I have found, over the years, that I do well when journaling to a point-my children's first year, a travel journal, etc. I have tried a couple times just to "keep a journal" but ended up feeling like I HAD to write and then what I wrote was not the natural product of my pondering mind....

Doesn't work for me. I love the lovely books and really enjoy writing with nice pens on great paper. But it only lasts for a day or 2 when I travel. Then I get behind and stop. Daily, forget about it. My life is not interesting enough. Now a days people just blog. A public journal seems the worst!

I started keeping a journal 13 years ago when I moved to my present house. It began as a garden diary but I digress into any other topic that comes to mind when I write. I don't force myself to write every day, especially not in winter. I have just started on volume 23, a slim one, some notebooks are very thick and last a whole year or more.

I also have a correspondent, my gardening mentor, and we exchange e-mails two or three times a week. We began in the autumn of 1995 after "meeting" on the old Usenet group rec.gardens.roses and a couple of years ago we counted to over 500 e-mails. My friend has kept them on his hard disk. They work as a kind of journal for both of us because we often discuss non-gardening topics but it is rather better because we get feedback. We have thought of editing our correspondence and trying to get it published. But I think we should have done that years ago when the Internet and e-mails were still a novelty. And it would mean that we should have to meet IRL often and we are not in the habit of doing that. We go to an annual garden show together, visit each other's gardens every other year and that's it.

I've been keeping a journal on and off over the last decade. I never force myself to write. It began as an effort to "trick" myself into writing more creatively, e.g. my first novel and poetry. It ended up being more personal, as the years passed. When I noticed the volumes of journals piling up in boxes and closets, I decided to write my journal on a computer disk. Now,that's such a habit, I'm not at all certain if I even can return to handwritten, leather bound journals with special pens....

I have started a journal on several occasions. However, I found that I really didn't have what it took to do it on a worthwhile basis.

However, I do keep a log of things as they happen. The mundane things like doctor visits, Blood Pressure, new medications, etc. But the most important is what we gave to the grandkids on their birthdays, graduations or other special days. It's hard to remember things like that. I also note anything unusual in our daily lives. Deaths, births, weddings, and such as that.

Information on most of these things will never be needed again, but often, my log has filled in important blanks. We have a granddaughter graduating this month and were at a lost to decide what to give her. Looking back in the log, I found that we had given her brother $500.00. I guess that's a good start on what she will get too.

I've been keeping a journal for about a year and a half. I could never keep one before when I just tried to write about what was happening in my life. Now I use it to write about things I read--not so much reviews as comments, thoughts, ideas. It's sort of a combination journal-commonplace book. I don't write every day; I average a few times per week.

If you have tried to keep a journal in the past and failed, but you want to try again, I know several people who have started this sort of journal-commonplace book that is focussed on an interest. For some of us, that seems easier and more compelling than a more traditional journal/diary.

I have always kept a journal, ever since I was about 8 years old. Unfortunately these journals have a way of piling up and occupying space, and just now (actually, for the last 15 years) I've been looking at the task of going through my notebooks from 1982 to 1996 and trying to pare them down. I rip out whole pages and cut sections out and eventually end up with a much less bulky item.

Years ago, desperate for space and feeling especially down in the dumps, I destroyed my journals. I wish I hadn't done that.

In the last 10 or 12 years I haven't kept notebook-journals--just occasional online remarks that aren't public. (They're in a private blog.) I don't even do that very often.

The point in keeping a journal is a very important one, I think. It's amazing how a person's memory can distort past events. My journals that recorded daily happenings when they happened have been a valuable corrective.

Incidentally, I'm not sure when the word "journal" became a verb, but (sigh!) it seems to have done so...

Incidentally, I'm not sure when the word "journal" became a verb, but (sigh!) it seems to have done so...

According to the OED, it was 1803.

Russ

I've kept journals at various times in my life and rather miss having one now. However, it occurred to me one day a few years ago that I really didn't want anyone reading them after I was gone so I destroyed them all and haven't started one since. I do keep a garden journal of sorts and also keep track of books I purchase and read.

Not so recently, then!

Is a journal an American phrase? What you seem to be referring to, we in the UK would call a diary.

