Journals and Papers

Are you having trouble coming up with topics when you go to write in your journal? For some people who are used to keeping a journal, coming up with topics is easy. For those who are new to keeping a journal, or would like to write, but just don’t know what about, try using a newspaper or magazine headline for a prompt.

I just opened a magazine to a random page, and read the headline: ‘Summer Fun… There’s no time to waste like the present’. Right away I thought of family fun at the beach, things I enjoyed on our day out, a memory that made me smile and my entry started to flow.

Another one jumps out at me: ‘Serious Party Girl’. Well, perhaps not much any more, but boy do I remember when.

The advertisements too offer a special way to get any kind of prompt. It may work better too if you remove some of the title, e.g. ‘Joy is powered by passion, not fuel.’ in a BMW advertisement. Take off the end, and you are left with a great prompt, ‘Joy is powered by passion.’ What passion has given you joy recently?

Don’t discount photos either. Go through a magazine and clip out some of the photos that capture your attention at first glance. Keep a file (you can always collage a journal page later) so that you can pull out a picture anytime you are looking for something to write about. When you look at the photo, start writing what you feel right away. You’d be surprised what comes out.

If you are having trouble looking for ideas to journal about, they may just be a fingertip away as you search a favourite magazine.

I’ve been noticing recently that retired seniors are coming up with activities they can do, which are meaningful, creative and a lot of fun. Some of these activities are off-chutes of others, such as scrap booking and taking journal writing to a new level.

I’ve met one lady who wanted to take photos of me at my home-based business office. We both live in a rural area, and “just for fun – and something to do”, she was taking pictures of local businesses, printing them, adding business cards and brochures, and notes about the business and compiling it all into a scrap book page. One thing to note here is that in the country, not all businesses of the norm. Some are quite different and encompass anything from ranching to knife carving to taxidermy. Once her project is finished, she’ll have a memory book full of interesting businesses and people she met along the way. (In the future, it can always be donated to the local library.)

Not knowing what to do with his time when my Father-in-Law retired, he decided to continue his computer work, but made a shift from business to personal writing. His days are always busy and sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all he does. So everyday at night or during the day he writes a few paragraphs about his activities and people he was with. He adds such things as ticket stubs, cards, receipts and photos. He’s not even six months into his daily journal and he has already filled up a 3 inch binder full of writing and collectibles from his activities. He loves doing this, as it is an activity that again lets him interact with others, not to mention his children love it too. Now we get to know what keeps him so busy!

I am sure there are many other ideas on how seniors are keeping journals. Please comment on them and share your ideas here on this blog.

Hope is something we conjure up in deep times of sadness and grief. Hope comes from within, an awakening, a desire, something to believe in. Hope moves us forward, gives us a sense of purpose. Hope is anticipation of a better time to come.

When we journal, we sometimes journal for hope, especially if we are going through a rough time. We journal to write words we believe in, words to give us comfort. A journal becomes a cane in times of hardship. We can lean on it; use it for support and strength.

If you have cancer, or know of someone who is suffering from the disease, or are survivors, the Hope Every Day Journal by Compendium is a delightful gift for the journal writer. It features uplifting, meaningful quotes on every two-page spread that give hope and inspiration.

With every cancer battle, there also come many success stories. Explain first steps taken, fears that are faced and conquered, healthcare workers who have helped. Write about friends and family who have stayed with you and provided support. This small gem of a journal is a wonderful tool for wellness and to track a powerful journey of hope.

We all set them. Whether it’s for weight loss, achieving financial gain or for personal reasons, we all set out with goals or New Year’s resolutions each and every year. Did you do a lot of journal writing in 2009? Would you like to do more in 2010?

Once way to ‘jump start’ your journal writing in 2010, is to begin an entry by jotting down your goals with regards to your journal writing. Ask yourself questions such as:

• How often do I want to write.
  • Be honest and if you simply don’t have the time to write every day, then don’t plan on it. You may choose to have a journal handy and nearby just in case you are ready to write. Maybe there is that one hour out of the week - perhaps while waiting for a child to finish an activity that you can pull out a journal and write.
• What do I want to write about?
  • Take a few moments to think of some topics that interest you. Maybe you want to write about goals, relationships, emotions, or events. If you make a list at the front of a new journal (dated 2010), when you feel the urge or have the time to write, but can’t think of something to write about, you can check the list you made and choose a topic.
• Where will I write?
  • You may decide to take your journal with you to a favourite coffee shop, or park. If you are the type that wants total privacy, you might like the bedroom, or den. If you have an idea of the places you like to write, then you won’t feel intimidated to pull out a journal and start writing. You may even remember to bring a journal with you, as you predetermined your favourite places to write.
• Do I need a new journal? 
  • Nothing motivates like a new, unopened journal. No, they aren’t meant for saving for ‘good’. If you were lucky enough to receive a journal for Christmas, then this is a good opportunity to crack it open and start your entry. If you are not quite getting that fuzzy feeling with an older journal, then maybe it is time to seek out a new writing journal - hmm - maybe even a leather one.
• Where will I find the resource topics (prompts) to help me get started with a journal entry?
  • This blog entry you’re reading now, gives you a great start to 2010 journal writing! There are also a number of books and resources at the bookstore or library on journal writing. You can use the internet and look for ‘journal writing prompts‘. Prompts are one or two sentences that you can use to open a journal entry. You read the sentence, and then just free write what your brain suggests after reading the prompt. Just like the topics you listed, you can also jot down some prompts specific to your interests to save for a later time when you need something to write about.

