Journal-keeping: the foundational must for new writers and renewal-seekers

Don't be limited to old ideas of 'daily ramble'

photo: UK travels - solid foundations stand

Both Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande, and Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons For Black Authors, by Jewell Parker Rhodes begin with impassioned thoughts on the necessity of journal-keeping for the beginning writer. Keeping a journal has served me many times over, to reinvigorate writing energy, and awareness of other humans and the world around. My own writing began with daily journal-writing through my teen years, a practice that was the genesis of fiction and poetry, created “habit”—so critical—and at risk of sounding dramatic—oh why not?—probably saved my life. Art does that.

Even in those teen years I would at times drop the “daily ramble” journal, and move on to focus on particular pieces. This kept it interesting. At age 14, I kept what I thought of as a “shy” diary, as I tried to move to a place of being more assertive. It was a personal place, and I found ways to articulate challenging emotions. I also discovered poetry and rhythm in language; it became a journal that helped move me forward into another era in my life. That basic idea could even be the beginnings of a YA novel.

Later, when I grew busy with raising boys and teaching writing, and could find so little time to do my own fiction-creating, it became hard to find time to keep a journal. But it is a fundamental writer’s tool to which I return. If you are immersed in a certain time of life or job/task, if nothing else, journal about that.

My journal of the almost eleven months my spouse was ill, and I was caregiving, was 600 pages of daily recording, and ended up as the basis for my memoir. While not one sentence was shared between the journal and the finished book (noteworthy!) I could not have written the book without the journal. And the journal kept me somewhat sane through those months. Journal-keeping has an immediacy. That immediacy is not replicable. Writers need access to such immediacy for life-long work.

I’m going to suggest you begin with an amount of time each day. Keep it short to begin. Fifteen minutes. What is optimal… at the outset of your day’s writing or at the end? Or as its own thing, aside from your other writing? Commit to this fifteen minutes even if it is all the writing you do on some days. Once it is a habit, you will notice less and less the time it absorbs.

(Note that the Jewell Parker Rhodes book has a number of excellent exercises for a journal if looking for a starting place.)

Let’s look below at the physical forms of your journal, and then at possible foci.

Types of journals

Notebooks

The simplest is a lined notebook. Or something beautiful and hand-made. What is going to motivate you? A file on your computer can do. Or even your phone “notes” capacity—something you can do in the grocery lineup.

Visual journal

This might be photo-based OR treat yourself to art pencils/charcoal/chalk pastels, and begin to come up with some image each day, or some doodling. Or even simply playing and shaping text. Such a journal can become layer-on-layer with envelopes, special paper, collage. Below, a page from the one I created while going through a teaching program.

Audio journal

Don’t have time to write? Record. Even while you are out on a walk. This works if you really want to do this journal-thing, and are too busy. There is no excuse. You can do it while you are doing laundry. Or partaking of a bubble-bath.

And what to write about…

General Rambling

A good place to start, but can feel pointless and too easy to let slide. To add to this practice, consider where you are at as a writer, and what you are focusing on: evoking setting? Articulating nuance of emotion? Human interaction? Language rhythm and sound?

You might begin each day with a phrase of such a goal, and then explore that. Do not erase or delete anything. (No one is looking at this.) Note if you prefer hand-writing or working on a device—and what serves you best.

The positive of so-called “rambling” is that over time you can witness incremental change as-it-happens, and in the way it happens. While in fiction “epiphanies” strike, the reality is that we grow through the minutiae of our lives. The only way to see this is to document our days, our hours, and then look back. I promise there will be many times that the working of such will leave you stunned… and with story ideas. Never underestimate how the “daily”—the act of living—transforms. That’s the source of the epiphanies.

So you might focus on:

Work-place or education

Might be the last year of a university program, or starting a new, more challenging position at work; is there a change in your life in these areas?

Home/yard/neighbourhood

Day by day changes, emotional awareness: are you putting your home up for sale? Moving across the country? Expecting a child? Sharing your home? What is your involvement with your neighbourhood? Do you routinely walk it? Are you homeschooling? Looking for a new church? Leaving one? Ripping up your front lawn to grow a garden? Battling a neighbour…?

Film/art/museum/music

Over time, recording what inspires you, or moves you, becomes more and more valuable, and develops and deepens your memory. This can also be useful when “blocked.” Text-free art can often kick-start something the story-teller’s mind. And ruminating and scribbling about a film can develop your plotting capacity. Imagine spending a month devoted to listening to one new music album each day, and recording connected thoughts.

Poetry

A daily poem, free verse or form. Daily haiku? I’ve done this for a month, and it became a lens; I found myself wrestling with that “turn” in the evocative third line. Each day held a surprise.

