Why is the idea of a daily diary more appealing than the actual keeping of that diary? Why do I only have Januarys and Julys on record and nothing in between?
Ahh …. a topic near and dear to my heart. Ever since I was at school I have been a diary/planner advocate. Misplacing it is tantamount to losing a limb! LOL! These days - and this coming year especially - I am particularly excited with my new layout using the NOTESHELF App - I still revel in putting pen (Apple pencil) to paper (iPad screen) with so many options to still by fluttering heart!
I will admit to falling off the wagon when real life gets in the way. However, this year I wish to be kind to myself and as my teacher self constantly proclaims to my students, “something is better than nothing”. This year I will record thoughts from my daily mediation (Calm), my reading log/reflections and general wellbeing. I think I finally have it streamlined.
I had to giggle at your bullet journal attempts Natasha - don’t they always look so flash online but sadly, my reality appears to have equaled yours. I am also an evening writer preferring to reflect as the sun goes down.
I love to walk and similar to you, it is my thinking time. Only last evening I heard a quote that spoke to me by John Muir, “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” … sigh … ❤️ However, the fact that you get complete sentences in your head is not only mind blowing but stuff of dreams. How wonderful and calls for a definite pursuit for more backstory. You are sure to venture down many rabbit holes in search of answers. That’s a job we could only all aspire to.
You have inspired me to search up Joan Didion - thank you. Any book of hers that would be a good starting place?
I love that John Muir quote - thank you for sharing it. It perfectly captures exactly what those walking/running meditations are. And I'm glad I'm not the only one whose bullet journal fell very short of the ideal!
I think it's wonderful that you've always had such a strong connection to the practice of diarising. I remember keeping a couple of different diaries as a teenager and I wish I'd kept them – I'd love to look back and see what was going on in my head back then!
As for Didion, start with either The Year of Magical Thinking or Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Both are wonderful - Slouching perhaps has a couple of essays that may feel dated as they are very specifically about things that happened in the 60s, but I love the time capsule feel of them. Magical Thinking is masterful, but quite sad.
That's so true - "much of writing is finding out how to get best out of one's creativity". I think that's the biggest thing we have to learn at first - and also how to trust our creativity, especially when it's sending us down scary, dimly lit laneways as it so often does! I think that's part of what my notebooks are about - write down the ideas as they come and go back to them later and see which ones are still interesting after the buzz of running has worn off. I always find I do my worst writing when I don't just trust my creative gut - it knows so much better than my thinking mind does, but sometimes it gets a bit drowned out by life and deadlines.
I should really re-read before posting, I meant more that sitting here staring at a pile of 'failures to launch' in the form of a notebook reinforces my Imposter Syndrome/feeling os general failure. I know I have spoken to many of my writerly cohort about IS, but I often feel mine is either next level crazy or I am letting it win.
On the upside, today I AM at my desk before my day job. The downside is I have been distracted by the internet, memes, news pages, my dog, the light bouncing off the trees out the front, birds on the lawn.........
Ah, distraction, a writer's favourite friend, along with Imposter Syndrome. We battle them both all of our writing lives. Sometimes they win and sometimes we do – I hope you trounce them both this morning.
I’m a haphazard diarist and a messy note book keeper. I did morning pages for a while but as mornings are my premium time to write, I decided to concentrate on my current WIP. I have an ideas notebook but never have enough time to develop them all. Novels are my priority and with a full time job, I have to be selective with how I spend my writing time. I love the little gems of inspiration you recorded, Natasha, and can see how they could grow into intriguing stories. It’s amazing how a single image or idea can become an entire novel. I especially like going back through the pages of someone’s tragedy ti find the place where it all went wrong. I’m hooked!
Mornings are also my best time to write and yes - as writers, we're always looking to make enough time to do the actual writing, which means not doing the things that don't seem to be working for us. I don't know if this is bad to say but I'm somewhat heartened by all the writers on here who don't do morning pages and don't keep diaries. I'd always thought I must be a little flawed in some way to not be able to do something so seemingly necessary. It reiterates the point to me that there's not one perfect way to be a writer and, as I've often said - half the battle of writing is working out what your own writing process is.
And yes - so much can grow out of one simple idea or sentence. You don't need a lot to start writing a book, just some time and one idea.
