Just a quick note

A note to say there is no note, which then became a note. Plus, a glimpse of something new.

Just a Note ⭐ Trying Something ⭐ Illustrated Journal Links ⭐ Fun Finds ⭐ Looking Back ⭐ Illustrate Your Week Prompts

“Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold”
William Carlos Williams

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📌 Just a Note

So here’s the thing... there’s no real post today, no letter, no little folded note slipped under a rock and left by your door. Admittedly, it may look like a letter, but it’s a non-letter, a note that is an explanation and a non-apology.

This is just to say... The poem came to mind when I was doing the final edits on this very non-poetic non-post about why it there is no post, and I couldn’t resist.¹

This is just to say... I have a few pieces I have hovered for the last almost-two-years. One sits at the point where fairy tales converge. One walks with myth. One has past echoes, and there was something I hoped would surface in one box or another. I kept setting the piece aside, feeling like I needed to turn up a set of bones that I know are grounded in the same lore but were a tale of reclamation. That piece is listed in the archives of the then-university, but I never found my copy. I may not have looked hard enough, and it is maybe not worth finding.

This is just to say... I opened one of the two pieces-that-have-been-set-aside this week, aware of the calendar, but it remains amorphous, bigger than my screen, and yet I sense there may be no invitation for you to enter. It may be just a tangle of words under glass. Even so, I started taping the pieces around the room, pulling as many tagged and untagged references as I could find, though the oldest artifact remains lost. I brought the shelved piece into the light, and in this way, I made progress. I see the diverging stories and why the shape continues to puzzle me.

This is just to say... This piece, as slight as it might be to the reader, is something I don’t want to wedge into the write-publish-write cycle that dictates this space. That’s why I set it aside originally. It maybe doesn’t even belong “in” this space, unless I illustrate a companion piece. And yet, this is my space. If there is any witness at all, it is here. So, I opened all the files and said, maybe next week.

This is just to say... At the same time as I pondered the papered walls and looked at a pile of relevant children’s books, I was also testing something else, an evolution of one of several systems I’ve been shaping to support my own processes, open hybrid doors, and step into spaces that are not bound by what is and isn’t known, what can and cannot be recalled.

This is just to say... Throughout the week, I worked on a fragment, the type of short, unexplained collection of words I’ve been tentatively sharing. I worked on it every night, adding, reshaping, introducing new constraints, and then, on the last day, breaking it apart, as I do, crossing out the lines I had been unwilling to lose, tightening, expanding, and shaping anew.

This is just to say... The problem is that the one piece, the small, illogical fragment, foreshadows the other. The fragment rises from the same world as the piece that has been shelved and needs to be dusted, exposed to air, and then folded back away. That shouldn’t necessarily have happened, and yet, with one stone cast, the echo was in place. I still thought it was fine, and I went ahead through the week planning to post the fragment. But I can’t.

What I don’t want to happen is for the fragment to stand where the other piece should. I am afraid that someone will make the connection between the strange little fiction and its subtext, and something will be too plain, too apparent, and too raw. In voicing that connection, the piece I still need to write, braid not hybrid, will be diluted. That is the risk.

I need both pieces to exist, one that is hybrid and one that is weighted to the world with truth and lyric and the dark mist of fairy tale rising all around. So, I am going to hold the fragment. This, too, is uncomfortable.

This is just to say... I am not good with holding. I am not good at withholding. Resonance fades. This has always been true. I have used a write-publish-write cycle for decades, knowing instinctively that holding doesn’t work for me. These are things that have always defined me and continue to limit my writing. I now understand them differently. I see how and why I write the way I do.

This is just to say... There is a risk I will lap myself because, already, a new week has started. Even with the larger piece in the wings, I have started a new piece to live with for the week. One thing I know is that I need this thread each week, something to puzzle in the margins. Already, I am enchanted. Already, I am detaching from last week’s fragment.

This is just to say... Already, I don’t see any way to fit everything in next week. The risk of overflow becomes its own limiting factor.

This is just to say... There is a real chance none of this will happen as I expect.

This is just to say... Thank you to those who have commented recently. I am currently obsessively exploring terrain I never anticipated. I enjoy working in a black box, really, following thought, personal truth, and a meandering line, and eschewing influence. I prefer to do my own thing. But I do show up each week and tentatively lay something on the table and then stand back to see if anyone feels even a glimmer of response.

