HOW I WRITE ... IN MY JOURNAL

"December 31, 1984

     Today is New Year's Eve. I still want to go with Jim Jones (not his real name). I've never really liked anybody like I like him. I am going to start a diet tomorrow. I want to lose from 10-20 pounds, at least 10 lbs.
     ...

     My grandma just left for the evening. Tonight (Monday) we get to have snacks and kiddie cocktails. I go with my dad January 5, 1984. It is the first time since August, 1984. On January 5, we get to celebrate Christmas [with] our dad. Bye for now and Happy New Year. Bye for 1984. Talk to you in 1985."


This an excerpt from my very first journal entry in the journal in the picture which I bought on the stocking stuffer clearance rack at Target. I was 11. I still have it and every journal I've had since then, including those in plain spiral notebooks and those I was "forced" to keep by inspiring teachers. I've read through them at times over the years. They tell me not only what was going on in my life at the time but how I felt about what was going on, and it told me more than I can explain about who I am and how I became this way.

As you might imagine, my early journals talked about what was happening at school and who I crushed on. As I got older, I talked more about my feelings and just practiced writing poems, story snippets, and images. In my high school and college days, my journals are full of expressions about how I was meant to become a writer, that writing was my passion, and how it was what I was destined to do. I guess I forgot about that as I got my community and regional planning degree, got married, had kids, and became a paralegal. I didn't forget it all at once, though; at first, I dismissed writing as a career in lieu of needed income and then it was gone. I still wrote in journals in starts and spurts throughout that time but I totally forgot how I thought writing was my fate. I found my way back, of course, about five years ago. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't abandoned it, but, ultimately, I think I needed those life experiences to be a writer.

How I write in my journal is simple: I am me, warts and all. I don't hold back. I strive to be completely honest, though sometimes I've avoided difficult subjects, because, when I write the words, the problem is real and I must deal with it. Today, my main journal is a turquoise blue 8 1/2 X 11 perfect bound journal with a place-keeping ribbon. I write everything in it, sometimes regularly and sometimes with weeks in between entries. I work out problems, sort out feelings, work through ides for my novel or articles, and write images or just words that pop into my head. This is where most of my poetry was born. I write in different colored pens and date my entries.

I believe writing in a journal is one of the healthiest, most rewarding things a person can do for himself or herself. Even if nothing comes out of it or you never re-read it, you will gain more peace, self-awareness, and mental well-being than you can imagine. I swear by it - and I've got the stacks to prove it.

-The Wordsy Woman

HOW I WRITE PREVIEW

It has occurred to me that though how people approach writing various subjects, genres, and, for lack of a better word, things, has similarities, it also has differences. So the next several weeks, I will be blogging about how I approach and "do" the things I write.

This is what I have in mind:

• Website copy writing
• Essays
• Poetry
• Novels
• Personal narrative or memoir
• Articles
• Blogs
• Social media posts
• Emails
• Journals

Today I'll talk a bit about how I approach my writing practice. I would love to say that I wake up every morning at five a.m., get right to writing, and have dozens of brilliant pages of copy by ten a.m. But, alas, that is not true. When I was working on one novel, I did get up an average of four mornings each week at 6:30 a.m. and wrote for a couple of hours before having to go to my at-the-time out-of-the-house job, but I did it reluctantly. Most mornings the only thing that motivated me to get out of bed was the thought of my rotting, pre-programmed coffee.

Nowadays, between taking graduate classes, doing volunteer work for Midwest Writing Center, and carting kids, I am a full-time writer. Though I am a full-time writer now, I'm always intending to spend more time actually writing. With a couple of recent regularly paying gigs, that is happening to a degree. As far as my writing practice, I really have no set schedule and no set routine.

I keep a three week spreadsheet of my days broken down into two hour blocks from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. that I fill in with my planned activities. This helps me to meet my deadlines and fit everything I want or need to accomplish into my schedule. It is a fluid and flexible plan so I probably never follow it exactly, but I know if I get groceries when I was scheduled to work on my blog, I'd better swap somewhere. I also keep a calendar with specific lists of tasks to complete in the week; I go by the week since my aforementioned general schedule changes so frequently.

Whether I write long hand with pen and paper or on the computer varies by what I'm working on. Generally, though, I type anything concrete I'm writing like an article but will go long hand for poetry and journal writing. I probably do write every day but not creatively and not always in the project where I want to be, but it is a process and work in progress. That's one of the great things about writing; if it doesn't work one way, you try something else.

Happy writing. I hope you enjoy my upcoming posts!

-The Wordsy Woman