color, and texture. If I end up making a finished product, that’s fine. If I just finger-paint, that’s fine too. It’s one of my favorite ways to spend my free time. I wrote about my experience with mixed media journaling here.
I’ve had some great ideas from watching Stephanie’s channel. If you’re new to mixed media journaling (also called art journaling), Stephanie shows step-by-step how to go about creating your pages. In every video Stephanie points out that there’s no right way to create a mixed-media page, which is what I love about her.
Creative Book Journaling
4. Mochibujo
I love watching both of these talented ladies make their book journal spreads and listening to them talk about the books they’ve read while they create. They give honest reviews about the books, which I appreciate.
The point of these creative inspiration videos is to see them as just that–inspiration. As I set up my creative book journal, I took a lot of ideas from Mochibujo, but I use her ideas in my own way.
Like Mochibujo, I set aside space for the book cover, which I print on sticker paper, and I also add how many stars I give the book using a packet of gold star stickers, with the title, author, genre, and date I finished the book, along with how many books I’ve read that year so far. I’m not keeping track of the number of books because I want to meet some arbitrary goal of reading 100 books a year. I keep track for my own curiosity.
I read 365 days a year, pretty much, and I’ve never read 100 books in a year since some of the books I read are long. For example, in 2024, I read Shogun (about 1000 pages), Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (about 800 pages), Middlemarch by George Eliot (about 800 pages), and several books in the 600+ pages range. I’ve never been afraid of long books. They take longer to finish, that’s all. Reading isn’t a race and it shouldn’t be a competition. The English teacher in me would rather you read five books a year that you engage with deeply than read 100 short books that you skimmed in order to say you read 100 books that year. In my book journal, I also add a favorite quote or two (or three) from the book–things I particularly want to remember.
Where Mochibujo uses a pen to outline this section, you can see below that I use both pen and thin washi tape. Mochibujo creates her spreads with whatever scenes she wishes. I go through my stash and try to match ideas, themes, or even the cover of the book as closely as I can with whatever papers, stamps, washi tapes, and stickers I have. That’s just a personal choice; people can create their spreads however they wish.
My creative book journal is 8 ½ x 11, the size of notebook paper. As much as I enjoy the creativity of putting the spreads together, writing about the book is the most important part for me, and I want as much space to write as possible. Sometimes I fill one page with thoughts. For some books, if I have a lot to say, I use two or even three pages. For the creative spread, I use leftover papers, stencils, washi tapes, stamps, and stickers from my scrapbooking days. I haven’t been scrapbooking since I haven’t been traveling much, so I enjoy using the supplies in my creative book journal.
I started keeping a book journal in January 2024, and I’m glad I did. I’m engaging with the books in a deeper way, actively reading, and I remember what I’ve read. There are so many books that I know I’ve read and yet I can’t remember a thing about them. Now if I want to remember something, I go back into my book journal. Sometimes I’ll flip through it just to remind myself about books I’ve read. Sometimes I’ll flip through it just to enjoy the spreads I made. It’s a wonderful feeling to look at something and know, “I made that!”
Try Them and See If You Like Them
These are just a few of the creative YouTube channels I enjoy. I’ll share some of my favorite bookish YouTube channels in another post. If you have a favorite creative YouTube channel, let me know. I’m always looking for recommendations.