This is the need, the curiosity, the moment of wondering if anyone really sees, if any of these words matter or have meaning beyond the sound of them. This is the moment of admitting that witness matters.

This is just to say... I know I am working in ways that people don’t expect from me, embracing threads that may feel slightly unhinged at times. All I can say is that I can talk philosophically about all of this, too. I spend a lot of time hashing out the why of this shift. I spend a lot of time doubting myself and worrying about a shallow pool, even as I am enchanted enough that I keep pushing and don’t want to be anywhere else. I believe we should love what we do, and I’m wandering a liminal space that I wish I had stepped into years ago.

I hope it’s reassuring to know that I am enjoying myself as I test seams as if in some dark room with walls that stretch when pushed or are so porous I can walk through them. I’ve got a lantern, but a high-five now and then (or sharing your favorite doughnut in the comments) means a lot.

I will say that the increasing divergence in my writing has resulted in many people leaving. I try to make sure there is a balance here, but I know that the blend doesn’t always land. I still justify a lot in my head as absolutely fine because I am a middle-aged widow with Witcher hair. Somehow, this means to me that I can do whatever I want in my writing. It is excuse, reason, imperative, release, and journey, all in one. It, too, is an explanation, a non-note, and a non-apology.

When a post contains just the hybrid, and people leave, I am not surprised. When a post contains the hybrid, the real, my art, and extras... it is hard to not take the flutter of wings to heart or hear those wings as a verdict.

But….
I’m going to continue to write into and from the oddness.
I appreciate those of you who read.

I’m sorry that this week, there was nothing to read.
If I’m presumptuous, I’ll take the high five anyway.

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Trying Something

A glimpse of an experiment unfolding. A. Cowen 2026

It was a random thought, but maybe it wasn’t nearly as random as it felt. I’ve jumped into a puddle with both feet and no little yellow boots and have been testing an idea before committing to the project. I fear I’m not being objective in how much I love even these fledgling tests. Even sharing a glimpse of these feels about as scary as sharing the odd written fragments.

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New to Illustrated Life?

Here are a few posts you might be interested in if you are new here and looking for illustrated journal posts:

• Nine Reasons a Weekly Illustrated Journal Works

• Circles in an Illustrated Journal (and squares)

• Why Aren’t You Keeping an Illustrated Journal?

• Positively - 100 Diary Comic Affirmations

• Finishing 52 Weeks of List Comics - Year 2

• 100+ Lists for Your Illustrated Journal

• Icon Practice and Building Visual Vocabulary

• Making Comics—Week 8 (and 9, 10)

• 13 Reasons to Keep an Illustrated Journal

• Weekly illustrated journal prompts

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Fun Finds

This is fantastic.

Love this, too. Not only is it beautiful, but this is what we talk about, the act of deliberate seeing. I love the message here about using the time you spend looking to see in ways that fill versus empty you.

“Ever since artists started sharing sketchbooks on social media, we all started to think that the act of drawing is about production, but it’s not. It’s about attention, the most valuable thing that people can harvest from us.”

Elizabeth wrote this week about seeing, too. You should read her post.

Don’t miss this post from K. Woodman-Maynard in her series on diary comics. There are so many ways to record your days, weeks, and months with a combination of art and words!

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Illustrated Journal Prompts

• Prompts for Illustrate Your Week - Week 22 (2026)

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Looking Back (Year Over Year)

• 2025: Index cards past and other project updates

• 2024: Are You Sure You Want to Erase Everything? (I was so much looser then, wasn’t I; just updates more than craft; I miss that)

• 2023: Messages in a bottle and a Neil Gaiman sketchnote (time flies)

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Made It?

Thank you for reading.

I was going to tell you about slaw, cabbage and broccoli, and about honey, and about honey on slaw, and then I didn’t.

I encourage you to engage in the conversation in whatever way feel comfortable. This week, you might start here:

• Share a current symbol or motif you keep seeing/finding/circling.

• Share a moment from the week you should have drawn.

• Share something you are currently putting off.

• Share the color you first see out your window.

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Unless otherwise noted, all images in this post are © A. Cowen. All rights reserved.

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1. “This is just to say,” William Carlos Williams