The Journal – A Place to Start Writing

Readers and friends often ask how they can begin to write. Everyone has a book or story in them, but some cannot find a way to express what goes through their minds. They don’t know where to begin, nor do they know what they wish to write about. I usually suggest an exercise to get them into the habit of writing regularly. This exercise may not evolve into a full-length book, novel, or even a nonfiction memoir, but it will help them feel good about themselves enough to brave something new. I suggest writing journal entries so they may see their words and thoughts visibly produced.

Tips for getting started:

Know why you decide to keep a journal. I can suggest it but keeping one will be a personal decision.

Will your writing be for others to read, perhaps your descendants?

Will you write simply to log your thoughts and keep track of your life? If so, your journal kept over time will represent a measure of your personal growth.

For every journal entry, include:

Date, including month, day, year about which each subject or topic is written.

Names, addresses, and other pertinent information about people you include in your entries.

Location mentioned in each entry.

What’s important about you?

Ask yourself why you wish to write about a certain topic.

Ask yourself if what you write may hurt others if read by them.

Plan to write about what you wish to leave as a record of yourself for your family and descendants.

More Tips

Be brutally honest about yourself, your motives, and attitudes. Always consider your own emotions when writing about something meaningful. That applies to both you and others. Perhaps you write about how others treat you. Surely you have your own emotions and thoughts you wish to express pertaining to others. Emotion and attitude can bring your writing alive. It can also help you sort out things you never knew you knew. Keep your journal to yourself. At least in the beginning it contains your private thoughts.

It’s one thing to write about disappointments, anger, and hate – that only a therapist would want to read. If that is the content you produce, then you are writing a therapeutic diary. Strong opinions or emotions are okay to include in a journal, hopefully expressed with positive uplifting expressions from which any future readers may learn.

It is important to be consistent in a writing schedule. You can write in an actual journal notebook. You can also keep your records in your word processing program. Stay organized. You can have a separate file for notes; another file for the actual journal entries. On a computer, you can write all your journal entries on the same page. That is, one continuous file, like writing a book manuscript.

Most of all, be consistent in your effort. This means setting a regular time for writing entries. A lot of people like to write at the end of the day, signifying closure and ready to rest. Others like to write in the morning when their minds are fresh. It’s a matter of personal preference. With our electronic ability to speak into our texts and eNotebooks, you can dictate notes to yourself any hour of the day or night to transcribe later.

One benefit of journaling is that what you include can later become a memoir. You may keep a journal for years with hundreds of entries. This wouldn’t necessarily become your memoir in total. In a journal, you have many experiences written from which to cull what you wish to include in a memoir about your life.

My Journaling Experience

As for myself, I long ago wrote about many experiences with my former husband. He died in a car accident before my young son had a chance to know him. I was thankful I kept notes. Over the past year, I went back over all those entries, filled in the blanks, and spent hours converting it all into a Word file. It’s now a memoir for my son. He can know everything about his father that every child should know about their own. I started with the day his father and I met till my son left home for the military. My meager notes thus made a memoir manuscript of 104 pages.

Much potential derives from journaling. Keeping a journal helps a person to learn to write and express exactly what needs to be said. A journal for future readers will show the person you are inside. More than that, once you see your own words in writing, you begin to understand that you can write. If you ever wanted to write a book, you come to realize there isn’t anything holding you back.

You can find more writing tips in my thick volume of writing instruction, Write It Right – Tips for Authors.

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