I've not kept such a thing - I sometimes regret it...the nearest I've come to it is a project which I started when my youngest was born - I take a photo of her every Monday. That in itself is quite interesting - you look at the background and think "Oh, that was when we got the new telly...!"

My favourite journal/diary story - a woman wrote a letter to magazine in which she said she'd found one of her teenage diaries from twenty years previously. She'd come across an entry - "I will never forget this wonderful day!"...and she had no idea what that wonderful day was....

In rereading a youthful journal, I saw I was waxing poetic about the brown eyes of a crush, but my slightly older self had corrected, "Nope, they're blue."

I always called mine journals because diary suggested a silly girl writing in a pink book about boys. And I was not a silly girl, nope, not me. ;-)

Here, a diary implies daily recording-a journal is more flexible.

Thanks, all of you, for your comments, suggestions and information - you are quite inspiring!
The first gathering of the the fledgling journal writers is this evening. I will let you know if my journaling efforts take flight, or crash and burn.

Frances...as I am beginning to live in the twilight years of my life (I am feeling that "next year I am 60" a whole lot), my few incomplete journals are bothering me. I also am not sure I want anyone to read my personal thoughts, but there are also recordings of my children's lives and achievements there as well. I think I have to do what someone else mentioned...go through them and clear out things that upset me that they might read.

Clearly, I should have said: Incidentally, I'm not sure when the word "journal" came into wide use as a verb, but (sigh!) it seems to have done so...

Special thanks to the person who did the research on its earliest use.

I am an on and off journal keeper. The only times when I journal daily is when I'm travelling, and I keep special books for that.

I also have a journal I write in when the spirit grabs me. I write about special events in my life and stuff I have opinions about.

Thyrkas, if beginning to journal scares you, you could start with a sketch journal or an art journal and see where that takes you. Many people use art journals to express themselves, and words are not a necessary component of such journals.

Here is a link that might be useful: Art journals on Flickr

The initial journaling group gathering went rather well,I think. There were 4 of us - a nice number for sitting around a table, empty journals and pens in hand(several of you mentioned that 'space' can be an issue for storing journals - I began to see that as some of the members had brought more than one journal with them last night, and even with only 4 people, the top of the table was covered in journals!)) Of the four of us, one was a faithful journal keeper, 2 were many years lapsed, and I was the catechumen.
We all agreed this group might serve for us as journal keepers the way a book discussion group serves a reader. Perhaps having a group to share one's writing experience with every few weeks may be enough encouragement (and accountability?) to inspire us to pick up pens, or plunk on keyboards,or...

>Many people use art journals to express themselves, and words are not a necessary component of such journals. What a grand suggestion, netla! Maybe combining words and art would keep the imagination flowing, too. Thanks for the link, also.

>Many people use art journals to express themselves, and words are not a necessary component of such journals.I used to buy a combined calendar/journal, with quotes for each week, pages for holidays...and I still enjoyed them even when I didn't write in them. But I did start using them almost as scrap books as well as journals...sticking in ticket stubs, birth announcements, obituaries, etc. The past two years I waited too long to order it...and miss not having them.

I do keep journals (because as someone said the books are so great to own...fantastic covers, good paper, better pens) of quotes, poems, reflections on books. And one just for religious type items I want to keep.

thyrkas, congratulations on surviving the first session of your group! It sounds like a really nice idea to me--much better than a public blog would be because people in a real-life group will have to be civil in their comments when they're facing one another in person!

Were the journals people brought mostly small notebooks, or were they larger? I've always preferred ruled notebooks, but some people apparently like the unruled ones.

For years I used steno notebooks but then switched to larger notebooks with spiral bindings on the side or the top.

It sounds as if you're going to like keeping a journal, even though you were the cat who came in from the cold--oops! the catechumen--at the first meeting.

Thanks for the good wishes, jwttrans. I hope that the energy I feel right now towards the journal project lingers; you know how one's enthusiasm can flag when trying to integrate a new habit into daily life.

As far as types of journals - what I noticed was that all of them were mid-size except mine, which was small (an outward sign of my inner fear?), all had spiral bindings and were ruled. There was great variety in the color and cover art, and some also had quotations printed on the pages. Who would guess that there would be such a assortment from which to chose?

