Journaling

Writing Exercises

Sometimes we seem to come to the end of our journaling ideas, and it’s time for a small boost out of the rut.  One way to get the juices flowing again is to try some exercises designed to get us to think in different ways.  The more thought-provoking, the better.

Here are a few to try:

Try to mentally extend your sensory reach in all directions.  How would you describe one sense in terms of another one?  What does this feel like?  

Consider finding a quote that appeals to you, and then writing a story about it.  For example: “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there,” by Will Rogers.  Make the quote the “moral of the story,” and write your essay as if it were a fable.

Explore the meaning of the beautiful things in your life by making a list of the ten most lovely things that you have ever seen, felt, tasted, touched, heard, or experienced in any way.  

When you are feeling in a really creative mood, you might also want to come up with a list of these sorts of exercises for yourself.  On those days when the ideas are really flowing, make a slush fund list of writing prompts to be used later.   Happy Writing.

Good Descriptions

One of the most important features of any story is a good description of the persons, places, or things involved in it.  The word description has to do with the study of things as they are, and it means showing their attributes, not just labeling them. 

So that is what a description is.  Sometimes, it also helps to say what it is not.  Here are some things that a adequate description is not:

1.      Description is not just a decoration.  It is an important part of setting the scene. 

2.      A good description isn’t really optional.  In order to be grounded in a story, the reader needs to know where they are and what they are experiencing.  

3.      Description is not just how a place looks.  If the author can add other sense information, it gives a more realistic and all-around setting. 

4.      The description is not always graceful and poetic.  The story may take place in a stockyard or a cavern.   Also, very long words are not necessary or recommended.

5.      Finally, the description does not have to be long-winded. 

Your description of the setting can make or break a story.  Take the time to make it really worth reading.

Writing Careful Prose

In your journal, it doesn’t matter how or what you write, but if the prose is for public consumption, we usually want to write more formally.  This means using proper grammar and form so that our readers can easily understand what we are talking about.  This is not as much fun as just writing for ourselves, but it is the polite and thoughtful way to present our ideas to others.

So, I’d like to share with you some organizational guidelines for writing a nice solid piece of prose.  These are questions you can ask yourself when you have completed your work. 

Are your topic sentences clear and concise? Argument

Have you checked your spelling?

Do all of your main points clearly relate to the topic?

Do you offer enough details to support your idea?

Are all of your supporting details relevant?

Are your sentences logically ordered?

Did you use clear and concise words?

Is your piece of writing coherent throughout?

(In this case, that means that you have used adequate transitional words and phrases, you have clearly defined your pronouns, and you have repeated key words and synonyms to make your writing flow easily from one sentence to another.)

Is your point of view consistent?

Are your sentences clearly written?

Have you checked your capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and usage?

Have you used a good concluding sentence or sentences?

Hope this is useful.  We want to make sure we are understood.

Starting a Journal

Although many of us are already sold on journal writing, there may be some who haven’t quite gotten to the point of beginning.  Here are a few ideas about getting started on that journal of your own.

First of all, a journal isn’t exactly a diary.  It isn’t just about what happened (or didn’t happen) during the day, though that kind of information also has its place in these pages.  Journaling is more about how you feel about the experiences of your life.  This is where you talk to yourself and work on your plans and problems.  

Journaling is not the place for observing the conventions of spelling and grammar.  That is the kind of stuff you do for public writing.  This writing is really not meant to be public.  If you want to share your words (or some of them), they can be cleaned up later.  A journal is where you observe yourself, and it is meant to be strictly private.  You can make no mistakes in journal writing, and you need to be gentle with yourself.

I know that some people have concerns about others reading their journal.  Well, if something is written, it might very well be read.  If you think the information is sensitive and very private, tear those pages out and destroy them.  I don’t keep old journals myself.  Not necessarily because they are scandalous (they aren’t), but because all that stuff is over.  It is the act of writing, itself, that I find helpful.  After it is written, I find it merely tiresome.  Of course, you might want to keep your journals; it is strictly up to you.

I think it is more helpful to write often.  Some people make a commitment to write every day.  If that is too much, you can set your own schedule.  I try to write something every day even if it isn’t an epic.  If you stop, it can be difficult to start up again.  I find it easier to just keep writing.

If you get stuck, there are a lot of journal prompts around to get you started again. These might be quotes or thoughts that spark the need to write something.  Over time, you might find that your journal has become a trusted friend.  That’s all really, except for all that writing. 

Darkness Writing

"Art is the only thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting."  Elizabeth Bowen

Darkness doesn’t always mean peril.  It could also symbolize the deep fertility of the earth or a deep secret place in which your writing can grow.  This introspective mood encourages you to produce deliberate, measured, intense writing that records the flowing of the underground creative river.  Root yourself in elemental emotions and paint with the darkness, using your own words as a lantern to light your way.

1. Try to turn away from a style of writing that is not securely rooted in whatever reality that you are creating.  Write without flowery words, and instead, use concrete images and a straightforward style.  

2. Invent an imaginary land by coming up out of the darkness into a new country, a place that you have never visited before.  Write about its features, its landmarks, and its moods.  Remember to use all the senses, so that you can see, smell, feel, and maybe even taste the food of this place.

