Keeping a Journal You Love

A few years ago, there was a journaling magazine being published by Writer's Digest that I just loved. I think it was called Personal Journaling. They stopped publishing it, much to my dismay, but I've kept a few articles from that magazine. One of which was an excerpt from a book called "Keeping A Journal You Love".

The article gives nine ideas for generating entries that you will love, even when you are having difficulty generating topics for that days journal. I've carried the papers around until they are tattered, while at the same time never having the pages with me on the days that I need something to get me started writing. So, I'm going to put the ideas here, not only for you, but for me. This way, they are here when I need them and stay here long after the pages have become too tattered to read.

9 Strategies for Generating Entries You'll Love!

1. Record the Weather, Inside and Out

Concentrating at least once a month on describing weather could yield strong writing in your journal as well as provide markers for the emotional weather in your life over a period of time.

Is it day or night? What is gathering or dispersed? Notice the quality of the air-- is it stirred-up, clear, still, foggy? Notice clouds and their shapes, the absence or presence of stars, the moon and the sun. Notice the sounds the wind is causing or the way birds react in this weather. What is the temperature and how do you respond to it?

Now, name an element or force that enters this scene, like lightning or rain. After you select and name the element or force, make a metaphor to describe it. Let the metaphor you create spin your writing in a new direction. If you say the blast of a fog horn in the night is like a dying animal's last moans, it will affect the writing one way; if you say the blast of a fog horn in the night is like the notes your younger brother pushed out when he was first learning to play the tuba, the writing will probably go another way. See what direction you are taken when you do this.

2. Write a "Things I Learned Today" List

The late poet William Stafford from Oregon published a poem that was a list of things he learned, supposedly on the day he was writing. The list ranged broadly. He included things he observed by paying attention to what others generally don't take the time to see, such as on which side ants pass each other. He learned things from the newspaper, such as what topics famous people were talking about. He learned things from doing, such as how to unstick a door. And he learned things about himself by noticing personal preferences. Take some time to write an entry entitled "Things I Learned Today" or "... This Week" or "... This Month". Include information you've learned by personal observation and experience as well as facts and theories you've read or heard through the media, books, classes and people. Consult your inner self for insights. Remember to include information that has come to you in dreams. And be sure your list has variation, from really important to small and seemingly insignificant pieces of information.

3. Play the Alphabet Game

Challenge yourself to write journal entries with titles that start with each letter of the alphabet for 26 successive entries. Or challenge yourself to start each entry itself for 26 days with words that begin with the alphabet's letters in order. Or write 26 meditations, one for each letter of the alphabet. Or create an entry in which each sentence starts with a word that begins with consecutive letters of the alphabet.

4. Create Persona Entries

For fun, think of someone or something that would have an interesting perspective on the world-- your pet, your telephone, your refrigerator, the cereal box you left open in the morning, one of the Halloween costumes you wore as a child, your steering wheel, someone you know who has enjoyed a joyous occasion or suffered a difficult situation. Write as if you are that person or thing addressing you in a letter. Let the personas you create tell about their environment or their day without naming who or what they are. Discover the way a speaker's internal world colors what he or she sees in the outer world.

5. Play the "And Then" Game

In beginner's drama classes, acting teachers sometimes introduce a game in which students stand in a circle and, taking turns, tell a story sentence by sentence. The only rule is that after the first person states a sentence, each person begins the next sentence and part of the story with, "And then... ." What happens next does not have to be plausible, just interesting. Try writing in your journal this way. You will find yourself coming up with amusing ideas, which may prompt other stories later.

6. Imitate the Declaration of Independence

You can use Thomas Jefferson's technique of repetition to gather details that will ultimately allow you to write down a philosophy of life. In fact, write "Philosophy of Life" as the title for this journal entry and use Jefferson's phrase, "I hold this truth to be self-evident," as the one you will repeat. Write that line, and then write whatever occurs to you. When you have come to an end, write "I hold this truth to be self-evident" again. Let this sentence become either the first phrase of every line, or a phrase that weaves throughout. Keep writing. When you feel you finished, read what you have written in light of the title. Have you evoked a philosophy of life?

7. Write One-Sided Phone Conversations

A good journal-writing idea is to imagine yourself on stage talking on the phone. The audience has only your words, posture, expressions and gestures to help them understand what the other party is saying and what you are responding to. Furthermore, perhaps the conversation has already started when the curtain goes up, and the audience is coming in during the middle of it. Write your side of a lengthy conversation with someone. Imagine what they are saying and have yourself responding, gesturing, pacing, sitting, slumping, and fidgeting accordingly. Here are some possible ways to open:

"Yes, it really happened the way I said it did!"
"You can't mean you don't believe me!"
"I just do. I don't know why, but I just do."
"And then I was around the corner and..."
"You won't be hearing from me because..."
"Wouldn't you know that..."

8. Dispense Advice

Often, we are told nobody wants unsolicited advice and giving it won't win you friends-- by why not give it in a journal entry? What else to do with all the ideas we have for others? Choose someone you feel is in need of doing things the way you would do them or have them done-- a spouse, child, parent, teacher, boss, co-worker, neighbor, clerk, business owner, politician, police officer, dog walker, etc. Write this person a letter giving detailed advice and telling why you are doing so. Give as many examples as you can to explain why you know your advice is effective.

9. Write Definitions

If someone asks what something is or what it means, you usually begin by describing the thing or action. You tell how it looks, sounds, smells, tastes and feels. You tell what it does and what it doesn't do. You tell what people use it for and what it's never used for. You tell what it's like and how it's different from what it's like. You might tell an anecdote that illustrates something about it, or you might give an example from your life as illustration.

Make a point of collecting words that you do not understand. Write your own definition for these words before you look them up or find out anymore about them. In addition, make a point of inventing words for things that don't have names, and write about them. How do you think we get words like "the heebie-geebies" and "the willies"?

Copyright 2001 by Sheila Bender