Journals Are For Whining

And for all those other thoughts you wouldn't want published

Wikimedia Commons — Isidro Urena

I tell writers all the time that they should keep journals, yet it’s only lately that I’ve taken it up again as a part of my own writing toolbox. I’ve been writing seriously since the early 1980s and I have a dozen or more bulging notebooks and journals full of everything I did or thought from then until around the time I moved to the internet and began seriously blogging.

I can look back on my working notebooks to see when I wrote that article, that column, that magazine story, who I interviewed, and what I used as resources. It’s all there. I kept separate journals to record my writing life — who I met at art colonies, writers retreats, or conferences, what we talked about, how I felt when I succeeded, my thoughts, my ideas, my promises to myself — and, yes, the worst kind of whining whenever something I wrote was rejected, when someone I knew wrote something I would have killed to have written, and especially when someone I knew achieved success with writing I thought was soooo mediocre.

I could be myself in my journals. They were my own private brag books, or rant books, or anything I wanted to make them. I love that I can read them now and see a whole different person. Sometimes I like her and sometimes I don’t, but the beauty of those journals, I realize now, is that nobody else knows they exist. I was writing them in real time and I needed to get it out, but as long as I was journaling it meant I wasn’t embarrassing myself by sharing any of it with people who would surely be judging me — maybe forever.

I write often about how private I am, and it’s true. I am. So any time I gripe in public or whine about the unfairness attached to my writing life, I hate myself later. I should have left it to my journals. Which is why I’ve started yet another journal for the umpteenth time. This time I plan to keep it going. I mean it. Honestly.

In those days when I was dedicated to journaling, the internet wasn’t a thing yet. ‘Blogging’ wasn’t even a word. It was a rare thing for writers to pour their hearts out in public, so it was no surprise that nearly every woman writer I knew kept a journal. We had found an outlet for our anxieties, yet we could keep them secret. Our journals were our comfort.

So why have I waited so long to get back to journaling? It isn’t as if I’m not a bundle of anxiety; I could be screaming into a pillow 24 hours a day if I let myself. I’ve written draft after draft after draft I’ve never published because in the end the whine is too personal, when all I would have had to do was write them as journal entries.

I hate that it’s taken me so long to remember how satisfying it is to keep a journal. How freeing it is. How safe it is.

Blogging takes many forms but too often it’s a handy vehicle for whining. Because it’s so easy now to sit down and vomit out our lives for the world to see, blogging is rife with ‘poor me’ writing, the personal made public. Sometimes bloggers can even make money doing it. There’s no stopping them now.

So for those writers who end up hating themselves for sharing too much in public (the rest of you — carry on), I’d like to suggest journaling instead.

There’s really nothing to it. No lessons. It’s yours to mold into whatever shape you want. But I will give you some advice:

1. Don’t journal in fancy, expensive books. Buy the most utilitarian notebook you can find, preferably spiral-bound. If you choose fancy, you’ll want to write fancy. You’ll be thinking everything that goes into that beautiful book will have to be worth it. No. This is the raw you. Keep it real.

2. Choose the size of your notebook carefully. Too big and you’ll have no place to put it. Too small and you’ll get writer’s cramp. This is my favorite. It’s 6x9.5. The spiral binding is covered so it doesn’t snag, yet I can flip it to make a tablet. There are pockets inside for extras you might want to keep. It has a pocket for a pen. It’s perfect for me. I keep one in our car for travel notes and gas station and motel receipts, etc. I have three new ones at the ready because this size is hard to find now, though I think you can find them on the internet.

3. Write on the right side only and keep the left side blank. Then you’ll have space for doodles, or to fill in what you’ve forgotten, or anything else you might want to add. And it looks better.

4. Don’t promise you’ll write in your journal every day. You probably won’t, and then you’ll feel bad, and then every time you open it and look at the last date you’ll feel guilty and soon you’ll avoid it altogether. Write in it when the spirit moves you. It’ll be there when you need it.

5. Tell yourself nobody will ever see it and then write in it as if nobody will ever see it. Go loose. Remember what a journal is for. It’s for you.

6. Keep small notebooks for note-taking and reminders but reserve this journal for your heart-to-heart talks to yourself. Your journal is your best friend. You can tell it anything and it won’t ever betray you.

And if you see me publishing something I should have kept to myself, would you please send me the link to this piece? I’ll be so grateful I’ll probably write about you in my journal.

---