My daughter gifted me my first gratitude journal several Christmases ago and has given me one every year since (began the 8th one yesterday). Every night before bed I write down a few positive things from my day - sometimes big news but more often simple things - a delicious pizza, finishing a great book, a solid workout, family movie time. On hard days there may be only one small thing... but it helps me exhale the day finding something positive in each one.
I love that gorgeous tradition of your daughter gifting you a gratitude journal every year. That's very special and must add another very precious layer to the whole process of recording your thoughts each night. And you're right – sometimes just taking a moment to find and make note of one small thing to be thankful for at the end of a day can make moving into the next day feel a little easier.
I have tried it all. Morning pages, gratitude journals, pretty paperblanks diaries, word docs, notes in iphone. And all I have accomplished to do is splay out all those mind strings to multiple mediums which like unpaired socks, accumulate in colourful masses just to be tossed out sometime in the way distant future.
But your ability to remember your running inspirations until you get home is an incredible skill! If I don’t note down immediately what springs to mind, it is completely forgotton minutes later, no matter how unforgetable it seems at its inception. So that is a skill I need to master in 2023!
I'm glad I've found another would-be diarist! It's funny isn't it - you'd instinctively think diarising would suit writers but it just doesn't seem to interest my mind enough. My mind much prefers to make things up than to record reality – I think Didion also talks about the fact that some people have an instinct for reality that she envies but doesn't possess, or something along those lines. Maybe that sums me – and you perhaps – up perfectly! I guess that's why I'm a novelist.
I think I also just don’t like talking about myself - to myself ;) Much rather live in a world of make believe and fictional stories. I haven’t read Didion, I must order a copy.
I do love a good notebook. I have stacks of them. Mostly unused. The blank pages and the promise of what they could contain excites me. As a diarist or journal keeper, I fail miserably. I do have a few that contain thoughts, quotes, and my lists of what I have read, but the blank ones are most precious to me.
Yes, there's something about a blank notebook, isn't there? It represents all the things you could do - the possibilities. And it's nice to always consider we have possibilities and promise in our lives!
An appropriately-titled newsletter, Natasha, it really is a gem!
I kept diaries since i was a little girl in Sydney, but when i moved overseas that faded somewhat. Now i do Morning Pages every day ( and actually wrote about how 'The Artist's Way' helped me in my creative recovery in one of my newsletters). It's funny, i can't imagine my life without them.
Hi Jo, I know so many people who swear by morning pages and consider them to be life changing and I always think how wonderful it is that words written down on paper can be so good for the soul. I'll have to go look out your post now!
This was a great topic. I keep a note paid with a pen everywhere in my house. A thought may come to me while sitting on my bed, eating a meal, in the bathroom, watching something on TV, doing laundry, cooking, reading, etc. I jot the thought, name, song, news item, anything that occurred at that time that my senses were receptive. Then I go back to what I was doing. It is fun to see what I wrote at different times. I am not a diary person, nor can I carry a note book around with me. If I am out and about, I would use my phone.
I have notepads spread throughout my house too - in my bedroom, in the kitchen, in my office, and I use the voice memo app on my phone when I'm driving in the car and an idea strikes. I'd never thought about these disparate notepads and notes being like a kind of diary but they really are - a record of the thoughts we had at different moments and in different rooms as we go about our daily lives.
I have lost count of how many habit-style notebooks and journals I have started. In fact, I am sitting here staring at an overflowing basket of my lack of success (hmmm perhaps that's why I sit here and think I'm failing at this writing gig!) I suspect though, if I set aside time to go through them and rip out the 'to-do lists' and kept the actual writing, I could def mine a few gems.
I have to say the sentence "as if I’m an expert only in beginnings – someone who avoids middles and ends" could describe my entire life as a person with ADHD. It is something I am REALLY working on. Also I have no idea why I am being so brutally honest in here today.
Weirdly, I get my inspiration while at my clothes line. In fact I have it listed in the acknowledgements folder I keep if I ever get published. Along with you and my Doctor!
The only type of diary I use now is one to help me keep track of appointments, work related things, events, birthdays and holidays. Which makes a nice change from scribbled bit of paper!
