Kinds of Journals
These are my notes on a variety of different ways to keep a journal. I am interested in these things because I am looking to develop as a writer. You could liken these things to the push ups that sports players do… They are not the thing that the crowd pays to see, but they probably help make the game worth the ticket price. For me, college has been a whole lot of lessons on the rules of the game, and not very many push ups. This is not to say that those lessons were not as challenging, or as much exercise as the push ups, but, they are different. I’m looking at these journaling methods as a way to get the exercise I need.
I’ll summarize this whole post this way: I have discovered a few different kinds of journals:
I would like to think of myself as a journalist, in a very literal sense of the word, as someone who keeps a journal. Or perhaps I mean a very literal correspondent although I don’t write as many letters as I would like. For the next little while I’m going to keep my eyes open for ideas about ways to journal, and then, when I have satisfied that curiosity, I’ll look into different ways to carry on correspondence.
Morning Pages
I read a book that my sister gave me for a high school graduation present. That book changed my life forever. I know, that sounds really hokey, and it will sound so all the more once I tell you that it was pretty much a self-help book. The book was “The Artist’s Way at Work.” http://www.artistswayatwork.com/ My sister had said I should read it while I was still young and impressionable, and it really did make a difference. In it I learned about something called Morning Pages.
Put simply, the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream of consciousness. You might also think of them as “brain drain,” since one of their functions is to help clear your mind. In order to retrieve your creativity, you need to find it. This can happen through a process of writing daily “morning pages.” There is no wrong way to do morning pages. These are not meant to be art. Or even writing. Nothing is too petty, too silly, too stupid, or too weird to be included. All the details, whining, and worries that you write about in the morning stand between you and your creativity. Just as they’re not really intended to be “Writing,” they also aren’t so much intended to be read. . . . If you can’t think of something, then write, “I can’t think of something to write,” over and over until you’ve filled three pages. Morning pages are nonnegotiable. Never skip or skimp on morning pages. You don’t have to be in the mood to write. The morning pages will teach you to stop judging the words and just let yourself write.
summarized from the book.
I tried doing this, and for years, especially at first, the practice made a colossal difference in my life. Now, I have let that practice fall by the wayside, initially for really ridiculous reasons and now the habit is gone. I’ve concluded that if I know it would help to do it, then I should do it.
Now I can think of a variety of different other kinds of journals. For example
A travel diary or a Captain’s Log
A lab book
A sketch book
Now these first two ways of keeping journals have received some special attention that I have noticed, while doing some of my work. A travel diary, for example, is a kind of mapmaking, in a way.
Another kind of mapmaking journal is detailed in the book “How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think” ( read a summary ). I wonder if this isn?t something like the process that created Ulysses.
That brings up an interesting point. Not too many people like to read Ulysses. It’s one of those books that people just pretend to have read. Certainly no one wants to read a map of somebody’s thoughts, or a catalog of their morning grogginess. You could liken these things to the push ups that sports players do…
Another, perhaps more utilitarian way of keeping a journal is to keep what I have learned is called a Focus Journal.
Here are the highlights of everything that makes up a Focus Journal
The journal is for a purpose. Here’s what you do:
- Keep track of progress towards some aim. Monitor your focus, monitor your results.
- Write objects of fixation for reflection.Write clearly.
- Don’t keep anything that has low InformationDensity.
- Don’t keep anything that distracts the attention. No “LabNotes“- lengthy notes on projects, details.
- No DailyToDoLists
Sketchbooks
I would like to conclude by recounting an apocryphal story about Pablo Picasso. I hear this from my Father, who is an art professor, but he tells me a lot of things for rhetorical purposes, or for his own amusement that may or may not be literally true. I tried to check on this story, but I couldn’t find anything out there about it. I’m told that when Pablo was a child, his father, (also an art teacher) would sit little Pablo down in front of some shoes “draw your shoes” and that Pablo would draw his shoes every morning, over and over, from many angles, just to stay in shape.
The practice reminds me of the Morning Pages, but I think the experience of reading something like this comes closer to being enjoyable than any of the other methods I have described. I can’t tell you how many galleries I’ve been to where there were pictures of, references to, or actual copies of the famous artist’s sketches. People love to see that stuff. Its part of the art. Similarly, people really seem to enjoy photo blogs. Might I be able to create something that provides a similar experience? Could I do it with words instead of pictures — without being as monotonous as a stack of shoes?
I don’t think it would be that difficult to emulate what even a child could do. Just put something into your attention, and consider it.