Query: Journalling

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

And query for my flist:

Do you journal? If so, what about?

The issue is I have two daily agenda/schedule/calendar books for 2021. One, serviceable one I bought at Staples, which I plan to use as my 'Mom' one with to-do lists, reminders, dentist appointments, etcetera.

The other one is a nice Edward Gorey agenda book that my sister gave me for Christmas and I want to do something with it. It has a lot of nice artwork itself, some of which I've never seen before.

Ideas:

A diary (I've never been very good at keeping a diary but the daily section is small).

A creative journal (for my own poems. Or for things that inspire me or things I like.)

A crafting journal (I have my miniature coffee shop).

I have heard of gratitude journals. I don't know much about them other than the obvious.

Do you have/keep New Year's resolutions?

I suppose I could use it to keep track of resolutions but that seems a bit, well, sad, because I'd like it to be fun and resolutions are always a bit awful.

Anyway, if you do something with a journal or have any ideas about any of this, drop me a comment.

Comments

[garonne]

I tried to keep a bullet journal a few months ago. Like you someone gave me a really nice notebook/agenda and I wanted to somehow use it. (If you google "bullet journalling for writers" you'll see what I mean.)

After a few weeks I ran out of steam and stopped, but I wish you more success with it!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I will look that up. Thanks for the suggestion.

[lunabee34]

I have so many notebooks in current use. LOL

I use one to keep a journal where I just write my feelings or whatever I want to write. I sometimes draw or put stickers in this one.

I have another where I write to prompts and this journal is intended to maybe be minable later for creative non-fiction pieces. More recently I have been writing my dreams in that journal because new meds are making me have vivid and intense ones.

I do a lot of gratitude journaling. It's a way for me to focus on the positives in life and to counteract some of the bellyaching I do in my journal. LOL

I have another book where I write down cool quotes I come across.

And then there are all the random notebooks I make to-do lists in, etc.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Holy fuck! That's a lot of journaling and journals! I had not thought about the dream one. That is a good idea. Not that I have especially vivid or interesting ones, but still. I don't think I could keep up with more than two. But I might collapse them into Mom and non-Mom. And use the Gorey one for some of the things you suggest: creativity/art/inspiration. I tend to think Gratitude might go in the Mom journal, though. It isn't something I've ever journaled before, but now's the time for trying new habits.

[lunabee34]

My love for notebooks is a sickness. LOL

I think you are right not to try to do too much at once. The surest way to give up on a goal is to try to do a ton at once.

I love the concept of bullet journaling but it doesn't work for me in practice. I can't draw well, so I'd just get frustrated because mine wasn't pretty like the ones on pinterest. Also didn't work for me as an actual planner. I vastly prefer a calendar and separate to do list that I scratch off and then throw sheets away when done.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Hey, I'm not judging. When you see my tower of jigsaw puzzles just for 2020, you'll be able to see where my love has gone. I saw someone on tumblr showing a photo of their cleaned and disassembled fountain pens and I thought about you.

I had a look at bullet journaling but yeah I'm not thinking that's going to work. I mean, I'd spend a lot of time journaling and not much time actually doing the shit.

[lunabee34]

Heeeee. I've been expounding my fountain pen love to my parents, and dad says he thinks he might have some at home he'll give me. :)

[smallhobbit]

I have three! One is a basic diary, which is a combination of Calendar (ie things happening), anything I particularly want to watch, general to dos, FutureLearn course breakdown, plus the week's writing allocated by day. The last bit generally doesn't happen on the set day, but it's useful to keep planned and then when I do stuff at the end of the week I get the great satisfaction of ticking it off!

The second, larger diary I use to record due dates for challenges/exchanges, plus also I keep a record of what I've written each day, plus number of words written (because I post all over the place), and DW blog posts of varying sorts.