You should definitely go through them! I bet there is treasure in all of those journals. Like I said to Naomi, I'm actually a little heartened by the fact that so many of us are unable to commit to regular journals and I definitely don't think that not completing a journal is an indication you're failing at the writing gig. Journals are maybe just a tool that you don't need in your writing toolkit.
Instead of inspiration at the clothes line, I get mine while washing dishes. Always. So many ideas. I think it's because those mundane, repetitive tasks allow our minds to wander. In fact, I might have to acknowledge the washing up in my next book!
And please be as honest as you like - I hope this will be a good space for honest thoughts and ideas.
Every year I pour over all the planners/journals, trying to figure out which one will be just perfect for me. I used Silk & Sonder for a little over a year, and it helped me establish my morning routine (which, yes, includes water, yoga, setting an intention and rough plan for the day) as well as some other good habits and insights. This year I’m trying The High Performance Planner. We’ll see how it goes. I find it’s great to take whatever’s useful to you, adapt as necessary, and jettison the rest. My journaling tends to be more listmaking and noting any joys or gratitude, just so I remember to take a moment and celebrate them. As you note, it’s more of a mindfulness moment than anything I ever plan to return to later, so I don’t care how boring it might be. I’ve got plenty of novels to read if I want plot!
Snap! I used to spend hours each year pouring over planners and journals, thinking that if I just bought the right one, my journaling habit would suddenly develop properly. You've made that part of me want to go and take a look at the High Performance Planner now! But I imagine your journals would look absolutely beautiful, given how talented you are with card making.
My journaling is a bit slapdash sometimes and I often despair at the mundane stuff I write in it but I also do a bit of bullet journal type stuff in there to record my reading. Need to get better at recording the mind string…
That mundane stuff is supposed to be good for the mind, though. The habit of reflecting on what we do is so often talked about as being great for mindfulness, stress-relief, mental health, creativity and so much more, which is why I tried for so long to do it! And yes, I've always wanted someplace to record my reading that isn't Goodreads - I guess there's probably a specific notebook out there for that too!
Ahh …. a topic near and dear to my heart. Ever since I was at school I have been a diary/planner advocate. Misplacing it is tantamount to losing a limb! LOL! These days - and this coming year especially - I am particularly excited with my new layout using the NOTESHELF App - I still revel in putting pen (Apple pencil) to paper (iPad screen) with so many options to still by fluttering heart!
I will admit to falling off the wagon when real life gets in the way. However, this year I wish to be kind to myself and as my teacher self constantly proclaims to my students, “something is better than nothing”. This year I will record thoughts from my daily mediation (Calm), my reading log/reflections and general wellbeing. I think I finally have it streamlined.
I had to giggle at your bullet journal attempts Natasha - don’t they always look so flash online but sadly, my reality appears to have equaled yours. I am also an evening writer preferring to reflect as the sun goes down.
I love to walk and similar to you, it is my thinking time. Only last evening I heard a quote that spoke to me by John Muir, “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” … sigh … ❤️ However, the fact that you get complete sentences in your head is not only mind blowing but stuff of dreams. How wonderful and calls for a definite pursuit for more backstory. You are sure to venture down many rabbit holes in search of answers. That’s a job we could only all aspire to.
You have inspired me to search up Joan Didion - thank you. Any book of hers that would be a good starting place?
I love that John Muir quote - thank you for sharing it. It perfectly captures exactly what those walking/running meditations are. And I'm glad I'm not the only one whose bullet journal fell very short of the ideal!
I think it's wonderful that you've always had such a strong connection to the practice of diarising. I remember keeping a couple of different diaries as a teenager and I wish I'd kept them – I'd love to look back and see what was going on in my head back then!
As for Didion, start with either The Year of Magical Thinking or Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Both are wonderful - Slouching perhaps has a couple of essays that may feel dated as they are very specifically about things that happened in the 60s, but I love the time capsule feel of them. Magical Thinking is masterful, but quite sad.
I’m a failed diarist: I’ve tried but the only diary I keep is work-related: spoke to x about y.
I did the morning pages too but they petered out into evening pages especially when i’m under stress.
But notebooks I have many : that’s where I usually start with my writings.
But sorry I don’t run, I walk and then get inspired.
I think much of writing is finding out how to get the best out of one’s creativity.
