VI.
Misconceptions.
A Digital Garden is not a blog or curation round-up. It’s easy to have an audience in your head watching you document anything, and sometimes you’ll start to write your Notes with those readers in mind. In this case, it’s just more useful to write without that reader—as if nobody is ever going to read this stuff except for you.
The two main things that I’ve seen Digital Gardening get confused with are blogs and those curation roundups of things that people have consumed recently.
A Digital Garden can be a tool that helps you create a blog, but you must set aside the premature performance and judgment. It’s really hard to do that when you’re thinking about your garden as a final product—like a blog.
And while curation is helpful, it’s packaging up another product and putting it out there; it disregards how that piece affected you. You’re not seeing more of yourself by just spitting out all of the things that you’ve observed and saying, look, these are the things I saw this week.
With Digital Gardening, I’m not talking about growing the garden that you put on your front lawn just to impress your neighbors. This is the garden that’s in the back that you’re experimenting with—you’re seeing if you can actually keep those flowers alive. Digital Gardening is about ensuring you are giving yourself the tools to step out of the role of consumer and into the role of creator.
You should also go back and read your own Notes. Remind yourself of what you were thinking. Reading back that note just now—that’s the first time that I’ve read that it since I wrote it. And I’m like, “Well, I had that thought. Post that thought, girl!”
This is not just for writers.There can be a misconception that this is only a valuable process for writers, especially the Main Notes and mini-essays from your findings.
The thing is, writing is thinking. This is not just about having a bunch of little mini-essays that you can one day stitch together for a post. Getting to the Main Notes is a way to observe your thought process for your next project. So you can become more attuned to your own obsessions, to where your mind goes. To develop your taste.
You’ll be guided towards your next project, whether it’s a painting or a book. We might believe the process of making is different between a painting and a book, but this comment from the first Digital Gardening episode is such a great foil to that idea:“One of my art professors talks about this. He urged us to document things, images that captivated us—cracks on the sidewalk, pieces of trash that you find in cities across the world. Art gallery visits, your favorite colors, what you ate, textures of the city, etc. He says whatever draws your eye is sort of like your subconscious mind making inquiries and connections between those things. He talked about this curating curiosities, and it really stuck with me. He said, instead of using Pinterest for inspo, use the world around you. He said, each of us is a walking curatorial board. The concept of Digital Gardening reminds me of that.”
All of this is about following your curiosities.
Some people are more inspired by words. Some are more inspired by images. Some are more inspired by sounds. These things will become clear to you. Regardless of your medium of choice, Digital Gardening is helpful in the creative process because writing is thinking, and you need to be thinking about what you’re seeing in order to create something “new.”
Don’t write about everything—and not only about what you like.I used to look at Digital Gardening as a blanket practice to do with everything that I was consuming. I was getting really frustrated, because I would start taking Notes on an essay, and then get halfway through and realize, there is nothing of substance here for me to take notes on.
I’ve found with time that the process that often works for me is consuming something in full first, and then going back and taking Notes. If you’ve been trying to get into the habit of Digital Gardening but it’s just not working for you, I recommend revisiting something from the past that you know that you were obsessed with. Your interest is clearly there.
I also take Notes on things that I really don’t enjoy. I find it interesting when you don’t really enjoy something; that’s the critic in you. I can keep up with Digital Gardening because I’m only taking Notes on things that are interesting to me.
But sometimes some of the stuff that you consume is just not interesting; taking Notes is just going to feel like a drag. Don’t make yourself do that.
A Digital Garden is not a blog or curation round-up. It’s easy to have an audience in your head watching you document anything, and sometimes you’ll start to write your Notes with those readers in mind. In this case, it’s just more useful to write without that reader—as if nobody is ever going to read this stuff except for you.
The two main things that I’ve seen Digital Gardening get confused with are blogs and those curation roundups of things that people have consumed recently.
A Digital Garden can be a tool that helps you create a blog, but you must set aside the premature performance and judgment. It’s really hard to do that when you’re thinking about your garden as a final product—like a blog.
And while curation is helpful, it’s packaging up another product and putting it out there; it disregards how that piece affected you. You’re not seeing more of yourself by just spitting out all of the things that you’ve observed and saying, look, these are the things I saw this week.
With Digital Gardening, I’m not talking about growing the garden that you put on your front lawn just to impress your neighbors. This is the garden that’s in the back that you’re experimenting with—you’re seeing if you can actually keep those flowers alive. Digital Gardening is about ensuring you are giving yourself the tools to step out of the role of consumer and into the role of creator.
You should also go back and read your own Notes. Remind yourself of what you were thinking. Reading back that note just now—that’s the first time that I’ve read that it since I wrote it. And I’m like, “Well, I had that thought. Post that thought, girl!”
This is not just for writers.There can be a misconception that this is only a valuable process for writers, especially the Main Notes and mini-essays from your findings.
The thing is, writing is thinking. This is not just about having a bunch of little mini-essays that you can one day stitch together for a post. Getting to the Main Notes is a way to observe your thought process for your next project. So you can become more attuned to your own obsessions, to where your mind goes. To develop your taste.
You’ll be guided towards your next project, whether it’s a painting or a book. We might believe the process of making is different between a painting and a book, but this comment from the first Digital Gardening episode is such a great foil to that idea:“One of my art professors talks about this. He urged us to document things, images that captivated us—cracks on the sidewalk, pieces of trash that you find in cities across the world. Art gallery visits, your favorite colors, what you ate, textures of the city, etc. He says whatever draws your eye is sort of like your subconscious mind making inquiries and connections between those things. He talked about this curating curiosities, and it really stuck with me. He said, instead of using Pinterest for inspo, use the world around you. He said, each of us is a walking curatorial board. The concept of Digital Gardening reminds me of that.”
All of this is about following your curiosities.
Some people are more inspired by words. Some are more inspired by images. Some are more inspired by sounds. These things will become clear to you. Regardless of your medium of choice, Digital Gardening is helpful in the creative process because writing is thinking, and you need to be thinking about what you’re seeing in order to create something “new.”
Don’t write about everything—and not only about what you like.I used to look at Digital Gardening as a blanket practice to do with everything that I was consuming. I was getting really frustrated, because I would start taking Notes on an essay, and then get halfway through and realize, there is nothing of substance here for me to take notes on.
I’ve found with time that the process that often works for me is consuming something in full first, and then going back and taking Notes. If you’ve been trying to get into the habit of Digital Gardening but it’s just not working for you, I recommend revisiting something from the past that you know that you were obsessed with. Your interest is clearly there.
I also take Notes on things that I really don’t enjoy. I find it interesting when you don’t really enjoy something; that’s the critic in you. I can keep up with Digital Gardening because I’m only taking Notes on things that are interesting to me.
But sometimes some of the stuff that you consume is just not interesting; taking Notes is just going to feel like a drag. Don’t make yourself do that.
For stocking, subscription, purchasing inquiries, or any other comments and questions, contact us here.