So! How serious are you about journaling? Have you ever taken the time to think about the tools you use for this craft?
For example, what kind of journal do you prefer? There are a blue million choices these days since journaling has become a trendy thing to do. Hard cover or soft cover? While hard-covered designer journals can be written in anywhere without being at a desk or table, soft-covered journals aren’t as bulky and tend to lay flatter.
Does size matter? Some people can write on anything. Ernest Hemingway wrote in moleskin journals, on napkins, and anything else he could find. Though 8″ x 10″ pages seem to be pretty common, a lot of folks prefer a 5″ x 7″. Some folks even like loose-leaf binders so they can include large envelopes for holding special keepsakes. Oh yes, and then there’s to be lined or not to be lined! And the computer has become a really viable option for some people. After all, blogs are journals, too, of a sort.
For myself I love Top Flight’s Silverpoint top-bound spiral notebook. It lays flat and the wire doesn’t get in the way no matter how or where I’m writing. And though it’s soft-cover, it has a fairly thick cardboard back on it that makes writing most anywhere easy, even on my lap. The paper is lined. Otherwise my writing tends to slant right off the bloomin’ page!
There are all different kinds of papers, too. Parchment, handmade, plain white, or colored. Acid-free paper will hold up the best, but it’s expensive. I have friends who’ve sent me handmade journals from Australia, England, and Germany. The cover of one of them is made out of an actual leaf. But they’re too darn pretty to write in. The minute I put anything in them I feel they are spoiled! And that hand-made paper is a pain in the butt to write on.
Lastly, what do you write with? Pen, pencils, colored pencils, crayons, markers… People use colors for a lot of different things. To make quotes stand out. To talk about dreams they had. To draw when the urge hits them. That’s one thing I don’t worry about. The most I can do is cut and paste!!! In fact, my sister gave me a birthday card today I’ve GOT to scan and show on here. It’s going right in my journal!!! But you can still be creative, even if you’re not an artist. I LOVE using stickers. I have special stickers to affix next to special topics. Like keys for entries that are Aha! moments. Ballet slippers for childhood struggles. Dragonflies for flights of fancy.
But whatever type of writing tool you use, it ought to fit comfortably in your hand so it feels like a part of you. (That’s just a fancy I have.) My favorite pens to write with are the Pentel R.S.V.P. finepoint pens. They come in several colors. They feel smooth and light in my hand. And the rubber grip on the bottom keeps my fingers from cramping when I’m on a roll. The only problem I’ve run into with them is that the smooth coating on the Silverpoint tablets can be waxy and sometimes clogs them up. But I love them so much I’m willing to throw them away half-used and buy more.
I do have several kinds of journals. What you want your journal to be will dictate, to a large extent, what tools you will buy.
So let me ask you today, what kind of journal style do you prefer? What do you like to write with? And what do you want your journal to be? Do you have special journals for special subjects? Oh, and here’s one! Have you NAMED your journal? (I have. It’s called Moodlings.. 😀 )
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“What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through.”
— Virginia Woolf
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“My pen is my harp and my lyre.”
— Judah Ha-Levi
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Picture Credits:
Notebook — www.amazon.com
Pens — www.pentel.ca
Impromptu Promptlings 
I use Penzu to journal, it’s an app and website that is complete secure. I love it, sometimes when I’m somewhere where I can’t pull out my laptop all I have to do is pull out my phone. I do miss putting pen to paper sometimes.
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Ooo! Another site to look up. Thank you so much, Tawni. I’ll have to check it out. I miss the pen and paper stuff, too. It makes me feel more connected to my journal and what I write.
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I actually have been journalling for the past 5 years or so through a secured site called 750words.com. I know people can hack into the cloud but people could find a written journal as well. I like the format because the site keeps track of things like number of days in a row that I write, and does analytics like what my mood was for that entry and even what the weather was while writing. I keep a spiral notebook as well for things like travel or going to my writer’s group or jotting down fun words and phrases to use. Any spiral will do and Pilot is my favorite pen. And I keep a sketch journal as well with my zentangles and other art work. For this I use a 5.5 x 8.5 Strathmore sketch book that I can carry with me and must have a Pilot pen and/or good quality colored pencils. So I guess I use a lot of tools. Once again, thanks for starting this conversation. Very informative.
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Boy, LuAnne, you come prepared! How do you carry all that stuff around? I’ve never heard of that site. I’ll have to check it out. That’s why I like talking about stuff like this. Seems I always learn something new and useful.
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Somebody “liked” my comment from this so I took another look at the conversations. I also, thanks to you BTW, checked out 750words.com. I’m going to be using it, I think. My ONLY problem with free writing – and it’s all on me – is that I’m a perfectionist and if I see a misspelled word or grammatical error, I feel like I have to fix it. When I journaled before, with pen and paper, I would read over it afterward and make changes. Which defeats the purpose of free writing. Any ideas how to turn off this OCD habit?
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Nice to meet a fellow journaler, Barb. Let me know what you think of 750words.com. I think now new members pay $5 a month (I was grandfathered in because I have been there so long!) but it is well worth it.
As far as free writing – I see nothing wrong with going back over it later to ‘fix’. In fact if I didn’t do that sometimes I would have no idea what I had meant to say. 🙂 Doing it during the free write can mess with the flow, though. If you do free writes in Word, you can turn off the grammar and spellcheck identifiers (those squiggly lines under words) if it bothers you.
I am a true believer though in free writing. Sometimes the actual ‘mistakes’ are better than what I meant to say. For example I was writing once about ‘enjoying watching the snow’ and actually wrote down ‘enjoying watching the now” and I thought the mistake was better than my original intent. This happens to me often.