That's so true - "much of writing is finding out how to get best out of one's creativity". I think that's the biggest thing we have to learn at first - and also how to trust our creativity, especially when it's sending us down scary, dimly lit laneways as it so often does! I think that's part of what my notebooks are about - write down the ideas as they come and go back to them later and see which ones are still interesting after the buzz of running has worn off. I always find I do my worst writing when I don't just trust my creative gut - it knows so much better than my thinking mind does, but sometimes it gets a bit drowned out by life and deadlines.
I should really re-read before posting, I meant more that sitting here staring at a pile of 'failures to launch' in the form of a notebook reinforces my Imposter Syndrome/feeling os general failure. I know I have spoken to many of my writerly cohort about IS, but I often feel mine is either next level crazy or I am letting it win.
On the upside, today I AM at my desk before my day job. The downside is I have been distracted by the internet, memes, news pages, my dog, the light bouncing off the trees out the front, birds on the lawn.........
Ah, distraction, a writer's favourite friend, along with Imposter Syndrome. We battle them both all of our writing lives. Sometimes they win and sometimes we do – I hope you trounce them both this morning.
I’m a haphazard diarist and a messy note book keeper. I did morning pages for a while but as mornings are my premium time to write, I decided to concentrate on my current WIP. I have an ideas notebook but never have enough time to develop them all. Novels are my priority and with a full time job, I have to be selective with how I spend my writing time. I love the little gems of inspiration you recorded, Natasha, and can see how they could grow into intriguing stories. It’s amazing how a single image or idea can become an entire novel. I especially like going back through the pages of someone’s tragedy ti find the place where it all went wrong. I’m hooked!
Mornings are also my best time to write and yes - as writers, we're always looking to make enough time to do the actual writing, which means not doing the things that don't seem to be working for us. I don't know if this is bad to say but I'm somewhat heartened by all the writers on here who don't do morning pages and don't keep diaries. I'd always thought I must be a little flawed in some way to not be able to do something so seemingly necessary. It reiterates the point to me that there's not one perfect way to be a writer and, as I've often said - half the battle of writing is working out what your own writing process is.
And yes - so much can grow out of one simple idea or sentence. You don't need a lot to start writing a book, just some time and one idea.
My daughter gifted me my first gratitude journal several Christmases ago and has given me one every year since (began the 8th one yesterday). Every night before bed I write down a few positive things from my day - sometimes big news but more often simple things - a delicious pizza, finishing a great book, a solid workout, family movie time. On hard days there may be only one small thing... but it helps me exhale the day finding something positive in each one.
I love that gorgeous tradition of your daughter gifting you a gratitude journal every year. That's very special and must add another very precious layer to the whole process of recording your thoughts each night. And you're right – sometimes just taking a moment to find and make note of one small thing to be thankful for at the end of a day can make moving into the next day feel a little easier.
I have tried it all. Morning pages, gratitude journals, pretty paperblanks diaries, word docs, notes in iphone. And all I have accomplished to do is splay out all those mind strings to multiple mediums which like unpaired socks, accumulate in colourful masses just to be tossed out sometime in the way distant future.
But your ability to remember your running inspirations until you get home is an incredible skill! If I don’t note down immediately what springs to mind, it is completely forgotton minutes later, no matter how unforgetable it seems at its inception. So that is a skill I need to master in 2023!
I'm glad I've found another would-be diarist! It's funny isn't it - you'd instinctively think diarising would suit writers but it just doesn't seem to interest my mind enough. My mind much prefers to make things up than to record reality – I think Didion also talks about the fact that some people have an instinct for reality that she envies but doesn't possess, or something along those lines. Maybe that sums me – and you perhaps – up perfectly! I guess that's why I'm a novelist.
I think I also just don’t like talking about myself - to myself ;) Much rather live in a world of make believe and fictional stories. I haven’t read Didion, I must order a copy.
Didion is one of my absolute faves - my idol, even! And I think I'm with you on not enjoying the process of talking about myself to myself!
I do love a good notebook. I have stacks of them. Mostly unused. The blank pages and the promise of what they could contain excites me. As a diarist or journal keeper, I fail miserably. I do have a few that contain thoughts, quotes, and my lists of what I have read, but the blank ones are most precious to me.
Yes, there's something about a blank notebook, isn't there? It represents all the things you could do - the possibilities. And it's nice to always consider we have possibilities and promise in our lives!
