That seems like a no-brainer when it comes to writing down what you think, doesn’t it? But how free ARE you when it comes to journaling? There are three things we can do, I think, to help us just be ourselves as we put our thoughts down on paper:
- Guard our privacy
- Forget about perfection
- Prime the pump
`
Guarding our privacy.
`
Some people feel the need to actually put a note in the front of their journal saying the contents are private and confidential. That’s no guarantee, of course, that someone won’t still read it if they run across it, but it’s worth a shot. Drollery keeps his journal in the drawer of the living room sofa table. I’ve never even thought about getting it out and reading it. And mine is always beside my chair in the living room. But to leave them lying about like that takes an enormous amount a trust. So for some people keeping it out of sight is a better answer.
The thing is, if we can’t be certain of our privacy, the first thing that’s going to happen is we’re going to censor ourselves as we write. Even the smallest attempts at censorship can backfire later. I went through a period where I thought I didn’t want to use folks names, at least full names, in my writing. So I’d use either just initials or first name and initial (Sue T.). Thing is when I went back to reread a couple of them a few years ago, I had no bloomin’ idea who I was talking about in a couple places. I never did THAT again!
That being said, you may feel more comfortable if you come up with a coded language. Who knows what that might be, but if that’s what it takes to make you feel more free when you write, then go for it.
One other thing. You may want to decide what’s to become of your journals after you pass away. Will you care at that point whether others read what you wrote about them? (And if you’re not writing SCATHING comments about folks or situations from time to time then maybe you’re not feeling as free as you thought. I’ve been considering that myself.) Do you NOT want to start WWIII in your family by revealing someone else’s secrets? Things to think about. My PIC Amy will probably end up with mine — to burn!. 😀
`
Are you a perfectionist?
This is a biggie for me and can make journaling a chore if I give into it. I’ve found that I MUST repeatedly give myself permission to write “crappy.” Or to write a “bunch of crap” for that matter.
I tell myself it’s ok to misspell words and NOT go back and correct them. Does it drive you crazy to scratch a word out in your journal and not cover it with White-Out? Better work on that! Does it bug you to punctuate incorrectly or skip punctuation altogether? Do you insist on using good grammar? Does your handwriting get messy depending on how mad you are? Or does it slant right off the page? (That’s why I use lined paper.) How about incomplete sentences? I LOVE incomplete sentences! Saves time. The best kind of journaling — in my opinion — is when I write exactly the way I talk. Then it feels natural to me and I’m a lot less concerned with all the little mechanical things.
All of these little things can drive you to distraction and then you never get your thoughts down on paper. I know for myself I have to work constantly at remember it’s ok for my journal not to be perfect just as it’s ok for ME not to be perfect. Having to be perfect will suck all the life out of your words.
`
Priming the pump.
There are times when I’m just madder than hell about something and I grab my journal and start ranting. I can go on for an hour. Or I can be trying to reason through something and need to get every thought I have down on paper. Then there are the days when I just feel I SHOULD be writing so I make myself do it. And those entries are always short and meaningless for the most part.
So what do I do to prime the writing pump? The main thing for me is to scribble notes somewhere about what I need to journal about. Things I don’t want to forget. I do that in the margins of my journal or in another little notebook I carry in my purse. But often I have no notes. That’s when “free association” writing comes in handy.
If you can’t think of anything to write about and you’re really feeling the urge to write, take five or ten minutes and just start writing about whatever comes to your mind. Doesn’t have to be in your journal. Any old notebook will do. But nine times out of ten when I do that I stumble across something I DO feel inclined to write about. If I don’t, then I don’t write for that day. Simple as that. My journaling schedule is definitely NOT written in stone.
`
Well, those are just some things that come to mind about how to be ME and feel relaxed when I’m writing. How about you? Do you have more tricks of the trade up your sleeves? How do you keep your journal private? Or do you? Are you a perfectionist who has to take the time to fix everything? What do you do when you find yourself stuck in a rut and don’t know what to write about? Do you feel like you can just be YOU when you write, or is that a freedom you’ve never experienced?
Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. Or if you find you have a lot to say, I invite you to do so on your own blog and pingback to this post.
`
“The greatest thing in the world
is for a person to know
how to be oneself.”
— Michel De Montaigne
`
“As soon as you trust yourself
you will know how to live.”
— Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe
`
`
Picture Credits:
Shoe box — www.wikihow.com
Journal page — recordmecca.com
What to write — literaryyard.com
Impromptu Promptlings 
I do journal about very personal things because I like to see how I deal with difficult situations. My journal is password protected but any amateur hacker could get in. I have given my password to my husband for when I die. I certainly do not worry about grammar and certainly not spelling in my journal. Time enough to polish things if they are good fodder for publication. If I am not feeling like writing one day I will take a book I like or article or even an index and pull out words I like. Then put those words together into sentences and see if there’s something fun to use as a starter from there. And of course there are all kinds of prompts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well you stay pretty darn busy! I think I’m guilty of not journaling about some of the things I REALLY need to. I’m so aware of once they’re out there you can’t hide from them anymore.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The privacy thing is not an issue…My journals sit out on a little stool I painted next to my wicker settee…..now when the grandbabies are here, I’ll put them away….as for worrying about writing style/mistakes and all…I. Have. The. Worst. Handwriting. Ever….Like in Horrendous!! So I print..and even my printing has something to be desired! 🙃 so I scribble, I cross out,,,I doodle and I draw…I print out favorite pictures and glue them in with journal entries…..they’re My Pages after all………I’m still waiting to feel the pull, the urge to start again…….
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s the way I am with mine, too. EVERYTHING goes in there. If I struggle with anything these days it’s that I wish I had categorized my entries somehow. A while back I went through some old journals from the 80’s looking for a particular entry. I could only guess at the date so I had to reread quite a bit of the journal. It distressed me terribly. It was a bad time for me. (That’s when I found where I’d put in people’s initials rather than names.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m a relative newbie compared to you! The 80’s! Wow….I want ‘allowed’ to have a journal when I was married to my ex…he thought it was a way of keeping secrets from him………..
Jim gave me my first journal in my 40th birthday…been keeping one ever since
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve been journaling since junior high school, though I have NO idea where all those younger journals got to. My folks started purging their house a bit at a time when they retired. I’m guessing they threw a lot of my stuff out. It wasn’t until the late 70’s I made the distinction between journals and diaries. But I have everything from around that time. I wonder if you would like journaling through The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron. It’s a very artsy-craftsy kind of book where as her The Artist’s Way was more about writing. There are assignments. I’d do one then comment on it in my journal. It was easy and interesting what I discovered about myself. What I liked, what I didn’t.
LikeLike
Ooh I can just see me being furious with myself for not applying an apostrophe correctly (makes me so mad when I see apostrophes scattered hither and thither in all the wrong places), and as for spelling mistakes …
Funny thing is when I’m working on a first draft I don’t worry about anything, I just have to get the words and ideas down, the tidying up can come later. I don’t know if I could work so freely in a journal. I’d want it to be neat and tidy and that’s not the point of journaling 😏
If you could see my notebooks you’d see how much I scribble out, double star for insertions, insert missing punctuation. Sometimes I can barely read what I’ve written as it all looks such a mess – I can’t imagine anyone else would be able to make head nor tail of it all.
As for inspiration – I tend to write in verse form for some strange reason. I find myself doing it more and more. I think it’s because It’s easier for me to capture ideas that way – the tidied version often makes it to my blog.
I envy your ability to use your journals as the keepers of your thoughts and feelings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think I’ve pretty much gotten over my tendency to want to correct everything legibly in my journals. I scratch out a lot of stuff. And the more I hurry, or if I’m really agitated, my handwriting gets HUGE! My writing gets all mixed together, too. In one sentence I can have t’s crossed without breaking a stroke but in the next word they’re nearly printed. I’ve often wondered what a handwriting expert would make of having two such different styles in one sentence — or even in one word. It fascinates me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are overthinking it my friend. Write how and when you feel like it and write what you want. Never write for numbers or likes…write for yourself. Don’t try to please us, please yourself.
We aren’t journalists, we don’t get paid for what we write. We take a lot of time out of our day to write for free. Have fun with it.
I don’t care about my writing style or if I might offend someone. It’s my blog…my rules, my Heaven 🙂
That’s the beauty about blogging, I can sit here in my underwear or dressed up like a queen…nobody cares. It’s just me and the keyboard…and the dogs.
The little we read….we can write 🙂
LikeLiked by 3 people
LOL! Do you have a wardrobe for your writing moods? 😀 Sounds fun! But I was talking about personal journaling that no one really sees. I know it sounds silly to folks who blog regularly, but truly some people are intimidated by the idea of keeping a journal. And more than a little anxious about actually writing down their own truth.That might make an interesting topic, actually! Thanks for the idea.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it’s the same for both, journaling or blogging. Don’t overthink it…write when you feel like it. Nobody will care how it looks like.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s true. I think a lot of this is just initially struggling when you’re first starting out. I don’t stress over much of anything in my private journals anymore — except punctuation. For some reason I’ve never been able to let that go and just write. It gets on my nerves when there should be a comma somewhere so the sentence is understandable. It’s just a quirk of mine. We all got ’em.
LikeLike
You know what? That’s the way I am about my house, too. My friends don’t give a hoot what my house looks like. It’s ME that gets all bent out of shape if I feel like it’s a mess. I guess I’m the same way about my journal. How odd…
LikeLike
Just write what you feel and to hell with it. People can take it or leave it, be offended or agree.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh if we were all as strong and self-assured as you, dear Opher! 🙂
LikeLike