Promoted from the Forums (Background on Forum Promotion here)
By: CharleeVale
Do you keep a journal?
I don’t mean the normal writer’s journal, full of notes and ideas and bits of dialogue. I mean a ‘dead diary’, I did this, I did that journal. I’ve never been able to. Maybe because spending time writing that doesn’t benefit one of my WIPs seems like a waste of time….
But I’m wondering if there are any of you that do, and how you find the time/motivation?
I've kept a journal ever since I remember. I try and do it daily or four times a week. It's really cool.I can't wait till I'm sixty and I come back and see what I wrote.
M
thisismybookonly.blogspot.com
I love to journal. I think that is one of the best ways to grow in your writing. We move at such a fast pace, keeping a journal helps us remember all the rejection but also all the victories.
I do 'morning pages' as suggested by Julia Cameron of The Artist's Way. First thing in the morning, 3 stream of consciousness handwritten pages. Someday's I just talk about what did the day before, other times work out on the page a problem or something related to my current WIP. Find it actually wakes my brain up and prepares for novel writing.
With the ePublishing boom going on in Kindle, do you plan on releasing any novelettes or short stories on Kindle to promote your book? Jeff VanderMeer, J M McDermott, Catherynne Valente all seem to be doing it. Do you think kids read Kindles?
I do. Actually, it is the very concept of a journal that led me to writing a novel. I began to notice stories and characters within my journal so I took those and made them into a fictional story. Whallah! It progressed to a novel. I have found that when I journal mindless random thoughts, I can always go back to them to pull out the 'raw real life' emotions and feelings within them and use them for a story. I also created an Author page (which you suggested. High fives, knuckle bumps and a Big thank you.) I also have a facebook page too. Simple Southern Life. Fowler Robertson, author. I pull ideas from my journal and create stories for my blog post too. I am just starting out with the Author page but it is growing and I'm getting good responses. I suppose that a journal helps me because I have so much info swirling around in my head, that if I don't get it out, I will have a mental meltdown. I don't journal everyday, but I DO jot things down where ever the idea comes up and it ends up in my journal. Nathan, check out my page and let me know what you think? thanks for your awesome information! You rule! OH…and here's a question I've been meaning to ask you. Maybe you can write and post about it one day. I have received an endorsement from a well known author….will that help me get my foot in the door of an agent? Is it a waste of time to have an endorsement? What is the 'low down' on Endorsements and new authors, writers.
I randomly write a diary when I'm annoyed or angry or, as one of the commenters here helpfully put it, going through teenage angst. It lasts for a couple of days and I don't have anywhere concrete where I put in all my thoughts. It is quite nice stumbling across a rant I wrote and kind of thinking how silly it all seems now.
I personally think writing a diary is useful. I write YA. I am a YA. When I write in my diary, I get serious teen emotions back. So, for me, it is incredibly useful.
But Nathan. What on earth is a "dead diary?" My diary certainly isn't dead and I don't simply put where I went and what I did in. I write to express emotions, which in a way is what I do for my WIPs. It is productive and I honestly recommend you try writing one for a week and look back on it in a year and think what an asshole you were and how much you've improved. Then do the same thing every year. It should make us all feel better about getting older because we have record of how our younger selves were stupider selves. =) =P
My blog is the closest I've gotten to keeping a journal. 😉