Effective Journal Writing

INTRODUCTION:

"The unexamined life is not worth living," wrote Greek newscalibre Socrates, and the personal or professional journal may be one of the principle ways to do so.

Although it may not be classifiable as a literary genre, it could be the most important one, since it enables a person to intimately connect with his inner voice and discover his personal truth. Pursuing a hectic schedule, with little time for thought or reflection, the writer can consider his journal both a place and an act that enables him to converse with self and commune with soul, enabling him to sort out, process, understand, and accept what he transfers from his head or heart into his book, often reaching parts of him he never could. For this reason, journal writing can be considered thinking on paper.

To capture something through the written word is to give it form and make it real, and the journal can be the stage on which its spotlight can be shone. It can become an anchor in a person's life storm and the dock to which he can return after each day's drift.

JOURNAL WRITING DEFINED:

Unlike other literary forms, which are dictated by specific rules and formats, journals are personal, highly individualized collections of writing, contributed to at a frequency that serves the author. Nevertheless, it can serve numerous purposes.

Because most people negotiate life at a hectic pace, with little time to intellectually or emotionally process what occurs to them, journals can serve as their pauses, during which they can digest everything-or opportunities to 'catch up" on what may have proven only cursory abilities to interpret and accept.

They can provide gradual understanding of who they are, particularly on the inside.

They allow them to examine their past and set courses for their future-that is, where they have been and to where they need to go.

They can foster organization and structure in both their personal and professional lives.

They can serve as archives or histories, documenting and preserving what memory may not always easily recall.

They can be used to develop ideas and demonstrate learning in classroom settings, replacing traditional exams.

Their entries mark the milestones of their life journeys.

They can serve as life management tools.

They can lead to writing fluency and increased speed, and serve as the thresholds to other writing genres.

Finally, they can be considered methods by which the writer communicates with the self and communes with the soul.

PUBLISHED JOURNALS:

There have been several published journals throughout history, including the Chinese historical documents of 56 AD, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, The Diary of Anne Frank of 1952, and the countless electronically-accessible blogs (web logs), which have served as personal memoirs or autobiographies to record their authors' lives and provide the insight resulting from them to their readers. Whether the present-time journalist elects to keep his work private or publish, it remains within his will.

JOURNAL WRITING TECHNIQUES:

Because of the personalized nature of a journal, which is not restricted to or molded by other genre parameters, the frequency with which an author contributes to it, the formal or informal writing style he uses, the deliberate elimination of conventional sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation, the inclusion of doodles and/or sketches, the employment of a purposefully purchased diary or plain spiral notebook or computer application such as Microsoft word, and its length are all author-chosen to facilitate his goal for undertaking the project.

Since most people have multi-faceted lives, they may elect to create several separate journals, such as those for his personal, student, and professional life aspects. Intended to enhance, they cannot be equated with any amount of right or wrong-only usefulness-and can be designated by any number of identifiers, including "journal" itself, "diary," "log," "notebook," or "workbook."

"(Nevertheless), we define a journal as a sequential, dated chronicle of events and ideas, which includes the personal responses and reflections of the writer (or writers) on those events and ideas," according to Dannelle D. Stevens and Joanne E. Cooper in their book, "Journal Keeping" (Styles Publishing, 2009, p. 5).

There are, however, several writing techniques.

1). Conventional: The conventional method adheres to standard sentence, spelling, grammatical, and punctuation rules, but can require more time to create and express through pauses between lines or entries.

2). Free-writing: Because the relaxed, less structured, free- or stream-of-consciousness writing eliminates pauses and the obstacles inherent with more traditional grammatical usage, the journalist may be less inhibited in his attempts at expression. He can, for instance, continuously write for varying time intervals without ever lifting his pen from his paper. There are many benefits to this technique.

a). It frees and unclutters the brain.

b). It can serve as a warm-up for later, more formalized literary expression.

c). It is idea- and thus self-generating, almost like a rolling snowball.

d). It establishes the person's voice.

e). It fosters fluency of expression.

f). It can develop ideas in their raw, unedited form. Although their value may not be immediately apparent, the process provides a method of capturing them. "First, original ideas are often hard to find, yet free-writing, with its lack of constraints, encourages, supports, and even cheers the production of words in whatever form," noted Stevens and Cooper (ibid, p. 80).

3). Forced free-writing: Employing the same literary rule-disregarding, uninterrupted-session style, forced free-writing differs in that it is intended to "force" the journalist to explore a very specific topic or subject, such as, "Why am I finding it difficult to be positive today" or "What are my feelings about resigning from my job?"

4). Creating lists: Some journalists find it easier to avoid sentences altogether and express ideas, thoughts, observations, and feelings in list form, leaving explanation in greater depth for a later time. The person contemplating a resignation, for instance, my list "scared," "unknown," "unsafe," "no money," "something new." Lists can additionally skirt the fringes of an issue he does not have the time to delve into or express with more formalized structure, and serve as the key points he may wish to explore in the future.

5). Dialoguing: A journalist may employ the dialogue method to converse with himself or parts of himself he cannot necessarily connect with, making them "other" or "separate" until he can reclaim them. He can also use dialogue to practice what he perceives will be a difficult or strained conversation with another person. Both methods employ objectification.

"When we objectify an experience, a relationship, our feelings, our worries, and our obligations, we gain some control and we can look at them from a different perspective to understand them anew," according to Stevens and Cooper (ibid, p. 89).

By providing this separation, the journalist is no longer at the center of unresolved feelings, fears, or anxieties, enabling him to assess them through the written word without being overtaken by them. Writing reroutes the experience through the brain.

6). Other expressive methods: If the journalist employs visual skills, he may augment his entries with any number of doodles, diagrams, sketches, drawings, and emoji's.

While there is no standard, journal-writing format, the conventional, rule-devoid, and dialogue-based ones are the most frequently used, examples of which appear below.

Conventional:

My flight from Aruba landed at about 2:00 this afternoon. Then, after waiting for some time at the baggage belt, I picked up my suitcases and called a taxi. It was actually cheaper than leaving my car in the long-term lot for ten days. Since it was still pretty early, there was no rush hour traffic, so I made it home in 20 minutes.

My apartment seemed different somehow when I walked in. The first order of business was to unpack. This is the least favorite part of any trip. But it was worth it, because the trip itself was enjoyable. I feel more relaxed. I got a little suntan. Maybe I'll go back there next year.

Rule-Devoid:

Oh, no! Like the movie Groundhog Day. Started all over again. Janet. Ugh! Ugly-the feelings. Broke up with her three months ago. No, not again! Million people in this city! Had to run into you today! Keep walking, you... Out! Out! Give me a break!