Confession: I have shoeboxes of journals. Some of them have hard covers with poignant quotes and soothing colors. Others are as plain as they come – solid black or brown with no hint of creativity. Regardless of the cover, the insides are all the same: lined pages scrawled with long-buried moments, pulsing questions and wins worth remembering.
Journaling is a form of art, and I believe it is a necessary practice for writers of all ages and abilities. When we write things down, we often see things more clearly or encounter new revelations. Journaling allows us to practice communicating with the written word. It helps us to remember. Journals are ways of preserving personal histories. And through that, glimpses of the world’s history also peek through. Journals therefore become artifacts and some of them also become works of art.
The best thing about journaling? There is no right or wrong way to do it. There are so many ways to approach journaling My own journaling has taken on a variety of forms over the years, from long tomes of messy thoughts to bulleted lists to “3 Things” (where I simply record 3 notable things about my day).
You can journal about your worries, put down destructive thoughts, record your dreams. You can freewrite whatever comes to mind. Stream-of-consciousness journaling is the process of writing down thoughts as they flow; there is no order, no agenda.
As writers, our personal journals become extensions of ourselves. Our words, thoughts, and ideas tumble onto the page, preserved in time. So often I have been thankful for my journals, for bringing me back to moments I had long forgotten and never would have remembered, had I not written them down.
For Sarah Werner, author and host of Write Now podcast, journaling brings clarity. Werner describes journaling as a place to “find myself and discover myself and understand myself … to ask myself really hard questions and search out answers.”
Christina Baldwin, author of Storycatcher: Making Sense of our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story, says, “We need words in order to make things real. If we don’t talk about something, it’s as though it’s not happening. And yet it is happening.”
Seeing the words written out helps us process what is happening, and processing real life helps us make sense of what is happening or what has happened.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of “practice” when it comes to writing. Writing is a skill, and like all skills, it improves with practice. Baldwin suggests this practice is “like doing scales on a piano, only in words; writing allows us to practice the foundations of our own story. We become more and more articulate the more we practice.”
Journaling is a way to regularly practice writing. The more articulate we become, the clearer we know and see ourselves and our stories. The more articulate we become, the stronger our message.
Getting words onto the page can also free our minds from mental clutter and allow the mind to focus on the task of our own works-in-progress. You could consider this type of journaling as a writing “warm-up”. Julia Camron, in The Artist’s Way, refers to this type of writing as “Morning Pages.”
A friend once shared her surprise over how many stories she ends up sharing with people at the bank or out running errands. “I need to make time to organize them as vignettes,” she said.
These stories – simple interactions between people, observations of the world around us, encounters that produce questions – have value. When we write them down, they solidify moments in time.
Doris Edblad-Olson’s book, Available: Any Bush Will Do, is a collection of vignettes from the author’s life. Ekbald-Olson, reiterates “…there is a story behind every life. Life stories that are very different from our own hold a special interest.”
Because journals hold our words and make things real, they carry our stories into the future and preserve our history. Journals, then, become artifacts. Indeed, “writing creates an artifact,” says Baldwin in Storycatchers. Each journal entry you write becomes a moment preserved in time.
Where those moments show up or how they come back to inform later facts and happenings from our lives in anyone’s best guess.
That’s the beauty – that’s the mystery – of journaling. The words will always be there. Memories saved. Interactions remembered. Pieces of history preserved. The words may never again see the light of day, once you’ve turned the page. That’s practice. The words that do resurface – that’s the art and artifact.
Do you keep a journal? We’d love to hear about your practice. And, you can still download our 25 Reflective Holiday Writing Prompts – a little extra motivation to encourage you to find little pockets of time to write during the holiday season.
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