I journal about anything and everything I can in my life – minutiae, dreams, important mailed papers, receipts, etc. There is literally nothing that I won’t put in my assorted journaling.
— Margot Olson
Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
— Natalie Goldberg
Journal what you love, what you hate, what’s in your head, what’s important. Journaling organizes your thoughts; allows you to see things in a concrete way that otherwise you might not see.
— Kay Walkingstick
You’ve decided to start a journal. That’s awesome! There’s only one problem – you don’t know what to fill it with, what kind of journal you want to make. Lucky for you, I’m here to help with a description of some of the different kinds of journals you can have.
Stream of Consciousness.
If you do morning pages (as laid out in the book, The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron), then you’re already doing this. It’s where you write in a continuous stream of whatever pops into your head, without censoring yourself. You don’t need to make sense, just write about whatever’s on your mind. You can time yourself, limit yourself to a set number of pages, or simply write until you run out of words.
Dream Journal
Some people say they don’t dream, but more likely they just don’t remember their dreams. You forget half of what you dream about within 2 - 5 minutes of waking up, and within 10 minutes you’ll have forgotten 90%. The best way to keep your dreams fresh is to have a pen and notebook beside your bed and then record your dreams as soon as you wake up.
Women tend to recall their dreams more easily than men. If you’re having trouble recalling your dreams, try telling your subconscious you want to remember them before going to sleep. Create a bedtime routine, maybe try meditating, and wake up naturally instead of with an alarm. Recording your dreams is a fascinating way of keeping in touch with your subconscious.
Food Journal
This one is especially good if you’re struggling with health or weight issues. You can take note of what you’re eating each day to become more mindful about the foods you’re choosing. This can lead to making better choices on your weight-loss journey. You can also write down recipes you want to try, or old favorites you don’t want to lose track of.
Fitness Journal
Maybe you’d like to get into better shape, or just want to document your fitness journey. Here is where you can keep track of your work-outs so you can stay committed to an active lifestyle. Record what exercises work best for you, and what ones don’t. You can see your progress, and also see where you may need to streamline your routine.
Blessings Journal
Take a few minutes every day to reflect on the good things you have going on in your life. It might be a call from a friend, a gift of produce from a neighbor’s garden, or finally making friends with the cat next door. These are all things to be grateful for, and you can write them down in your journal. You have a permanent record that life isn’t always bad, and when things aren’t going so well, you can go back and see that there’s always hope for something better. The more you look for the good things in life, the more you’ll find.
Sketch Journal
Do you have an artistic side? You can express your feelings, thoughts, and ideas through illustrations, doodles, or sketches. Don’t be afraid to use colour, either paints or pencil crayons, or even wax crayons. You can write about ideas you have for larger projects, inspirational ideas, or methods you’d like to try. For that matter, you could use the pages of your journal to try out different techniques to see if they’d work for you.
Writing Journal
Here’s the place to jot down your thoughts and ideas and document your journey as a writer. You can develop ideas, plot a story, even outline a novel. You can include character sketches, maps, interesting names, whatever strikes your fancy. It’s a place for inspirational quotes and helpful tips on moving forward.
Daily Life Journal
Here you can keep track of your life’s journey. It can be a day-to-day record, or it can be full of conversations you’ve overheard, sad or happy occasions, or even new experiences that made an impact on you. You can make it as personal as you like, or maybe you’d like an account for future generations. It’s up to you.
Whatever journal you decide to keep, set aside a few minutes each day to make an entry. Write or draw whatever feels right to you, or paste in movie stubs or tickets from events you’ve gone to. Just remember that there’s no right or wrong way to keep a journal.
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WORDAGE REPORT
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . BUSY!
I don’t know what lit a fire in me last week, but I hope it continues going forward. I established my morning routine for most mornings – Tuesdays I have stitchery duties, and Fridays I have grocery shopping, but when I’m done with those things I’ve been landing back in my office.