By writing the answers to the above topics, you have already created a great start to your 2010 journal writing. When you do pick a time to write, take into account the hours in the day when your mind is fresh and you are feeling creative.

I call it ‘regrouping’, which is my term for getting in touch with my spirit source. At some points in life many things can and do change and these changes take you away from your self goals, dreams and the route you feel you should be going in life. We are dragged into situations we don’t want to be in, doing things we really don’t want to be doing that leave us wondering, “What am I doing here, now?”. It is at this point that I use a journal to get me back on track to what I feel my life is about and to help me regroup my thoughts and feelings and get ‘back on track’. I’ve found it is the only tool that helps me personally, and it may be a great tool for others. It’s almost akin to using a brush when you are having a bad hair day.

I make time for myself amidst this chaotic realm of doing what others feel I should be up to and sit down with a journal that fits my mood. I have a special journal for my spiritual writing. When I sit and write, I write about where my life has gone, and what I’d like to be doing. I write about things I am grateful for. I write about goals, dreams and outcomes. The entries are very personal and most likely not shared.

Some people take a walk when life gets too hectic. Me, I pull out my spiritual journal.

I’ve been pondering lately, whether a person can have too many journals, especially last night when I went looking for a journal I had used to write some personal thoughts and goals. I couldn’t remember where I had put the journal, but even worse than that, I couldn’t remember which journal I had even used. I wonder if I am the only person in this position, or if others have had the same problem?

Over the years I’ve managed to accumulate more than a fair share of journals. I have leather ones, and spiral ones, some inspirational types and some I received as gifts. The hardest time of the year for me is staying out of the stationery stores in August and September around the new school year. It’s amazing just how many new styles of journals and writing notebooks they come out with each year. Invariably I pick up a couple. I’ve even resorted recently to sneaking journals into the house.

Now I do keep all my unused journals in one spot. The problem arises when I grab a journal for a specific purpose - such as writing goals, or notes about some emotions I am dealing with. I journal in different areas of the house, or I may take journals with me and store them in a favorite bag or on a shelf for later use. It seems every writing subject requires a new journal, and herein lies the problem - I’ve got too many on the go.

I also don’t believe in ripping pages out of a journal I’ve started and attaching them to another journal, or rewriting the entries into other journals. To me, the writing style and it’s messiness or neatness goes along with the subject matter and the date the entry was written. I’ve come to realize though I may have to gather all my journals I’ve touched with entries into a box and label it “Journal Storage”. At least then I could flip through them all and find what I am looking for.

As for a solution to my problem, for me there isn’t one. I shall continue purchasing the cute, odd, beautiful-gift-type-of journals, writing specific subjects unique to the style of journal, even if it is only a few entries, and trying not to misplace them. I do believe a central spot of storage though would solve part of the problem.

If you like a different journal for every specific subject on your list, then check out my store at Journals and Papers. Perhaps I should sell storage boxes too!

Do you want to leave something for your child, for the world? Can journals be preserved? Can they become a family legacy? You bet! Have you considered willing your journals to a caretaker; someone who will cherish them and make sure that they are passed throughout the family, or given to a grandchild? Maybe there are some journals that you really wouldn’t want to share. In which case, that should be known too.

You can select a close friend, or someone in your family to be the keeper of your journal collection upon your death, especially if you have kept volumes of journals that include family stories and events. Even if your journals are specific to you, it might be nice for a future grandchild to know who you were and what your were about. Imagine a teen in the family having trouble and not knowing where to turn, being given one of your journals during a casual conversation. The teen wonders what he could even find within the written words, but after reading a few passages is engrossed in a life that seemed just as confusing as his is now, and he feels somewhat of a kinship for someone he has never met.

For those journals where you don’t wish a soul to view, leave explicit instructions to your journal caretaker about how to dispose of them. Perhaps you want them burned or shredded.

Your journals might be a form of a memoir and could be publishable. Do you want the family to pursue such a project and publish your memoirs? Can they use your journal entries? What if you had close ties with an organization over your life and had written several entries about events and people. Should these be made public?