>I used to buy a combined calendar/journal..veronicae, this style of journal sounds very intriguing to me. Are these large sized, for the most part? Can they be found at most department stores, or only at a book store?

martin z, what will you do with all the photos of the youngest daughter?

thyrkas - at the moment, they are in three large albums...she's nine, so I'm expecting to end up with six by the time she's eighteen, at which stage she can decide whether she wants to continue or not.

No plans to "do" anything with them except keep them and look at them. Though I am going to start making digital copies for archive purposes. At the moment, they are all APS photos, but I suspect I'll have switched to digital by the time she's eighteen.

If I can get through the tricky teenage years, when they get a bit rebellious, or start worrying that "I look AWFUL in photos", it should be OK.

I made an attempt to journal using digital photos and Word about 3 years ago. At the time my computer was too slow and lacked memory. (Manipulating photos ate up resources like crazy.) Discouraged I dropped the idea and never got around to trying again even with a new computer. Recently, however, as historian of a club, I've put together a scrapebook for the outgoing President. While it is lighter on text than a personal journal would be, I find I very much like having words rather than fancy cut-outs on a scrapebook page. May be time for me to re-address the journaling with pics idea.

Thrykas, you and others might wish to look into the following paperback by Alexandra Johnson: "The Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life." I bought this and found it most enlightening, re keeping a written journal.

By the way, this thread inspired me to get off my computer and return to my old-fashioned, lovely leatherbound volume of blank pages, with special pen for current journaling! It seems far more special....

> Alexandra Johnson: "The Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life." Thanks, woodnymph, for this title. I will go in search of it. I hope that you won't forsake the cyber-juornal for the "lovely leatherbound volume" alone, otherwise I won't be able to benefit from your good suggestions! (good grief - how shamelessly selfish of me!)

Each year I buy one of those spiral bound desk calendars about the size of a hardback novel with one week on the right and a picture on the left at each open page. Often I pick one with a garden theme, because I use these as garden journals. There is no literary merit to these journals, but it does allow me to record when and where I planted things, and what varieties they were, in case the tags go astray.

This is as close as I come to keeping a journal.

Rosefolly

A garden journal is the one I've managed the most consistently over the past few years. I've been using one that has columns of 5 years for each week. Helps me see how consistent bloom season is from year to year and how consistent I've been with my fertilizing, pruning and such.

I used to be an avid journaller especially at my old job when I wasn't very busy and used to pretend to be "working" when really I was writing my journal on the computer... However, this habit has fallen by the wayside since I got laid off six months ago and I don't really miss it.

I have my journals that I wrote when I was 12. Pretty funny to read what was so *interesting* to a pre-adolescent back then....

I've always tried to keep a journal/diary but ran into two very serious difficulties. One: when I sat down, I wrote so much that I just didn't have time to keep on going until I wanted to stop. Two: A mother-in-law that I was writing about most negatively and I didn't want to keep going in that vein only to have one of my kids read the nasty things I'd written about dear ol' grandma. But when I did write, it had to be with a fountain pen.

PAM

>But when I did write, it had to be with a fountain pen.Ooh, PAM - I haven't used a fountain since 7th grade! That sounds like fun! Do you have a special style that you like? Cartridge or another kind?

The suggestions from this thread have not only been inspirational, but very helpful in practical ways. Because this journaling group is an 'experiment' I've begun the process of following our journaling group in a journal! Thanks to the many suggestions from this thread I am using a 'mixed media' approach (don't know how else to describe it) I have been hand writing some entries and using the word processor for some pages. Photos of our group have been taken, which I hope to be able to put on a journal page somewhere, and one letter is glued to a page. I bought a colorful 3-ring binder and some page protectors, and started filling the binder with completed pages.
This may be a cop out, though, because I am not necessarily putting anything very personal in the journal - yet, anyway.

Hopefully, some useful journaling habits are being developed as this not so traditional journal comes together.

