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 ;)
I'm impressed, amazed and inspired by the commitment and work so many apply to their journaling. The consistency described here is remarkable. My journaling process and organization is more chaotic and along the lines of what Jo described. I write down bits (often everyday moments but add-ons to works-in-progress too) routinely as texts that I send to myself. I often use voice record. Then every so often, like every few days or once a week, I go back and review my texts and add what's working, worth saving to the doc in progress. Not in any way efficient, but I've found that at least I'm capturing the thought and words in the moment and not losing them to my increasingly feeble memory :-)
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 🐕