The reader's edition
Wreck This Journal: the summary
Keri Smith is an illustrator and author whose books ask readers to make things rather than only read them. Wreck This Journal is a journal in which nearly every page gives an instruction to mess the book up: scribble on it, tear it, get it dirty, take it outside. The idea is that perfectionism and the fear of spoiling a clean page stop many people from making anything at all. By asking for damage, the book takes away the chance of doing it wrong, and the reader finds that accidents and process are often where the interesting work starts. There are no case studies or chapters to read; the reader's own wrecked pages become the content. An expanded edition with new pages followed, and Smith went on to write related books such as How to Be an Explorer of the World and Mess. Read a chapter at a time, with a printable action book at the end.
- Keri Smith
- 2007
- 4 chapters
- 5 min read
- 9 takeaways
This is HourLife's reading of Wreck This Journal, in our own words. It is not a substitute for the book.
Chapter 01
Before you start
The book in a minute
Tap a paragraph to highlight it. Turn pages with the arrows, the arrow keys, or a swipe.
Keri Smith is an illustrator and author whose books ask readers to make things rather than only read them. Wreck This Journal is a journal in which nearly every page gives an instruction to mess the book up: scribble on it, tear it, get it dirty, take it outside. The idea is that perfectionism and the fear of spoiling a clean page stop many people from making anything at all. By asking for damage, the book takes away the chance of doing it wrong, and the reader finds that accidents and process are often where the interesting work starts. There are no case studies or chapters to read; the reader's own wrecked pages become the content. An expanded edition with new pages followed, and Smith went on to write related books such as How to Be an Explorer of the World and Mess.
Below are the 9 ideas HourLife readers vote up most, each in our words with a note on what it asks of you, and then the steps that put them to work.
Chapter 02
What readers keep
The takeaways
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1
HourLife takeaway
A page you are allowed to ruin is a page you will actually use.
Plenty of nice notebooks sit empty because the first page feels too important to spoil. The book removes that weight by asking for damage before anything else. Once the page is already a mess, there is nothing left to protect, and you start making things.
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2
HourLife takeaway
Perfectionism often looks like high standards but works like fear.
Waiting for the right idea, the right pen or the right mood feels like care. Most of the time it is a way of avoiding the risk of making something bad. The journal's instructions are silly on purpose, so there is no standard to fall short of.
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3
HourLife takeaway
Accidents are material, not mistakes to hide.
A spill, a smudge or a torn corner can be the start of something you would never have planned. Smith returns to this idea across her work, and her later book Mess is built around it. The habit to build is looking at what went wrong and asking what it could become.
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4
HourLife takeaway
The doing is the point, even when nothing finished comes out of it.
Most pages of the journal do not produce art anyone would frame. They produce a few minutes of making without judging. That practice is what carries over into the work you do care about.
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5
HourLife takeaway
A clear instruction can be more freeing than a blank page.
A blank page asks you to decide everything at once. A short, odd instruction decides the first step for you, so you can start straight away. Constraints lower the cost of beginning.
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6
HourLife takeaway
Making and breaking can be the same act.
Tearing, crumpling and staining are usually how you ruin something. In the journal they are how you add to it. Seeing destruction as one more way to make marks loosens the grip of keeping things neat.
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7
HourLife takeaway
Take your work out into the world and the world gets into your work.
Several of the journal's pages send it outside, into weather, pockets and everyday places. A journal that travels picks up dirt, found things and ideas you would not get at a desk. Ordinary places become somewhere you can make things.
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8
HourLife takeaway
Adults often need permission to play, and a book can give it.
Children scribble without asking whether they are good at it. Somewhere along the way most people stop. Having the permission printed on the page makes it easier to start again without feeling foolish.
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9
HourLife takeaway
A wrecked journal ends up as a record of the person who wrecked it.
Every stain and scribble comes from a real moment: a coffee, a bus ride, a bad day. By the end, the book holds a period of your life more honestly than a neat diary would. Readers have long shared their wrecked copies with each other for that reason.
Chapter 03
Put it to work
Your action book
Do the setup steps once, then keep the habits going. The setup changes your week; the habits keep it changed after the first good one.
The download puts this whole reading and a printable action book in one PDF: the setup checklist, then a page of real calendar days for each habit, starting on the day you choose.
Set up once
Buy a cheap notebook to wreck
Get the plainest, cheapest notebook you can find, so it can never feel precious. On the inside cover, write that this one is for wrecking.
Ruin the first page today
Before you write or draw anything good, spoil page one. Scribble on it, spill a little coffee, or tear the corner. Now nothing after it can ruin the book.
Pack a small messy kit
Put a cheap pen, a crayon, a glue stick and a roll of tape in a pouch with the notebook. Keep it where you will see it, by the door or on the table.
Write twenty prompts of your own
On the last page, list twenty short instructions in the same spirit, such as draw with your eyes closed or use only your other hand. When you are stuck, pick one at random.
Choose one outside spot
Pick a place away from home, such as a park bench, a bus seat or a café table. Take the notebook there this week and do one page.
Keep it up
Wreck one page in five minutes
Set a five-minute timer, pick a prompt and stop when it rings, however the page looks. Do it on most days.
Keep the pages that went wrong
Never tear out a page because it looks bad. Date it, and later draw on top of it or turn the worst part into something else.
Show one page without apologising
Once a month, show a friend a page as it is. Do not explain it or say it is bad.
Chapter 04
The last word
Before you go
Pick one step from the action book and do it today. An idea from a book starts to count once it changes what one ordinary day looks like.
Ruin the first page on purpose, and every page after it is free.
That is the end of our reading. Where to go from here, or go back to the full Wreck This Journal page.
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