Happy 2020! Where did the time go?
I’m excited because I’m getting married this year! Doesn’t seem possible since we’ve set our date back in May 2019.
What are you excited about? I hope sharing your story comes to mind. If not, I want to challenge you to share. Doesn’t have to be a book. Could be a newsletter, blog, or vlog. Or social media posts.
For January, let’s start with small steps. And that’s why this month’s focus is: Getting your thoughts down on paper. Whether you make New Year’s resolutions or clarify your vision and goals, I’ve got a fun challenge for you.
Let’s journal!
Even if you’re not a fan of journaling, it can be a great place to start. John Steinbeck journaled his experiences including fears, obstacles, inspiring thoughts as he wrote the Pulitzer Prize novel, Grapes of Wrath. (These journal entries are now a book.) I’ve journaled ideas for a novel, conversations in my head with my characters, and inspirational settings for my current manuscript.
Why journal first?
If you’re struggling to get words down on paper, this is a terrific place to jog down thoughts, find inspiration, and organize your ideas. Then, you’ll have written material to curate into a book, blog posts, or newsletter for example. If you realize you don’t have time to compile this information into a book, blog, or social media post, it’ll be easier for a virtual assistant to compile the information into a written format or for a ghostwriter to create your book from the journals.
As a bonus, the structure of your journal could serve as chapters for your book. Each entry is its own chapter, or at least provide topical segments you can break down into smaller topics for chapters or combine to make chapters.
Types of journals:
- Bullet journal. Journal to organize your thoughts. Write down to-do lists, random thoughts, track your writing progress, goals for writing. Endless possibilities but goal for a bullet journal is to get thoughts down on paper. Many people use their drawing skills to doodle fun bubbles to represent thoughts or use color pencils to create categories. Utilize your creativity for aesthetically pleasing, organizational journal.
- Traditional journal. Record your thoughts, experiences, feelings from the day (or whatever rhythm you use).
- Meditation or prayer journal. Write your prayers and words of meditation. Answers to prayer, inspirational Scriptures, quotes, and observations.
- Dream Journal. Write your actual night dreams in the journal.
- Vision Journal. Record your vision for your life, goals to accomplish this, and people to help you along the way.
- Family Legacy. Record events and personal memories, names and lineage, history of your family.
- Novel Journal. Just journal ideas specifically about a novel idea or current manuscript. For example, if you’re eavesdropping for novel inspiration, record dialogue. (Sit at a coffee shop and listen to conversations. Write down anything that sparks your interest.) Write down ideas for settings, characters, or plot. Jot down random thoughts about your story such as: need more ethnically diverse characters. Does my protagonist wear glasses? What’s their nervous tick? Does my antagonist have a soft spot for cats?
The journal you need depends on the book you’re wanting to write or are writing:
- Memoir or family newsletter: A traditional and family legacy journal.
- Instructional: Bullet journal, vision journal, or a traditional journal.
- Devotional: Journal your prayers, meditations, and dreams.
- Novel: Novel Journal, vision journal, bullet journal, or traditional.
Activation:
- Write down the type of journal that inspires you (doesn’t have to be from the above list).
- Set a goal for when you want to journal and the time period. (Don’t need an end date but recommend providing a start date.)
- Ask someone to serve as your accountability partner for this journaling adventure.
- Decide on a mode of journaling — i.e. online, app, or physical journal. (I’ll provide a blog post on the tools for journaling.)
- Share your activation results in Comments below.
Next week’s post will cover Tools for journaling.