3. Put out your lantern and stay wherever you find yourself.  Write about what you feel about the darkness.  Is it threatening or reassuring?  Consider where a light source might be and go in search of it.  What do you find on the way?

4. Shine the lantern inside yourself and notice where there might be some darkness—not as a confession, but as a study.  Isolate what you actually know from what society claims.   Write about what you find. 

5. Shine your imaginary lantern on a wide stretch of countryside.  Try to find the places where the city turns into farms, and the farms turn into forests.  Write about these transitional places.

Picture Poetry

A fun writing exercise is to create a vignette or a poem from a favorite photograph.  One way to do this is to find a picture that speaks to you and let it guide you into creating a work of your own in words.  What you will be concentrating on is mostly the feeling of the photograph.  The ideas and the words will not just be a description.   It can give the reader a sense of the subject.

The way to do this is to find a picture that reflects the way you are feeling at this particular moment in time.  Study the photo carefully.  This will allow your mind to engage with the ambiance and the general feeling of the scene.  Choose a word that describes the idea that is to be the heart of your poem.  Then cluster the word.

If you have never done clustering before, this is what you do. First write a word in the middle of a sheet of paper and draw a circle around it.  Then draw a line and write another word that comes to mind about that circled word.  Continue drawing lines and circling words with all kinds of associations all reflecting back on the center idea.  These ideas could include objects, attitudes, memories, feelings, whatever comes to mind.  You can even get an app that will help with this, or you can do it with pen and paper.

You can look at the photograph now and then if you want to, but mostly you will be using your clustering for the details of your piece.  Some of these writings are strictly personal, and others will embrace a universal concept.  When you are done, read the finished piece out loud and look hard at the photo.  Make any changes that you think are needed. This is a good way to get the creative juices flowing. 

A Day in the Life

Fully-rounded characters are at the center of fascinating stories.  These personalities shape the tale, and they make the narrative come alive. 

One way to make sure that your characters are multi-dimensional is to write a detailed sketch of each one of the principal actors in your story.  This includes their appearance, their motivations, and their histories.  Not just two-dimensional creations on the page, characters need to have a life of their own. 

First of all, it is good to describe the character’s basic appearance.  You should write about their age, gender and social class. How do they look, act, and talk, and what they are like to be around.  

Then determine some of their traits.  Are thy honest and loyal, or are they greedy and vicious?  How would you describe their personalities? Do they have friends or only enemies?

Not only will this make your character more realistic, it will also help you to write the story.  Of course, It isn’t necessary (or useful) to put all of this information in the tale, but it is good for you to know.  One way to really get to understand your character is to follow them around for a day.  See what they do, how they act, and what sorts of things happen to them. GIve it a try and see what happens.

Writing Your own Fairy Tale

All of us have stories that we tell ourselves.  Current research has brought to light the fact that our personal memories are extremely subjective, and they may not be what really happened.  The moral of this story seems to be this: what we remember is not necessarily the way it was. 

Now, this is not to say that the tales we tell ourselves aren’t important.  They are very important, but they are not necessarily true.  Stories are just that—stories.  Maybe if we change our minds about these tales, we could change how they come to visit (unbidden) at 4 o’clock in the morning. 

In this exercise, begin to think about a personal story that you might like to change.  Look back through your history and pick a tale that still brings you a negative feeling.  Don’t choose a really painful episode, just something that isn’t quite a happy memory.  It is important to remember that the really traumatic tales may need the assistance of a professional councilor to untangle.  This exercise is just for the vaguely unhappy ones.

Now, rewrite this episode as a fairy tale.  Use your imagination, and let the hero be you.  Slay that dragon or at least, give it a good run for its money.  Then provide the story with a really happy ending.  This sort of story-telling is one way to change the script.  The next time you are tempted to recall that memory, remember your fairy tale instead, and let the story live happily ever after.

Heirloom Writing

Many of us have been given heirlooms that have been passed down to us through the generations from other family members.  Some are fairly new, and some come from long ago.  All of these keepsakes are sources of writing ideas.  While many of the items have their own histories, others are just asking you to tell a story about them.

Consider telling the history of that object.  The heirloom might be anything: a tea cup or a painting or an afghan or maybe a cookbook.  If you don’t know the item’s story, you might ask one of your older relatives if they know where it came from, who owned it, and why they kept it.  Even if they don’t know about that particular thing, they will probably know a lot of other stories just as good.  

Sometimes, an event in the present will trigger a memory to write about.  When I was given an old family quilt, I thought I would take it out of storage and use it again.  I was careful to wash it by hand and hang it out in the sun to dry.  When I saw that quilt again, I realized how much I missed my grandmothers.  I found some small comfort in writing a haiku about it.

Dream Writing

Sometimes it is almost impossible to come up with fresh stories for journal or other writing.  Movies and TV provide some material, but there is often a certain amount of sameness in the plots. Of course, there are always books, but those stories have already been written.

When you feel that you have run out of ideas, consider the possibility that your dreams and (even) your nightmares might be useful sources of material.  If you don’t always remember your dreams, you might keep a record of them in your journal.  Some people keep a pad and pencil beside their bed in order to catch these fleeting images.  

 When things are slow, we have to make our own entertainment.  Dreams often happen anyway, so we might as well use them.  If you don’t dream much (or really don’t remember any useable material), imagine what kind of dreams you might have.  There are really no rules to this type of journal writing. Have fun.