Writing for Pleasure

Get going

If you don’t already write a personal journal, the time to start is – now!

I simply cannot emphasize the importance of keeping a personal journal, and keeping it up-to-date. This does not mean that you must write in it every day – but I would recommend doing so. Write in the more important events, when they took place and the things you want to remember from those events.

Most people have memories that may be good “but short” as the joke goes. Unfortunately, it is true that most of us often need a bit of help to remember things. Sometimes we use things to help us remember – the souvenirs we buy are such things, but it can also be a dried flower, a collection of seashells, and a bottle of sand from a favourite beach.

It is not much we need to trigger our memories, and that is where each journal entry can help. It can help us remember the events more vividly, and sometimes that is very important.

Journals can be very useful

I recall a real horror story about a man who was accused of having raped a young girl and having made her pregnant. She had not reported the incident when it was said to happen, but when she found out that she was pregnant, she did. The man claimed never to have seen the girl, but that did not help and he was put in custody while the police investigated the claim. They believed the girl – not the accused.

His wife could not believe the story she heard about her husband, and since she knew that he kept a journal she checked it see what he had done during the time when the alleged rape had taken place. To her relief she found out that he had been in a completely different part of the country at that time. What was even better, there were ways of proving that he had been at the place written down in his journal.

Facing this evidence the girl broke down and confessed. Her boyfriend had made her pregnant, and he had come up with the idea that she should claim to have been raped when hitchhiking. He had looked for an expensive car, written up the registration number, and then told his girlfriend to claim that she had noticed the registration number of the car her rapist had been driving.

That man was very grateful for having a wife who trusted him and for the journal entries that he had made for so many years.

I am not saying that something similar can happen to you (though it might) I only use the story to stress the importance of having the good habit of journal writing. If you do, and if you ever are asked where you were or what you did on such and such date – you can assuredly say “let me check my journal”.

Reasons for writing a journal or a diary

Many people start writing journals as part of their jobs – there are sometimes legal reasons why you must keep a journal and those who have to do that often they see the benefits of writing a personal journal as well.

I learned this very early in life, and I have continued the habit for the most part of my life. Of course, there have been times when it has been difficult to keep up with the journal writing, but if so I have tried to “jot down” some short notes to help me fill in my journal when things have returned to normal.

It was mainly during times of difficult emotional stress that it felt “impossible” to keep up with journal writing…but I wish I had done so also during those difficult times.

Much of what I experienced then could have been excellent material for books… though it would be hard to write them. To relive those events would have been heart wrenching and the stress might have caused the depression I felt during those times to come back.

Some events are better forgotten, but had I been smart enough to write them down as they occurred I could have read them when I felt like it. I mean, you do not have to read what you have written down in your journal. You can let the events rest until an appropriate time.

Anyhow, to keep a journal is not only to record the things that happen to you in your daily life, it can also be a tool to help set your goals and help you meet them. The information you write down can also be extracted and used in letter writing and as background material for articles targeted for publication, etc.

The more information you include in your personal journal, the more useful it will turn out to be.

Templates help

I have made up a template that makes it easy for me to write down the events in my life, and I store them all in a file folder that I have named “Journals” – creative as I am.

In that folder, I add one folder for each year, and I simply name that folder according to the year. That is, this year is named “2009” and that should be simple to understand.

In each “year” folder, I add two more folders, one named “References” and another “Illustrations”.

These two folders I use to place digital material that I can hyperlink to from the journal entries. If it is an interesting or important letter, I make a note in the journal the day it is received, and then add a scanned copy under “References”, and simply link the journal entry to the appropriate file.

When it comes to the illustrations I often include the illustration in the journal, but I also keep a copy in the illustration file…where also other related illustrations can be stored.

Note! To help you in your journal writing I have prepared a template in MSWord (version 2003). I tried to upload a copy, but WordPress did not permit it – I had to make it into a zip-file then it was possible to upload it. You can access it here.

Different types of journals

It is not necessary to limit yourself to writing a personal journal, though that is the one I feel is most important and one that everyone would benefit from writing. However, other types of journals that you may consider are listed below.

• Personal journal is the journal where most of the events that happen to me, both the good and the bad ones, are described. Some very briefly, others more detailed. It is how I feel the moment I write them that provides the style and the content. The information written down I can use as is and transfer to any of the other journals, or I can use it to write articles and novellas – and some have even turned into books. I also use the Journal to enter information about future events that I must remember, and I add more information to that entry after the event has taken place.
• Dream journal is a journal where only the most vivid dreams end up being described. I normally have to write these journal entries very shortly after I had the dream. Some of the dreams I have been able to use as inspiration to write novellas, and it is amazing how much details that come into my mind when I write the stories based on the information I have entered in the dream journal. However, – before you even ask – I never had any desire to have my dreams analysed or having them interpreted in any way. It was enough that I had been able to enjoy them.

Note! An odd thing happened to me when I started tot write down my dreams. It seems as my brain understood that I enjoyed my dreams, and I got more vivid dreams as a result. In some instances I have even been able to induce the type of dream I wanted by meditating before going to sleep and trying to visualise the dream I wanted to have during the night…I often did.

• Travel journal is something I write for every longer trip I take. In my life, it has not been unusual that my trips have taken several weeks, and even months, to complete. The journal I write during such trips became part of the personal journal, and thus I often combine those when travelling. When I return home I normally use the text from the personal journal to prepare a separate journal for the voyage just made. In addition, this material can be used to produce travel articles, novellas and even books. For this type of journal, it is very important to collect references (even things such as tickets, boarding cards, etc. can be useful) and if you use a camera, you should place the digital photos in the illustration folder.
• Project journal is something that I normally keep up-to-date on a daily basis. It is used to submit information about work produced for a customer and is thus not part of any “personal” information. It is always kept current and sometimes I enter information several times a day when working on the project.

However, the project journal is not writing that I do for the pleasure of writing – it is writing I do for money…

Limiting the number of Journals

There is no need to go “overboard” when preparing Journals to write. The picture below is one that I took during a visit to Laos.  I mean…to keep an “open Diary” for a laundry seems to be a bit excessive…but fun.