[Previously published in my newsletter, Journal Notes, on Sunday 20th June 2021]
This Thursday June 24th I am so incredibly excited to be joining freelance writer Fiona Thomas in a workshop all about journaling for writers.
Why? Because journaling my writing has had the biggest impact on my writing career. It has stopped me from drifting and helped me focus on what I want to do with my creativity.
I’ve been writing for over seventeen years but only started journaling about my writing in 2019. I was floundering for many years. I followed other people’s creative paths and compared myself negatively to others. I chased the sparkly on social media, I did what I thought I should be doing and not what I wanted to be doing. I had no focus, no drive and was unfulfilled, miserable and embarrassed.
Thanks to journaling in 2020 I ‘suddenly’ found my creative purpose, I knew what direction I wanted to go in, what I wanted to talk about in my writing. I started a business around my creativity and gained focus and confidence.
It sounds like magic doesn’t it? Too good to be true. But hand on my heart my journal saved me from an unfulfilled creative life.
So how did a simple journal change my creative life?
There are a number of ways in which my journal helped me. In my journal I would write down my anxious thoughts. By writing down my thoughts I could rationalise them and they would take up less space in my head. This allowed creative thoughts the space to grow and focus. So I’d write these down as well.
In my journals I have snippets of conversations, words that have sparked an idea, I have pages where I’m giving myself a good talking to and sounding myself out, I admit to mindset issues around my creativity which has helped me manage the fears holding me back. I have more ideas, I have diary entries and quotations from people I admire. I have doodles and workings out. More ideas. I have essay and blog post ideas.
When I read through my journals I sometimes roll my eyes as I have no idea what the words mean, but on other pages I can see the start of something. This then prompts me to write more, until the tiny idea leads to something tangible like my workbook and ebook.
But not only do I gain content for my writing through my journals I also get guidance for my writing business. It is this guidance that has set me on this creative, entrepreneurial path over the past eighteen months. It is this guidance that has stopped me following other people’s paths and worked out what it was that I wanted to do with my creativity. And it is this guidance that has stopped me feeling busy but unproductive.
I’m incredibly grateful to my journals.
If you’d like to attend Journaling for Writers on June 24th 2021 from 7-9pm BST (replay available) you can sign up here.