Dream

Keep this journal close, bed-side table, and record immediately on awakening. It might take awhile to develop this; give it some time.

Sex/intimacy

Every act is a story. How does that work?

Response to therapy

Too often we spend money and energy, and then don’t follow-up with the necessary response and processing time. A journal can provide this. We work from our lives, even our fiction. Sometimes, especially our fiction. We mine it. Record, to dig.

Pet

Another journal-idea that in a whimsical way connects you more with your world. Might want to include photos, drawing, and poems—create a collision with other suggestions in this list.

Friendship

This one might follow a move to a new place when you are put in a position of having to meet new people. Or a time of repair of an aging friendship. Write about this; document a relationship, connections.

Food/wine/beer

For when you are wanting to explore something other than “emotional humans”… Sometimes we need an emotional break; what mght that look like? Whether you cook or do restaurants, create your own beer, or order to experience wine new to you, find some aspect of daily life that might appear to have little to do with writing. Ironically, this might imbue this part of your life with new/renewed creativity; let that bloom.

Hobby/project

For reasons similar to the above! (As are these next few on the list… )

What is it you love to do? Ballooning? Fishing? Crochet? Paint-ball? Write about it. Passion project? Write from the birth of an idea to fruition.

Health

This is especially useful if you—or a loved one—live with a chronic condition; a way to process or celebrate, and/or step back as needed, or forward and out.

Holiday - exploring cities and hiking/boating/wilderness - travel

Really don’t have time for daily jotting? This one might do. When you are—literally—moving out of your zone, see what happens. Travel: during or before. Planning. Afterwards. Document a different part of the day, each day. Gather the pieces.

Gratitude

This one will give you so much in return.

and Kvetch

’Cus it’s not always the bowl of cherries! Might keep these two together, beginning each at either end of a notebook—a grown-up flip-book. See which one overtakes the other…

Workout/dance/yoga/sport

For the times you feel as if you are not progressing, or for the mental and emotional piece. I took flamenco dance for a number of years; the analogies that I pulled from that dance form, with writing, were sustaining to my work.

Sacred text

Torah, Quran, Guru Granth Sahib, Tao Te Ching, Bible… Whatever you’re into—or you might decide to explore for a short time—jot down thoughts on your reading. Again, you will capture the nuance, the moments of stepping back, the moments of mixed emotions or negativity; the moments of positive, and the moments of just stillness. Everything in our lives becomes greater and goes deeper with pause.

Volunteer

Those hours you spend, whether ladling up at a soup kitchen or reading with a child at children’s hospital, what comes of that time? What are the stories that grow from those hours? And the realizations that come with them. Or the questions. The best stories begin with good questions. “Good” as in “hard-working.”

Reading

Everything you read, and your reflections and publication-related notes. (Note that the next installment in this series for “beginning” and “renewing” writers will be all about reading and the reading-journal.)

Teaching or other writing-related work

This work can be exhausting. It can drain from writer-you. Especially if it is necessary to your financial survival. For years when I taught, it edified my writing. But at times when it did not, I needed to find ways to re-connect with my true work, my writing.

Keeping a teaching-journal can serve to this end.

Mundane

The ordinary. I have to return to this before a final note. At almost age 60, I regret not keeping a journal of some of the most banal bits of life—of course, the busiest times in life have almost been the most detailed. To pause and note, note, note. Several times through keeping my caregiving journal, I jotted everything of a portion of the day. At the time, I thought, “I will someday forget the details.” And I was correct.

To take an ordinary day on the job, a morning with toddlers, an evening’s rehearsal, a month of vegetable gardening… and note EVERY detail…. will at some later date provide you with the reality of story and human life. The Big Events have to be evoked with detail, after all.

History books have long been about those so-called Big Things—the wars and politics. We are hungry for real day-to-day lives. A perfectly placed detail in a fictional story brings verisimilitude. It makes the readers trust the writer.

Record the ordinary. It can be profound.

Final note

A journal frees you from the tyranny of “gotta be published.” (And when it feels like tyranny, you’ll know what I’m talking about.) A journal is all those boring plies and warming stretches and turns and jumps of the early-in-the-day, cold-muscle dancer. A journal is a painter’s sketch-pad. A singer’s humming.

What is obviously “practice” in other arts forms, needs to be replicated in writing, and journal-keeping is that.

For experienced writers, it’s a way to tap in to the initial passion and excitement that pulled you to this art-form in the first place. And a way to connect with daily wonder—especially when it’s not showing up in your “work for publication.”

A journal is a place to be free. Hold on to that.

Share thoughts in the comments section! Would love to hear…