I had a nice balance between mundane things (cleaning, laundry, etc.) and office-y things (writing, filing, etc.). I even got the dreaded shredding finished! I had a list of things I wanted to get done before I left for Kingston, and I managed to knock off the list.
And all this in spite of the fact that Monday I had an appointment in the morning and Costco in the afternoon. Tuesday I had a stitchery guild meeting followed by an appointment with a new dietician. And Wednesday I had a poetry group meeting in the park, which was pretty darn dark (we all had flashlights).
And then my productivity came to a halt when I left for Kingston for Writersfest Thursday morning. Which is where I am now, as I type this. I got a lot of writing done during my workshops, not so much outside of the workshops though. And I did not get an installment done for Winter’s Child – I don’t even have a beginning for it.
NEW WORDS:
2852+677+258+110=3,897
DOWN: 284– words
Believe it or not, despite missing the installment for Winter’s Child, I’m not down by as many words as I was the week before. And I probably would have been crazily up in words had I written that post.
Here’s the thing. All the other posts came really easily, if not quickly to me last week. But I didn’t get Winter’s Child done ahead of time. I’m not sure if it would have made a difference if I’d stayed home from the poetry group to get a start on it or not, but I guess it’s a moot point because I didn’t.
I was planning on doing it Thursday night, except . . . after dinner (after my last workshop) I went up to my room and started getting things organized for the next day – you know, procrastinating before writing – and I couldn’t find my medication for the morning. With a sinking heart, I called the hubby, and sure enough – my pill box was sitting on the counter.
It seemed the quickest and easiest solution was for us to meet at the halfway point, which was Belleville. Which happens to have a Walmart close to the highway. We could meet at the Walmart MacDonalds and have a coffee before we parted again.
By this time it was dark out, and I don’t see well in the dark, which is why I no longer care to drive in it. Now, there is a horrific story of a string of little bad lucks that lead to me getting hopelessly lost trying to leave Kingston, but I’ll spare you the nitty gritty details. Suffice it to say, I eventually found my way to the highway, and to Belleville.
As a bonus, and I suspect to make me feel better, the hubby included the new Lynsay Sands book that I’d received in the mail that day. I gassed up the car (another bad luck story) and made it back to Kingston. I had no trouble getting back to the hotel, but I was tired and did not have the energy to do the blog post.
I did NOT get a good night’s sleep, which meant I was really dragging my butt on Friday, and by the time I’d made it through all three workshops and dinner, I had absolutely nothing left for writing, so I made the executive decision of skipping this week’s installment.
Goals For Next Week:
Try to get the blog posts done a little earlier; find some other writing to work on.
EDITING:
0 Hours
Okay, I knew there was something I was forgetting in my oh-so-productive week. Oops! Although at one point, when I was cleaning up my office, I did look for the notes I’d printed off about the Illezie. But I had no idea where they disappeared to. Guess I’ll just have to print them again. *sigh*
But it occurs to me that the Illezie prophecy and records are almost a separate part to the story as a whole, so there’s no reason I can’t work on the “story” part at the same time. It might even make joining them together a little easier. Sounds good in theory, anyway.
Goal For Next Week:
Use my notes about the Illezie as a guide to digging down on the editing.
POETRY:
Last week’s form was a kind of simple one, but it was better than no form at all, right? And I did write two examples, so that should count for something.
AND after I had my poetry post scheduled on both blogs, I wrote my poemwork poem for the poetry gathering on Wednesday. I even had the copies all printed out. Go me! LOL
A few years ago I ran a blog that was dedicated to poetry forms. The blog has been defunct for a long time now, but I’m wondering if there were forms I did there that I haven’t offered here yet. I need to make a master list of the forms I’ve done to double check.
Goal For Next Week:
Find a new form to share; work on the extra forms. Print poems to update big book o’ poems.