It’s hard enough trying to figure out and get a will drafted up for your personal items, let alone determine where your volumes of journals are going to go. But if you were an avid journal writer and have a significant collection of journals, it might be worthwhile thinking about what is to happen to your writing after you are gone, or unable to write anymore.

One person’s writing (no mater how trivial or important to the author) may be another person’s treasure.

I realized how important writing was to me when I could not do it anymore. In April I had an accident (no fault of my own) and broke my right forearm, both bones, one in two places and had to have surgery. this put an immediate halt to any writing projects I had on the go, to any journaling I wanted to do and to general typing, as I am right-handed. The typing is coming along, caps still pose a problem - seems no matter how hard I push the key, the cap just won’t work - but it’s getting better (*smile*).

Have you ever thought what writing means to you. If you are a constant writer like I am, you will certainly understand. I am the type that always has a journal in close proximity. They (journals) are everywhere in my house. You never know when I might get the urge. The worst part with my injury was that I couldn’t write even a simple note. As I undergo physio therapy, the writing is getting better. Sometimes I have to hold my forearm while writing. Seems to ease some of the pain.

While I was ‘incapacitated’, I was able to meditate on my love of journal writing and I realized it is a part of me that will never go away, and I am really happy to have this forum to talk about journal writing and share my thoughts with you. So I am back and sorry for the delay in blog posts. Hopefully I can do better as I heal more each day.

Sometimes it is nice to be able to find journal entries that were written in the past, but if you haven’t created a way of finding specific entries, you will be searching through many pages for a long time. There is an easy method to catalogue journal entries into a table of contents (TOC) without too much effort.

1. When starting a new journal, leave anywhere from 2 to 3 pages at the beginning of your journal for a table of contents (TOC). (If you have a journal with more than a hundred pages, you may want to leave more pages open.)

2. Excluding the TOC pages, number the rest of your journal pages, at the top or bottom of each page. You can center the page numbers or put them in the corners. Be creative with this. Use a colored pen and write the numbers in calligraphy if you want to.

4. When creating a new journal entry; date it (left or right hand side) and give it a title (centered).

5. In your TOC, on the left hand side, write the page number of the entry you are working on, followed by the title and date (see example).

6. You can even take it a step further and add a one line description below your TOC entry, if you feel you’d like more of a reference about your journal entry.

7. If you have a journal with sections, and you write in your journal in different sections based on a particular subject, you can also split up your TOC into the sections pertaining to your journal topic area.

8. When you have finished filling up a journal (a rare event at my desk), you can place from and to dates on the front cover and spine (if applicable) and a general title (e.g. nature journal, or traveling Europe).

The unique thing about this way of cataloguing entries, is that you have a means of finding entries, and you also have a date reference. You’d be surprised how many years go by and how many journal volumes you can go through. It is cool to wade through old entries and see what types of subjects you were working on. If you are journaling for future generations, they too will have a point of reference for when the piece was written.

One thing I have wondered is: when sticking to a lined journal, am I limiting my creativity? I am a writer and have very little artist flair inside of me, so I prefer a lined journal. I write - period. I only doodle when I am on the phone. I very seldom draw, add to or trace anything into a journal, unless I am specifically doing scrapbooking.

Should I expand my journal experience and buy an unlined or blank journal? Would I feel compelled to doodle or draw in it? I know if I write poetry I might feel more inclined to add a flower or something to the page. If you are like me and are looking for more creativity with your journal writing experiences, and want to expand your entries, try adding some visual effects and details. Artwork added to journal pages help to define your story in more detail.

With a blank journal, you can add photographs, sketches, make a collage or do calligraphy. What about using color? Perhaps describing a vibrant sunset with splashes of reds and oranges across the page. An angry entry might be embedded within a dark shadowy cloud. There are many different types of colored pens, and acid free archival pens that could be used to color words, sentences or drawing on a blank journal page. Play around with calligraphy and different writing styles.

If your inner artist wants to come out, by all means, draw, paint or sketch around a paragraph. Use inner imagery to show your feelings. Test your journal page first to make sure that the medium you use won’t destroy pages below it. You can protect the rest of your journal by inserting a piece of waxed paper with a blank sheet of paper on it and place it underneath the page you are working on.

I’ve seen some journals, where people use ribbon to create an attractive border. There are many scrapbooking tools that are available, such as stamps, decals and specialty paper for cutouts. If you are describing a favorite walk, what about picking up a special leaf or small flat-sized pebble to attach to the page.

Journal creativity doesn’t have to exist with just words. Try embellishing your journal today. I am always envious of playschool children. They never seem constrained to the page they are working on. Color and words flow, things get added to the page, and they do it with such flare. Don’t be afraid to release the inner child and expand your journal entries.