And the third is just for all those notes I'm not going to throw away instantly, and may want to refer back to in a few days time (I used to use scraps of paper but I always lost them). I find it surprisingly useful.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I am glad I asked because of all those meme responses of yours I've read, I never knew you had 3 journals. So give me an example of the last one. Are they fic notes or life notes? I am impressed at how much planning you do of your writing and challenges and exchanges, etc. I use the spread sheet for that for GYWO. Interesting that you write your entertainment on it. I shall ponder that, too.

[smallhobbit]

Flicking backwards through the latest pages: notes on a course I was following (a study of two paintings, built up over a number of days); summary of 'new things' from this year; list of ficlet prompts for 12 Days of Christmas, plus posting order; dates of tv programmes over Christmas; possible charities to apply to for funding; relationships for Heroine BigBang, so I can remember whose children are whose. So a complete mix.

A spreadsheet would work too for writing. I like having my 'to dos' for the week in diary form, visually the blanks show me how much time there is.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Wow, that is a mix!

The spreadsheet I use for submitting my word counts to GYWO at the end of each month, and I like it, but I don't actually use it to plan my fic. Just to tally the word count.

But you've inspired me be a little more exacting in planning my fic. For example, I got a trio of prompts from season of kink which is due on 14 Feb. And I totally forgot that I wanted to end my nocturne fic collection this month, so if I'd written it down maybe...

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I will also see about entertainment. I have checked out a film from the library and still haven't watched it. Maybe if I wrote it down things would get done.

[ancientreader]

To the extent that I have a journal, it's probably my posts here. The other things one might maybe count: a cheap notebook in which I tape copies of poems I like (it is labeled "Poetry Scrapbook," because I'm imaginative like that); and, as a species of writing journal, notes on the draft document of whatever fic I'm working on. The notes can be anything from fragmentary scenes to links to articles that inform the characterizations dear God do I sound pompous but yeah.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I don't think you sound pompous at all. I want to know! So on the last bit, the notes on the document/fic are electronic? Meaning copied and pasted into the file itself? Or are they hard copies of things? It might be nice to make more of an effort with poems and print/copy them and paste or hand copy them if they're short or fragments in the journal.

[ancientreader]

The writing notes are part of the document file; if they're something I wind up incorporating directly, or just a few words about something I want to do and then I do it, once the note is "used up" in that way I delete it.

I do print out scholarly stuff that I want to study closely -- like, one thing I'm using for the Giant Stucky of Doom is to do with the feeling of guilt as experienced by former coerced child soldiers. I keep a folder with PDFs of this kind.

The writing notes always include a ton of stuff [stray paragraphs, dialogue I've thought better of, scenes that don't quite work] that I wind up discarding, and that goes into a folder called Scrap. My Scrap folders are my lifesavers: I find it 1000% easier to edit myself if I know that I can go look at the stuff I'm throwing away, JUST IN CASE.

I love the idea of printing out your poems and putting them in a scrapbook! Your poetry is so beautiful and accomplished and if for example you could look at your achievements in physical form it might be a good feeling????

[cuddyclothes]

I've kept diary-type journals off and on over the years. I generally carry a notebook to write down ideas or anything else that catches my interest or if I need to vent. I'd had regular pocket calendars but this year there hasn't been any point!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

It's interesting to me that you use it to vent as well as collect ideas. So it is not just a repository but a sounding board for you, (something you add content to) too. Yes, the calendar has taken on less an important role than it has this year! But there are still appointments and (for me) soccer games!

[debriswoman]

An interesting question...
I have failed many many times to sustain a written journal/ diary
I have a slim 2 year diary which simply has set dates and work related events and time tables, but has a few items stuffed into a plastic sleeve , which I am loathe to remove

I kept a sort of gratitude journal for a while in darker times, trying to find something positive each day, but it petered out...