CRAFTING:
The stitchery guild had a guest speaker on Tuesday, a lady who talked about her journey of learning beadwork. She had some seriously beautiful pieces to show off. And yes, it did give me the urge to do some beadwork of my own. I especially liked her three dimensional betta fish (although I’d much rather do a dragon).
There was still a little time after to do some actual stitching, so I worked on the kit some more. Wouldn’t you know, it was more satin stitching though.
At first I kind of wished I’d brought some stitchery to Kingston with me, but I haven’t had the time or energy to write, so it probably would have been just one more thing to make me feel guilty for not doing. On the other hand, stitching is relaxing. Maybe getting a few stitches in would have relaxed me enough to get some writing in. You never know.
Goal For Next Week:
Work on my zentangle; work on the kit I started.
WHAT I’M READING:
I’m just about finished Trashlands by Alison Stine. And even though I have the latest Lynsay Sands book waiting for me, I’m not going to read it until I’m done with Trashlands. How responsible of me? LOL
On the Kindle I finished A Midlife Shifter’s Dream, by Ruby Raine, and then loaded it up with a couple of books for Kingston, rather than bringing a bunch of tree books with me. One of these was a boxed set. I finished reading Lattes and Levitation, by Christine Pope, but I’m going to have another look at the blurb for the set to see if I want to continue. While the murder central to the plot was solved, the ending read like it should have just said “to be continued on the next book.” I’m usually pretty good about weeding these out before I start reading them because I find it very disappointing when I’m forced to buy several books to get the complete story.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the non-binging of books.
THE WEEK AHEAD:
I really hope that new leaf survives being neglected while I’ve been in Kingston. I’d really hate to see that little sprout whither and die again. I guess all it takes is a little determination, right?
For the most part, I’d have to say my time here in Kingston has been well spent. That being said, not one of the workshops I’ve attended has been what I thought it would be from the description. And I will admit to being a little disappointed in a couple of them. But that’ll be a post for next week. :-D
Tomorrow the proof will be in the pudding. It’ll be my first full day back and I’m really hoping I’ll be able to slide back into the routine I was starting to establish last week. The only thing I have in my day planner for the week is the stitch-in at the library, but will all that free time inspire me, or hinder me?
You know I work better under pressure, and there won’t be any pressure next week. My time is pretty much my own. I can’t help feeling that I got so much done last week because I had so little time to do it in.
I’ll have to come up with a really good installment for Winter’s Child to make up for skipping it last week. And that, to me, means I need to start working on it earlier. But it’s getting a little tricky, now that the creature’s getting a say in things. But honestly, I think we’re really close to the end. A couple more scenes with Joey, and then one with James.
I need to find my Illezie notes and get back to working on Elemental Spirit. Or maybe there’s a reason I can’t seem to find them. Maybe it’s a sign I should be starting over with them. I really think I need to start with the prophecy, because everything else revolves around that. Then maybe the rest will fall into place.
The poetry has actually been going fairly well lately, except for me dragging my heels about updating my poetry book. I think it’s even more important for me to do that now, because the workshop on poetry has got me all fired up about getting a poetry book out there.
Ideally, I’d like to get the writing stuff done during the day so I can go back to crafting at night. I want to finish the kit I’m working on so I can get back to my zentangle sampler. I will try not to think about beading, because that way leads to another project to work on. LOL
I was doing well with my exercise, then I came to Kingston. I’ve been getting some walking in, but I forgot my weights. So first thing on my list for next week is to get back on the exercise wagon. And the dietician said that walking every day after breakfast will help with my blood sugar, so I’m going to start doing that too. Lord knows that after Writersfest I’ll need to!
It’s been a long few days. I haven’t done any site seeing this time around, but I’ve done a LOT of shopping on Princess Street. And the writing I’ve done has pretty much been limited to the workshops. But the good news is, that starting next week I won’t have any problem figuring out what to write about on my Sunday blogs for a while.
I’m actually eager to get back home and see if I can nurse that new leaf into growing again. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be here holding a workshop.
Stranger things have happened.
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