Do you keep a journal or diary? That’s the topic of this week’s Marketing for Romance Writers (#MFRW) 52-week Blog Challenge. One of the greatest gifts I remember receiving a child was a red padded diary embossed with fancy gold lettering with the word, Diary. It had a tiny lock and key to protect all the secrets only a child could harbor.
From that initial diary, I progressed to using journals. I had a small collection of books. Each had a colorful ribbon to mark the page to return to add more memories. The best journals were received as gifts. They often included a fancy pen to leak out all my innermost thoughts. Now I have a collection of journals just waiting for their pages to be filled with hopes and dreams. Most likely the new ones will never will be filed, and the complete ones will never be revisited, for several reasons.
It Started and Ended with Shorthand
When I was in high school, the secrets got bigger than what I wanted for Christmas and thoughts about cute boys. Well, at 
the time the secrets were big.
Most likely the pages were filled with adolescent emotional turmoil and things that were too embarrassing to discuss with anyone but myself. So I started to write parts of it in the shorthand that I excelled in during my business classes back-in-the-day.
The problem with that, is that I haven’t used shorthand for, well, never. I never really used it except for in class and in that journal.
Now they’re really secret. Because even I can’t read what I wrote.
Illegible Journaling
Years of typing classes enabled me to type like the wind. Finally, something that could keep up with detailing my racing thoughts! As the years went by, I took college classes. I felt that I need to write down every single word the teacher
said. My extensive handwritten notes helped me to excel in my classes as my handwriting started to fail.
After being accustomed to the speed of typing, I had so much I needed to write down that my hand couldn’t keep up with the pace.
Thus, if I wrote in a journal, or any kind of notes, I’m now often challenged to read my own handwriting. I slowly stopped journaling and turned to other outlets.
It Started with Stories
For a while I sent a daily email to my family that included fun stories about my twins to keep the family updated on their hijinks. Those then morphed into blog posts.
As the twins grew, soon other stories filled the pages as I made up the life stories of my characters. The characters were much more interesting than some of the mundane happenings of my days.
I still believe journaling is such a valuable way to work through thoughts and emotions. I’ll occasionally sit down and write out my problems. I can often come to a solution this way. It’s much more effective than burdening friends or family with everyday woes.
#Journaling is a great form of personal therapy. #MFRW #amwriting Click To TweetI’ve encouraged my girls to keep a journal. They’ve recieved beautiful bound journals just waiting for their personal stories to fill the pages. Whether they did or not is their secret to keep.
Back to Where It Began
Ironically enough, I’ve been considering returning to my roots and starting a journal.
But this one would be on a computer, where I can read what I write—although my secrets could still be locked away…as long as I can remember the password.
totally agree with the handwriting reason for not keeping a diary. The post also brought back memories about writing in shorthand–and not being able to decipher it afterwards.
I’m glad I’m not the only one with the problem with shorthand Helen. 🙂
In junior high, I decided to be more secretive about my thoughts, and invented a ‘code’….but then wrote down that ‘code’ at the back. Unfortunately, that’s the notebook that was passed around in class and I was publicly humiliated for about a week. Learned a valuable lesson that day; a) don’t write down your code in the same book and b) NEVER TAKE IT TO SCHOOL! (Or leave it unattended…)
Oh no, Molly! That’s terrible.
Writing down inner conflicts may be a good way to work through them, but I don’t think saving them is–especially if someone else can access what’s supposed to be private.