Journal Your Life to Live and Write

I’m a great believer in writers' journals. I have many of them. They're a different form of writing for yourself, unlike morning pages which are stream-of-consciousness writing.

Journaling for a novice writer
If you're a new writer, and have no idea what you want to write - fiction, nonfiction, copy - a journal can get you started. Writing will teach you everything you need to know about writing, but you must WRITE for that teaching to happen... writing isn't a spectator sport.

Start writing about your life in writers' journal: describe your surroundings, the people in the mall, your family... write about what you love, and what angers you... write about what you understand, and what you don't. (Your journal may include a lot of whining - that's fine, let it come out, you're getting rid of a lot of mental and emotional junk: it's therapeutic.)

Journaling for established writers: creating your idea bank
If you've been writing for a few years, your journal acts as your idea bank. It's best to maintain several journals: one for ideas, another for essays, as well as a journal for a long project like a book.

If you're writing a novel, for example, your journal will keep you "in" the novel, even if you have to leave the project for a week or two.

Journaling is intensely personal, and for that reason, I don't recommend that you blog your private journals. It’s worth repeating...

Blogs are not journals
Blogging is instant publishing. If you’re a professional writer (or aspire to be) I don’t recommend that you blog your private thoughts and ideas.

The reasons:

*    A blog stays online, even if you close the blog - it will continue to live online: that’s the nature of the online world. You will change, whatever you’ve published online lives on;

*    Journals tend to be full of whining and complaints.

Weeping, wailing and cursing on a professional writer’s blog is not professional;

*    Your journal should be honest, and there’s a limit to how honest you can be when you’re writing something that others will read.

Exercise 22: Write about yesterday in your writer’s journal.

Write 300 words about the most interesting thing which happened to you yesterday.