An appropriately-titled newsletter, Natasha, it really is a gem!
I kept diaries since i was a little girl in Sydney, but when i moved overseas that faded somewhat. Now i do Morning Pages every day ( and actually wrote about how 'The Artist's Way' helped me in my creative recovery in one of my newsletters). It's funny, i can't imagine my life without them.
Loved this post - thank you.
Hi Jo, I know so many people who swear by morning pages and consider them to be life changing and I always think how wonderful it is that words written down on paper can be so good for the soul. I'll have to go look out your post now!
They are very cathartic, yes.
Thank you, i hope you like it.
This was a great topic. I keep a note paid with a pen everywhere in my house. A thought may come to me while sitting on my bed, eating a meal, in the bathroom, watching something on TV, doing laundry, cooking, reading, etc. I jot the thought, name, song, news item, anything that occurred at that time that my senses were receptive. Then I go back to what I was doing. It is fun to see what I wrote at different times. I am not a diary person, nor can I carry a note book around with me. If I am out and about, I would use my phone.
I have notepads spread throughout my house too - in my bedroom, in the kitchen, in my office, and I use the voice memo app on my phone when I'm driving in the car and an idea strikes. I'd never thought about these disparate notepads and notes being like a kind of diary but they really are - a record of the thoughts we had at different moments and in different rooms as we go about our daily lives.
I have lost count of how many habit-style notebooks and journals I have started. In fact, I am sitting here staring at an overflowing basket of my lack of success (hmmm perhaps that's why I sit here and think I'm failing at this writing gig!) I suspect though, if I set aside time to go through them and rip out the 'to-do lists' and kept the actual writing, I could def mine a few gems.
I have to say the sentence "as if I’m an expert only in beginnings – someone who avoids middles and ends" could describe my entire life as a person with ADHD. It is something I am REALLY working on. Also I have no idea why I am being so brutally honest in here today.
Weirdly, I get my inspiration while at my clothes line. In fact I have it listed in the acknowledgements folder I keep if I ever get published. Along with you and my Doctor!
The only type of diary I use now is one to help me keep track of appointments, work related things, events, birthdays and holidays. Which makes a nice change from scribbled bit of paper!
You should definitely go through them! I bet there is treasure in all of those journals. Like I said to Naomi, I'm actually a little heartened by the fact that so many of us are unable to commit to regular journals and I definitely don't think that not completing a journal is an indication you're failing at the writing gig. Journals are maybe just a tool that you don't need in your writing toolkit.
Instead of inspiration at the clothes line, I get mine while washing dishes. Always. So many ideas. I think it's because those mundane, repetitive tasks allow our minds to wander. In fact, I might have to acknowledge the washing up in my next book!
And please be as honest as you like - I hope this will be a good space for honest thoughts and ideas.
Every year I pour over all the planners/journals, trying to figure out which one will be just perfect for me. I used Silk & Sonder for a little over a year, and it helped me establish my morning routine (which, yes, includes water, yoga, setting an intention and rough plan for the day) as well as some other good habits and insights. This year I’m trying The High Performance Planner. We’ll see how it goes. I find it’s great to take whatever’s useful to you, adapt as necessary, and jettison the rest. My journaling tends to be more listmaking and noting any joys or gratitude, just so I remember to take a moment and celebrate them. As you note, it’s more of a mindfulness moment than anything I ever plan to return to later, so I don’t care how boring it might be. I’ve got plenty of novels to read if I want plot!
Snap! I used to spend hours each year pouring over planners and journals, thinking that if I just bought the right one, my journaling habit would suddenly develop properly. You've made that part of me want to go and take a look at the High Performance Planner now! But I imagine your journals would look absolutely beautiful, given how talented you are with card making.
My journaling is a bit slapdash sometimes and I often despair at the mundane stuff I write in it but I also do a bit of bullet journal type stuff in there to record my reading. Need to get better at recording the mind string…
That mundane stuff is supposed to be good for the mind, though. The habit of reflecting on what we do is so often talked about as being great for mindfulness, stress-relief, mental health, creativity and so much more, which is why I tried for so long to do it! And yes, I've always wanted someplace to record my reading that isn't Goodreads - I guess there's probably a specific notebook out there for that too!