***First published in my newsletter, Journal Notes on 5th July***
Oh my goodness my journal is full of writing and ideas and brief sentences and scraps of inspiration at the moment. I am so happy with how much enthusiasm I have for my writing and creative business right now. And I’m writing this in Journal Notes to remind me - because so often I don’t feel like that. I don’t feel enthusiastic, I don’t feel like I’m on the right track and I just feel stuck and frustrated.
For so long I feel like I’ve been in a writing and creative wilderness. I would be busy but not productive.
I’d just be churning out content on Instagram and not really thinking if it was taking me forward towards my goals.
I would have hundreds of notebooks (slight exaggeration but I had lots) and would write an idea down in one of them and never find it again. I could spend hours searching for it. My desk would be a mess of piled paper - mainly to do with the house or the family - lots of reminders on post-its and scraps of paper and shopping lists. My office would have piles of paper on the floor, magazines, school-admin, house-admin, financial-admin - and I just couldn’t see a way forward. Clutter, I’ve found, can do that to you.
So I’ve been thinking in recent days about what really helped me find a way forward. I could say it was my new planning system, the way I’d organise my projects and tasks on a monthly, weekly and daily basis. I have a Post It Planning Board full of post its with individual tasks on that I feel very smug about moving from the ‘to be done’ sheet to the ‘done’ sheet. But I feel this planning is just the outcome of the decisions I’d made previously. How did I make these decisions? How did I know what it was I wanted to do?
And I think the answer to that comes down to one thing: writing.
For me that’s been in the form of journaling, writing these newsletters and writing my essays on Patreon. In the past I was the one who would try and work it all out in my head before I committed it to paper. I was the one who didn’t want to mess up the fresh, crisp, lined paper of a beautiful blank notebook with what could potentially be a stupid thought.
Finally, after a long time of going around in circles and having no direction, I got these thoughts down in my journal. That’s one journal not hundreds of them. I bought myself one with good quality paper, that would be a pleasure to write on - for all my thoughts. Maybe some of them were stupid. Maybe some of them were in the wrong direction. But it was only by getting them down on paper that I could see that.
And if you flicked through my journal now you’d see that some of them read as diary entries - this particular pink journal started just as we went into lockdown so there are some slightly hysterical ones where I was worrying about my doctor appointment; thinking there would be roadblocks on the dual carriageway and stopping me from getting there. There are also ideas for my business, there are doodles and colouring in of books on a bookshelf - again during the lockdown when I wanted something calming to do. There are scraps of blog posts, scraps of essays and musings that have become these newsletters. There’s messages to myself and there’s mathematical workings out and stuck in post its. A lot of it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. But for me, it’s all leading to a greater purpose. It’s giving me clarity.
It’s the same with wanting to get better as a writer. We feel there’s no point writing - whether that’s a blog post, a novel, an essay - until we’re better at the art. But the only way to get better is to start writing - the only way to find out the answers is to start writing. And this might mean writing down some complete and utter dross first…but from that you grow. To get from A to B you might have to write a lot of weird, crazy or stupid things - things you’d never show to another person. But, to arrive at B, to find those answers or that genius idea, there is no other way. You cannot work it out or write it in your head. You have to commit it to paper. You have to work through all that other stuff first. And by ploughing through all of that you come to something resembling the answer, or the truth, or an idea for a novel, or the way forward with your business.
As with the clutter on my desk or on my office floor - once I’ve sifted though all of that dross I have a clear place to work. One that inspires me and motivates me. Writing can remove that mental clutter from your mind. Some of it is going to be useful and some can be chucked out in the bin. But you don’t know which bit goes where until you expel it through your words.
People have messaged me in the past saying they don’t like to start a new notebook because it’s so perfect and clean. Or they want to become a writer but don’t know where to start - so they don’t do anything. The answer is to take a journal and to just write anything. Ask yourself questions on paper. Write sentences that occur to you. Force yourself to write whatever is going on in your head. Write down your observations or thoughts. Start peeling that onion and find out the path you want to take.
****
Journaling Your Goals: an eBook for Writers & Creatives
I have written a workbook which lays out my system for journaling and identifying my creative goals. This workbook also shares how I go from identifying my creative goals to breaking them down into projects and tasks - and then planning on a monthly, weekly and daily basis.
To find out more and to order the book at a specially discounted price then click here.
