Think you don't have anything important to say? Look again!

"Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind, there would have been no reason to write."   --Joan Didion

"Sometimes notebooks are our calm companions, but other times they serve as crucial sounding boards, balance beams, rudders, oars."    --Naomi Shihab Nye

"The deeper benefit of keeping a journal is that it offers a way to be consistently aware or mindful."      -- Alexandra Johnson

It's the beginning of a new year.  For many of us a new year finds us yearning to begin anew with our commitment to writing more regularly.  Many begin a new journal at the start of the year.  But all too often, those commitments to writing regularly are abandoned early in the year for a variety of reasons.  Among those reasons, a common refrain is "but I don't have anything important to say."  Another is "No one would want to read what I have to say."

Let's step back for a moment and examine those two statements in the context of writing in a journal.  Journal writing might well be for an intended audience but in most cases, it is for SELF.  Therefore, the "no one would want to read what I have to say" becomes a moot point.  And, as for the "nothing important to say" train of thought, well...  that may not necessarily be the case.  Look again!

If you've ever pulled out your old journals and re-read them, you know that it is possible to find certain threads that carry from one year to the next.  It is also possible to read about situations with new eyes, new understanding, new insight.  Suddenly, what seemed like a rambling or ranting session of words on the page take on new meaning. 

If you are searching for a fresh new approach to your journal writing and feel as though you can't find anything to write about, how about digging out some of those old journals.  Read some of the entries you find there and then begin to search for keys to new writing possibilities nestled in those words from years past.

If, when you were journaling -- no matter how long ago that was, you felt it was important enough to jot down on the page, then at that moment in time you did have something important to say.  Maybe the importance in those words has long since waned; maybe the thoughts you set down then are even more important today.  Remember, the "importance factor" is only really an issue to one person - you, the writer.  It matters not whether anyone else (even your internal critic) finds your words important.  You, and you alone, will determine how important your writings and observations were or now are.

Your writing challenge for this month:  Make a list of all the reasons you journal.  Or, if you've been procrastinating, make a list of all the reasons why you don't journal.  Examine old journals for glimpses of stories waiting to be told.  Find the balance beams, rudders, sounding boards and oars within your own words.  Then, I'd be willing to wager a guess that you won't be able to hide any longer behind the "nothing important to say" excuse!

So, putting all excuses aside, begin to write the words that are just waiting to get out of your head and into your personal writings!

"Anyone who's kept a journal for even two months has enough material to find countless patterns. Anytime you've set down ten facts or described a single memory, you've begun to tell a story. It takes a second glance--sometimes just after you've written, but often years later--to see the story clearly."     --  Alexandra Johnson

"Through keeping a diary, we begin to find our own words, our own language, our own voices.  We start to tell our own stories."  --Marlene A. Schiwy

Comments

[Trilla Pando]

Thanks, Lee. I'm emerging from a dry spell and these are the words I need. I've got boxes (and boxes and boxes) of journals and limited access to the Internet. That translates more time. I'm leaving the library and going to open box number 1. Thanks. Patricia