I’ve found it very helpful to keep a reading journal recently, but I wanted to write a quick post on how helpful I’ve found keeping a regular journal as well. The difference is, I’ve gone back to keeping a regular, (mostly) daily journal by hand.
It’s helped reduce my anxiety and has increased my feelings of clarity about my current situation and plans for the future. Keeping it by hand has had an effect as well; I’ve found it a lot easier to open up and use it as a way to drain negative feelings out of myself.
I’ve got notebooks I’ve used as journals dating back twenty years, but in the last few years I’ve mostly opened up a new Google doc to vent. This has the advantage of convenience, but I am not sure it’s the healthiest way for me to engage in the practice. And that’s because I’ve noticed that when I journal in the same environment, the same way, that I produce things I am going to show people, like this blog post, I tend to hold back.
A bit of me feels like I’m writing for an audience. And it’d be so easy to share it. There’s literally a button that says share in the top right of the screen. Or I could copy and paste the whole thing. A bit of me doesn’t like this, and won’t fully let go. Which isn’t a great feeling.
Designating a notebook to be your journal is a private, personal thing, and every time you open it up, you’ll know you’re writing for yourself. Sure, you might end up workshopping some stuff and copying it out, and that’s great, but you will be writing for yourself first and foremost. Which is good practice anyway, but sometimes you might need a little prompting, I know I do.
I’ve also noticed that it can be a mindful practice. The physical sensation of writing is something you can focus on and that can keep you in a reflective space. With your phone on silent and turned face down, or in another room, you can focus on your feelings and on expressing them.
I tended to journal in a different place to where I usually work, because I usually work on my computer in a little alcove, which is fine, but it’s also where I tend to play videogames or browse the internet. I know that’s not great, but it is what is with my living situation. I’ve had some lovely afternoons sitting at my kitchen table by the open back door, feeling a pleasant breeze and hearing birds sing. It gave me moments where I could sit back and notice when I was happy, something Kurt Vonnegut recommends and which I think is a good idea too.
It was much nicer than sitting at my computer, switching between tabs, looking at the news, trying to focus on something else and not being able to.
It’s also a fantastic store of detail if you intend to write fiction. I’ve often written down interesting little details about my day, things people said, stuff I’ve seen. Not all, but some of the best writers of fiction have done it by taking real life’s exquisite detail and rendering it on the page. W. Somereset Maugham, for example, whose A Writer’s Notebook is a fascinating insight into how a prolific author stored up enough material to keep writing.
And you don’t need many materials. A cheap notebook and a pen. Or a pencil. I’ve used fancy Moleskine notebooks in the past because the paper is easy to write on and they have a nice pocket in the back for keepsakes, like tickets and notes, but any notebook will do. I am currently using this one I got from WH Smith because I liked the pattern on it. If you do have a bit of extra money to spend on a nice notebook and a nice pen, you can transform it into a daily gift you give yourself.
I try to do it every day. I don’t always because I seem to have a much easier time building bad habits than good ones, go figure. I’ll probably journal about that tonight.
Do you keep a journal? Please let me know in the comments if there are any practises that have helped you 🙂
James Farson 
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