So I really haven’t given you any advice. One thing you can do when keyboarding is not look at the screen – look out the window or whatever but don’t pay attention to the screen. And then go back and ‘fix’ any ‘mistakes’ made. Rereading is a great way to mine a journal entry for pieces to revise into polished posts.
Have fun with your writing! I, too, love spiral notebooks to fold back pages and fit into my purse.
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Thank you. I’ll keep your comments in mind. I’ve never used Word for journaling, even though I’m aware I can turn off the spellchecker and grammarly. I’m not sure why, but it was never an option in my mind for journaling.
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You know, Barb, I don’t really like using the computer to journal. I like to feel what I’m writing. I can only do that with paper and pen. It just feels different to me. Thanks so much for stopping by!
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That’s sage advice, LuAnne! She’s a pro, Barb!
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I have quite many journals, all from retreats I’ve gone on. That seems to be mostly why and when I journaled. All were hard covered, lined pages. While that was then, now I use my journals for my Tarot readings. Those are also lined books, but I’ve found I prefer larger spiral notebooks for that.
When we lived in Dallas, both Q and I began keeping journals (he has a library full of his own journals from way back when), only this time it we were using the computer. It’s so much easier. I even moved to doing it on journal sites, as every upgrade in the OS caused problems with text files. Sadly, all the journals I did online in one site has gone the way of a lot of online sites: MIA. I figure what ever it was, if I can’t remember, too bad, and better luck next time. Maybe they’ll come up with a way to imprint all my memories in my brain, which I will be able to retrieve easily – more easily than I can through my own broken memory.
Is blogging journaling? I’ve thought it might be, in a way. Not one of the ‘Dear Diary’ journals, but a record of what I have been doing.
Last year (two years ago, maybe) when we first moved in to the new house, I started doing a video journal. I remember thinking how cool that would be, when I was watching a show called “Ship to Shore” twenty plus years ago! And I was right.
As for pens – when writing – I prefer papermate, or bic. Don’t need a special pen, because it’ll get lost and then I’ll have to write about it. 🙂
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I think that fear of losing information is what keeps me from doing mine on the internet. Though my Saturday Morning Kitchen Khronicles I DO on a Proboards forum I have, then I import it into Pagemaker and print it off from there. A lot of times with pictures. But I never delete them from my site.
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I like the idea of printing off what I write online, though my printer and computer don’t talk to each other. 😦 Or the old one didn’t. The new one might. We just got a whole all in one set up – way confusing though.
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Oh yeah. You told me that. Swiss cheese memory issues…
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I love leather journals and Zebra brand ball point pens. I prefer the look of lined paper and like a medium weight. But! I recently tried to go back to pen and paper and cousin that it frustrates me. Alas, I think I will continue with my digital journal. I use Google Docs/Drive and it allows me to organize it all and access it from any device. I can even access documents offline. I’m hooked.
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I didn’t realize you could access that off line. Do you feel your information is pretty secure out there?
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You can mark the things you’d like to access offline. I’m not expert, I’m pretty new to it, but it’s easy so far and seems secure to me.
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I don’t know if I’d do really private journaling on there, but I like the idea of being able to access it from anywhere. I have plenty of other stuff that would come in handy for. I’ll have to explore that some. I know I have it on this Chromebook.
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My preference is a two page spread with blank and lined next to each other as I tend to draw and doodle. I also record dreams, in which case I write all the details on one side and leave the other for analysis and notes. I have also used cartridge drawing pads at times when I do a lot of arty stuff in various mediums, leaving the back of the page for my written journalling. My very definite and most sacred writing pen is a fine point Pilot – I have several of them and I go out of my way to hunt down refills. When I find them I usually buy a whole handful as they are hard to get. I’ve been using this type of pen for decades and everyone knows I will hunt them down if they dare borrow it without returning it !!
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I like that idea of a blank page by a ruled page. I doodle too and that might be fun.
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I find it very useful. I also date all of mine as sometimes going back to it, even years later, can yield more and different insights.
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I agree with LuAnne. I have a couple oversized ones like that. I did collages on some of the pages. Worked out great. That’s the way I feel about my R.S.V.P.’s, too. I actually took the time write Pentel and gripe about them clogging up. They wrote back a very nice letter. I know they use them at my doc’s office and they have the same problem there.
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I’ve had the same problem. Must be something to do with the viscosity of the ink and the size of the tip, I think. At least they acknowledged your letter. Shoulda sent you some freebies!
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I write in a steno book with blue ink. Gotta be blue ink! The steno book fits well in my purse and since I’m a legal secretary and have to use one at work, I can sometimes fudge and be writing in my journal and not my work one….Shhhh don’t tell! 😂
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Hey! When the mood hits you is the best time to write. I think that’s a great idea. Mine won’t fit in my purse, but I do have a little leather notebook I carry just to make notes of what I want to journal or blog about. (We won’t tell, btw. 😀 )
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It doesn’t matter as long as you are lost in a forest of words.
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How true is THAT! Leave it to you to cut right to the heart of the matter!
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I’ve discovered that I prefer a 5×7 spiral bound for the compact carrying ability and the fact they can be “folded” over for writing on the back of a page. I tried a few hardbound journals, but they bother me. I write with a fine point black pen. My favorite – until it’s discontinued – is Pentel’s EnerGel. No smear, no bleed. The RSVP line is my second choice.
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EnerGel… Haven’t heard of it. I’ll have to keep my eye open for one. I’m surprised a gel pen comes in a fine point. I need to have a look at that! Thanks for mentioning it, Barb.
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I don’t know where you live, but I get mine from Office Depot.
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I’m in Utah. I’ll have to check Office Depot and see if they have any Thanks!
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