Serious Journal Writers

October 12, 2015

A journal entry can be about anything: past, present or future.it can be random thoughts. Add a sketch, picture, a found photo, anything.

February 27, 2016

To respond to that discussion on sharing entries with those closest:

As an avid diarist, I've a bookshelf of journals I've filled. I rarely, almost never, re-read entries, but when I do I'm often startled to realize that what I've written isn't really true. Often, though certainly not always, my journals are a space for the otherwise verboten -- for my fears, my dark imaginings, my deepest confusions. They are a space for what I would -not- manifest in the world (though, I have sought in the last years to put more emphasis on my joys, my gratitude). I would be horrified if anyone I love were to read these pages and suppose these misunderstandings to be sincere feelings, especially a partner, someone dear to me. Fortunately, no one has access to these "books" while I deliberate whether they should be discarded like snakeskins, empty husks of who I've not quite been, of the life I did not live, the mistakes I did not make because I created private space to work through them. As much as I do not identify my three-dimensional -self- with the contents of these thousands of pages, I still shelve the filled journals. It's surprisingly hard to shed these pages, mostly because I wonder if they may help me write fiction. A novelist I once spoke with said her journals didn't, though. She said that she never forgot her emotional confusions, even decades later - to write how others dressed, how they moved, how they spoke, the words they chose in the 70s or the 90s would have been so much more valuable to her. Perhaps, that, what I should keep instead or in addition: a writer's book of observations, filled with descriptions of clothing and snippets of conversations, dialogue.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Cygne

February 27, 2016

I wrote about my thinking of writers academy. I wrote my thoughts whether i am going to create fiction, or thriller, or drama story. I wrote about the dream i just got,i wrote about my job, i wrote the first chapter of the story I'm making, which is fiction, i wrote about my fountain pen, my violin, my new appartement

February 27, 2016

My journal is rather like a free-form diary. Some days I write a couple of paragraphs and other days I write many pages.

I usually take my journal with me everywhere and I tend to make entries numerous times during the day.

Most days begin with a cup of tea which I'll take to my desk where I'll check my email and start my journal entry for the day. One of the luxuries of being retired is that I can spend as much or as little time as I wish at my desk.

I write about all sorts of things ... family matters, personal matters, personal (often quite abstract) thoughts. Major events or minutiae ... and everything in between.

It is still early Sunday morning here but so far today I have written about the continuing affects of some (minor) surgery I had a week or so ago. I have written about the weather. I've made some observations about the recently acquired Waterman Man 100 pen I'm using. I've written about our two small dogs ... thinking that perhaps the love in their eyes was more about their impending breakfast than anything else.

March 17, 2016

I've journaled off and on for years. Recently I ordered a Rhodiarama journal. These come in a wide variety of colored covers and the paper is great. On February 4th I started writing a few lines every evening while my husband and I watch TV. A lot of times I'm not paying much attention to the TV anyway.

Yesterday I wrote about how one of our horses managed to unbolt his stall door and set off the alarm system - a gas tank explosion a few miles from where we live (it shook the house!) - what I cooked for lunch - presidential politics.

Mostly I write about the events of the day, but sometimes I write about what worries me - or what my opinion is on any given subject. I'm good at giving my opinions - ha! - and since it's not often that other people want to hear them, I write them in my journal.

Judybug