the writer's room discussion

I used to journal, and I liked it, but it took so much energy. And I also hate writing by hand. I kind of just wrote whatever I was thinking at the moment. But I've been wanting to start journaling from my mc's perspective.

I journaled for three years straight during high school, and I never missed a day. It was a great outlet for me, but eventually became stressful when I felt pressure to write for EVERY SINGLE DAY (which you DON'T need to do). So I've taken a break from it.

My best tip for journalling is to write what you feel is important. I started out by bullet-pointing things, but it eventually progressed into a narrative type writing style. If you write yourself like you're a character in a story, that can help a lot. for your personal writing. The story is formatted in a first person POV (unless you want to write about yourself in the third person😐) and you are describing what happens to you as a story.

However, you don't always have to write about your life. Just writing about something you enjoy is fine. :)

I used to journal a lot during primary school and it was mostly me expressing myself. I stopped for years during high school and into my 20s.
I recently took it up again and I would say I’m a brain dumper. Whatever is going on or however I may feel, I express it by simply just writing it down. It helps me a lot to firstly acknowledge how I’m feeling and not runaway from it or seek for a distraction but it feels like I’m confronting myself and it’s quite cathartic for me.
I haven’t necessarily applied that into my characters and their development but I’m grateful for groups like this that help me see where I can improve in writing so thank you for the idea.

does anyone have any journaling tips?

I journal just about every day. What helps me do so is to carry a notepad small, and durable, enough for me to carry on my person all day. As for what I write, it could be about anything really.

Thoughts that I notice as interesting (Mine/Others)
Feelings that I want to capture
Lyrics to a song/poem that gets lodged in my head
My own personal poetry or fiction
Work related stuff (Minimal)

Another thing that really helped was finding a pen that I really enjoy writing with. The proper line thickness and ink! I also tend to buy notepads with interesting graphics on them to help the creative juices flow.

You can also try writing in the second person, as if you're addressing everything to someone else. I started doing that unconsciously, but it kind of helped me direct my writing, if that makes sense.

I have done journaling for many years, often in small notebooks. The notes are usually about funny or interesting things I saw, heard, or read. Sometimes they are self-reflections on my thoughts. Many of these notebooks are rather disorganized, with small writing, asterisks, and writing in the margins. I also write notes in Google Docs.

i started journaling pretty recently, in December, and I found it was such a great way to get out so many feelings and thoughts I couldn't tell anyone else. i agree w what someone else already said in the thread tho, that sometimes writing everyday can b quiteee stressful. write when u need to, write what u think is important. it should be fun and therapeutic, not a chore :)

I had started this thing called Morning Pages which, well, journaling. You write 3 pages straight of anything that comes to your mind as soon as you wake up. I've found it to be a great brain dump, as it kind of clears everything out before you get moving for the day. There's also some kind of psychological effect, they say, that because your inner critic is not quite in place with and this is supposed to help shut that up! I had also implemented evening pages under the same premises, but it was too much pressure so as of right now I'm taking a break. I blog like I used to write in my journals and maybe it's less personal but it's having the same effects :)

Journaling is kind of like the first layer of everything i write. I note down everything i liked, disliked, ideas, feelings, just everything on my journal. When i’m writing a story, or a piece or an article about something, i always get the ideas of interesting subjects to write about from my journal.

I just started journaling again but in a bit different way. I bought a 5 minute journal and only do a quick session every day. Like some of you already said, I also felt the pressure to journal every single day and that destroyed it for me. I have tried a lot of ways of journaling like bullet journaling, usual journaling like a diary and now the 5 minute one with different prompts every day that I just have to fill out:) I can definitely recommend this journal bc it’s so easy and quick! If you don’t want to spend $25 for a journal you might not like, there are some for $10-15 on amazon:) I have a German one that I really like but there are English alternatives to the original 5-minute journal as well! Hope this helped some of you:)