7: Journaling as a Writer

Thirteen years ago I began a journal chronicling a significant situation in my life. What began as a way to heal a trauma has continued to this day. For me, journaling is cathartic and calming, a way to organize my thoughts in a jumbled mind. It has become my most effective method for personal growth, my most consistent method (sorry, meditation), and a way to practice writing without the structure of a storyline.

I believe it’s also helped my growth as a fiction writer.

Some journal entries decifer deep thoughts from podcasts I listen to. Other journals are used as a way to make sense of a current life situation. Still other entries help me cope with shifting moods. In other words, they are a way of entering my human psyche. I can use what I’m learning to grow my own character’s moods, thoughts, trauma, and emotions. For example, Jamie, my protagonist in my latest manuscript, sounds a lot like a person from my past, someone I know quite well. Elliott, my newest protagonist in another idea, is exactly like me as a kid. And Arie, my protagonist in an older manuscript, has flaws and idiosyncrasies of a variety of students from past years. All three are very complicated and get in their own way throughout their stories…just like I do in my life.

If you don’t journal, I’d encourage picking it up. It’ll help you as a human, and I feel it will help develop deep characters.