Journals Made Me

If you know me well, you know I'm reflective. I'm not shy, nor especially soft-spoken, but I rarely express a thought before I've lived with it for a while. That's one reason I've kept journals for nearly thirty years. They've become my confidant, my communion, my refuge, my laboratory, and perhaps my truest voice.

Over the years, those journals evolved into three distinct companions: my personal journal, my sketchbook, and my writer's notebook.

First is my personal journal. A book that I’ve been writing in for nearly thirty years. I have a few lessons I’d like to share with writers. It’s a common misconception that a journal requires a daily entry. Not really. A regular practice makes rereading it later far more rewarding. I try to write entries as often as possible. I learned not to guilt myself. When I feel compelled to jot down my thoughts, I do. I will add, though, that when I started, back those many years ago, I made a rule. Get an entry written once a week. And so, I did that until I found that the joy of a journal is reading it. That alone encouraged me to write in it more often.

Here’s something journal keepers rarely say; reading a journal is better than writing one. My practice is to have ready an entry prompt. For many years I read Christian scripture, a chapter or five a week. I’d copy a verse and write seventy-five to one hundred fifty words (one or two pages) in response. I moved from scripture to poetry, then to quotations and finally from great novels. I wrote stream of consciousness often missing any connection to the prompt altogether. I think it just jump-started me. One mark per day. One mark a day for a year. My entries were branded by remaining present to that day.

At the end of the year, or a significant period, I would turn to the page dated January 1 and read until December 31. In those annual readings, I discovered the arc of my own life. Patterns emerged that I'd never noticed while living them. I gained a wonderful insight into my emotional states. I learned to deliberately ignore the temptation to ‘read’ my life, choosing  instead to live it rather than analyze it. The reveal at the annual reading was worth the reward.

In fact, it felt like a novel as I explored this seemingly other person’s trials and triumphs. As the daily entries burgeoned into actual volumes, I dated and labeled them. Volume 1 and so on. Important detail if you want to reread thirty years of your life in chronological order. I missed that detail in the early years.

I’m currently on Volume 14.

I mentioned I have three journals. I do. My second is my painting sketchbook where I explore new visual ideas and work out compositions. Most of my time there is project centered. Most of my artwork says what words cannot. The deeper reflections remain in my personal journal. So, the sketchbook is my repository of designs kept, some executed for public exhibition and others for my eyes only. I do maintain the same practice of sketchbook review at the end of the year. I also date and label them too.

And my most recent journal is more like a novel workbook. I store my story ideas, character names and histories, plotting details and even quotes. My reading list for a new novel will provide me with historic facts and colorful tidbits to use while constructing the story. It’s a new practice for me, so I’m still learning its mechanics. I will say it is extremely helpful while writing.

As I explore my inner life, I have become a better writer.

Only much later did I realize something surprising: somewhere along the way, I'd become a writer. My ideas were condensed into diamonds by the discipline of a single page. My powers of observation sharpened. I learned to condense complicated emotions without losing their depth. My early morning literary ideas were captured before the workday erased them. And in those reflections I found my truest self, examined in the pages of my own written sanctuary.

When I finally sat down to write my first novel, I thought I was beginning something new. I wasn't. For nearly thirty years I'd been quietly practicing. Every journal entry sharpened my eye, strengthened my voice, and taught me to pay attention. The novels were simply the next chapter in a conversation I'd already been having with myself for decades.