Journal Writing the Ahhhh Way

by Dvortygirl

So I'm sitting around leafing through magazines and I ran into my June issue of Natural Solutions. I re-read "Ink Therapy" by E.C. Roy and my mind again wandered to my own journaling habits.

In the article, E.C. gets fired and takes the plunge to become a writer. He mentions how hard it had been for him in years past, buying beautiful leather-bound journals that were so fabulous that the pressure to write entries as fabulous as the notebook overwhelmed him.

I can relate to that. Most of my non-electronic journals are in plain notebooks, and I have several pretty journals... all empty and looking pretty on the shelf.

Still, I write whenever I feel like.

So often people don't write because they:

• Have lost the journal they started last week
• Believe the entry must be a complete, well thought-out master piece
• Can't find the white out to fix that misplaced comma (usually in the perfect leather journal)
  
• Haven't written in months and don't want to have to write everything that's happened since

These are some comments I've observed over the years, and I find them a bit funny actually. Journals, unlike articles, books, brochures, etc., have one audience: the owner of the journal... you!

If anyone is ever bored enough to try and read my journals when I'm gone, they'll find notebooks with entries from multiple years that flow... well, they don't flow, actually.

When I feel like writing in my journal, I literally grab the first one I see, find an empty page and go to town. It's absolutely satisfying. I have zero concern for posterity.

In my experience, that content Ahhh feeling is in fact the point of journaling to begin with.

Why do you journal?