Struggling with art journaling!

This year began with a strong desire to dive into the world of art journaling! I love looking at all the creative work other people have done, and I was so eager to try this for myself. I added a bunch of art journaling blogs to my side bar, and visit them frequently, looking for inspiration. When it came time to actually sit down and work on one of my own, I feel like I have failed miserably!! I even have a journal of partially prepared pages, which I had attempted in a class a few years ago. Some of the pages are textured with gesso, and a few even have a coat of paint on them, ready for my imagination go wild. The first page I completed looks like I threw up on the page!! I used some wrapping paper from Christmas, and an article from the paper about how the paper is not recyclable in our area, after we has painstakingly saved every bit of it to recycle. I also added some dried needles from the tree, and then dumped a bunch of glitter on the whole mess. On another page, I attempted a technique that looked really cool on another blog where you create "ghost writing" on a page by writing on it with Sharpie, and then covering the whole thing with gesso. Mine looks so terrible, I can't even describe it! I wonder if this is a stage everyone goes through with the art journal process, or what? Maybe I'll try collage next, because I feel a little more comfortable with that. Or, maybe I'll start with a list....