I used to write whatever came into my head in my journal, but I always wrote on only one side of the page, because later I'd go back and edit what I wrote, cutting out whole paragraphs with scissors. That way I could vent my rage about somebody or something, but come back later after I'd simmered down, and delete my rants.

thyrkas,

I have a collection of fountain pens, mostly inherited from my grandparents and great-grandparents. They are not the ones I use on a daily basis as they require a bottle of ink and need to be re-filled. While the process is fairly simple, with curious kids in the house, it's far more tidy to use a modern fountain pen with a cartridge. I've a Parker fountain pen that was quite reasonable in terms of price and the cartridge refills come five per package, if memory serves, and only cost a couple of dollars. Many types of daily use fountain pens and refills can be found at the big square office products stores like Staples.

The beauty of a fountain pen is that it slows down my writing and in doing that, forces my brain to slow down as well. It's a lovely way to write and nothing else can really compare. If you try it, I will be interested in hearing about the experience!

I like the idea of only writing on one side of the page. With a fountain pen, you sometimes get a blotch of ink that could soak through and writing on one side would keep it a bit more tidy. And there is that bonus of editing...although I may have some rather sparse pages here and there in relation to my earlier post...if you get my drift.

PAM

This thread came to mind as I was putting the final entries in the journal I have kept for a little over a year about our journaling group. The journal has become known in our group as 'The Pencil Chronicles', since we call ourselves 'The Pencils'.

We had no idea when we began meeting if the group would last or not, but we've had so much fun that we have decided to continue to meet and journal together until the fun ends or our pens run dry.

I have met my personal year long goal of keeping 'a journal about the journaling group', so now I can concentrate on other types of journal writing, particularly journals for each of the grandchildren.

If you have ever thought about trying this type of small group, I would give it a whirl - it has been a very positive experience.

I hate to be the thread curmudgeon but...

Journal as a verb may have been used once in 1803 but certainly was not common usage until recent years. It still feels like fingers on a blackboard to me.

And, Martin, if you are still about, diary was long the standard usage in the US as well. But the word became associated with teen-age girls and so journal seemed more acceptable to many, altho, of course, both words derive from the same root word for "day", one French, one Latin.

As to the subject at hand, I have kept diaries/journals since I was seven. I can't imagine sharing any of it with a group. My biggest problem is whether I want to trust to fate and the future or just burn the lot. An excruciating decision.

My mother found my high school diaries and gave them to me. I destroyed them!

I suppose if you have been a life long journal writer, writing with others might not sound appealing.
In our case, the women who decided to meet did so to encourage each one to begin keeping a journal, or be consistent in making journal entries. What ended up happening was this: we became a support group for each other which now goes beyond the act of writing in journals, although we do still write. Funny how things can take on a life of their own; we have a great time together.

Sorry--I did not mean that I thought groups were a bad idea. It's just a case of individual preferences. I would not feel comfortable being that personal in a group setting. For me--and speaking only for myself--my diary is the place where I can say what I can't say anywhere else. That's not its only purpose but, as I look back, I see that it is definitely an important factor for me.

And Carolyn, I should probably do exactly what you have. The only thing that holds me back is that I have an intense interest in reading historic diaries of American women. Could our lives be of interest in a century or two, no matter how obscure they may seem to us today?

Carolyn, I have saved my high school diaries. I re-read them when I want to be amused....

All those blogs out there now-what will they tell future generations about us?

Teenage angst, boyfriends, wannabe BFs, with-they-were BFs, complexion problems, and all, huh? If I had been a little less self-centered, the diaries might have been more interesting!

The last time I tried to keep a diary was probably one of those 'school-girl' things that I would have received for Christmas c.1958, with pages of useful information in the front . . . dates of Public Holidays, weights and measures and a useful map of the United Kingdom and the London Underground.
My life has never been full of interesting incidents, nor did I feel the urge to note the clever remarks made by my family . . . and have you noticed how other people's children are so much more advanced, brighter, reading younger than our own?
I am fascinated however, by the diaries of the Great and the Good.
10 April 1935 "Invited to tea at 4pm with Mrs Simpson, the Prince of Wales popped in and joined us for a slice of coffee cake. Didn't realise they knew each other.
8 pm. Dinner with Winston. He talked of nothing but the threat from Germany. Pity he is such a washed-up, yesterday's man.
Raining so took a cab home."

In real time I have the thin diary given to my late Grandfather in 1911 when, as a very young man, he travelled from the US to England to run his firm's London office.
He kept it up during the voyage but only for a few days once he arrived. I suspect work got in the way.