A sketching journal is the only one I have persisted happily, if somewhat erratically, with. One was filled with sketches of the Oregon/Washington trip, and included sketches from photos on my return. One lasted 3 years and was a scribble mix of text and sketch...all done on scene...and covering local trips as well as holidays...just started a new one this year. I have an older incomplete one, which spanned 10 years or more, when the offspring limited sitting with a pen. And I have one which I record things at home in, flowers, bark, favourite green shoe, anemones drawn with different pens/pencils.

I was daunted at first by books on sketch journals, re the quality and skill displayed, but then carried on regardless.

Oh...and do personalised needlepoint cushions count as a form of journaling? A bit unwieldy, perhaps...

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Yeah, I hear you on the failing to keep a diary thing. I want to set my expectations very low and manageable so that I don't end up feeling any failure related to this. I mean, there's no good reason to feel that way.

Ah, the sleeve! My mom journal has a double sided pocket and that's one of the reason I like that brand/style. And, believe it or not, I told you that I lost that chocolate wrapper (the apple one) but I didn't! I am doing my Big Clean (I haven't even finished my bedroom *sigh*) and found it. I had cut it and tucked it in the sleeve of the 2020 journal and that's where it was. I was so happy I hadn't thrown it out.

Yeah, I want to try the positivity/gratitude thing but (see above) I am keeping my expectations low.

Ha, ha! Here I am imagining you toodling about with a needlepoint cushion under your arm and sewing 'milk, bread, toilet paper..' on it.

[debriswoman]

Well done re wrapper location:-)

Re lowering expectations...
I recall the wider organisation I work for, looking at fixing stress, by promising to recruit many more of us, then to recruit a few more, then to simply reduce folk leaving, then proposed handing out packs at meetings containing gratitude journals and chocolate buttons, with links to meditation apps... helpful gestures, but...

And yes...embroidered shopping lists, for those with more time than sense...

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Yes, one doesn't like think one doesn't know oneself, if that makes sense. I like those wrappers. I know I like those wrappers. And I don't remember any tantrum of late strong enough to warrant me bin it. But I couldn't find it. For a while.

Oh, Lord. That sounds like an episode of The Office! *look at the camera and stare*

[debriswoman]

Not that I object to chocolate buttons...

[firecat]

I have kept journals since I was 13 or so. The format and frequency have varied. Composition notebooks at first, then files on my computer, then both files on my computer and blank books I picked up in various places.

Sometimes I wrote a lot about mental/emotional stuff I was working on. At other times in my life they've been more like notepads, in that I didn't write daily and mostly didn't write in order to write, but I was using them to keep track of things. But they'd sometimes accumulate a few poems here and there. (Mostly written in train station parking lots.)

For the past decade and a half I've had most of my journal in Scrivener. I have folders for daily entries (or for whichever days I've felt like entering something), to-dos, goals, and a folder where I keep track of my entertainment consumption (books, audiobooks, tv/movies, games). This year I started to do fanfic and now I have a giant folder for that, too.

I don't do new year's resolutions. I have a list of goals that I look at a few times a month. I add new ones when the time seems right.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Oh, wow. So a life-long journaler. So, before, you put everything in one place, one notebook?

I have heard of Scrivener. So is that on your phone? I use the memo app on my phone to record things when I'm out and about running errands.

Yes, so there's 'keeping track' and 'working through' and 'storing.'

[firecat]

Before computers I put everything in one composition book....I also had paper week-at-a-glance calendars that I put appointments in.

Scrivener is on my iPad and desktop, but not my phone. I use the memo app to temporarily store things I want to eventually add to Scrivener.

[luthienberen]

I haven't succeeded in keeping a regular paper journal but I do use a diary for work purposes for meetings, deadlines etc so it is in one easy non-electonic place to refer to.

I have notebooks where I scribble down ideas for fic before transposing mostly to a word doc :-)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Ah, so the notebook is a kind of temporary repository.

[luthienberen]

Yes, though I do keep mos of my notebooks as I don't always transfer everything. Depends on time really. :) (Sorry for not replying yesterday!)