Share Your Journaling Tips: Morning Pages, Freewriting, Autofiction, Oh My!
The Forever Workshop Community Corner — 5.14.25
Hey there, workshoppers. Where are my die-hard journallers at?
Lesson 2 of Andrea A. Firth’s glorious workshop, Crafting Stories from Everyday Moments, is all about finding meaning in the observation of everyday moments, which made me think about all the stories, poems and ideas that might arise from a writerly journaling habit…
Except… I’m not a very consistent journaller (aside from in 2020 when I decided to write a page a day for a whole year, and what a freakin year that turned out to be 😱).
I’ve tried (and given up) on morning pages and The Artist’s Way about twelve times. I write a whole load of scattered notes and scribbled thoughts in all sorts of apps and half-finished notebooks, but none of it’s particularly coherent. And yet, I know how useful the practice can be.
Still, it felt a bit disingenuous for me to do a post about ‘how to journal’ this week. So instead, I’m turning to YOU!
What are your best journaling tips?
Please share all your best kept journaling secrets in the comments! Eg:
How do you cultivate a regular journaling routine? Or does an ad hoc approach work better for you?
Do you journal by hand or can you recommend an app or digital option?
Are you a morning journaller? Late night scrivener? When the mood takes you?
What kind of thing do you journal about? Does it change every day?
Has anything from your journal ever turned into a piece of fiction, a poem, an essay, or some other piece of writing?
Help me and my fellow wannabe journallers out!
Thanks y’all.
I have about twenty unused notebooks that will be soooo grateful for your advice ;)
This is the first time I get to gloat about anything related to my writing, my publishing creds are woefully slim given my ever-evolving memoir. Alas, I slay in the journaling department. Morning pages, every day, 3 pages in a Vera Bradley large spiral hardcover notebook. I wake up before the birds to do it, passed my 4 yr morning pages anniversary a few months ago.
*this was written by a person who, for 45 years, would have used the green vomit face emoji to describe her feelings about journaling, and the eye roll for anyone who described journaling as “life changing.” Guess you can teach an old dog 🐕
I've been journaling for a decade now, and I would describe what I do as "chaos journaling." The basic premise is that thoughts do not belong in your short-term memory: get them down on paper. I'll crib and steal and discard tips and tricks from other journaling systems (e.g. Bullet Journaling, time-blocking) but I've found that I stress a lot less when I'm not precious about it.
I usually start in the morning with a stream of consciousness that's basically a chief of staff (me) explaining to their boss (also me) what's upcoming for the day and jotting down any side notes. For example, "I've got meetings from 10a-12p, then I need to feed the dogs and myself. If I take the dogs for a walk right after, I might be able to squeeze in 20-30 minutes of writing before my 2p."
But that all can get interrupted freely. If I remember that one of the dogs has a vet appointment, I'll draw an arrow to a blank area and write that out. Mix in bulleted lists, diagrams, quotes, miscellany and it gives a very "oh, this is a crazy person" vibe.