Desperation Journals for Writers

When you’ve just got to try something different

Today I have an embarrassing confession to make to all you dedicated writers, journalers, and diarists out there. During all the years that I have been scribbling away in Moleskines and crappy spirals, I have been writing down the wrong things.

I thought that one day, when I became a serious writer, all those feels fancies would make terrific material. Not so much, I find. I wish I’d written more about the facts and the fun stuff, instead.

My books are long on philosophy but short on particulars. Great poets don’t just tell you they were existentially sad under a tree. They tell you they were sad because a lark had perished under the linden, just before the rainstorm that loomed in the west. See? I didn’t write down any of that stuff.

Maybe if I had set up some really fun and creative journals, with some alternative writing prompts, I might have generated a more vivid record of my life to date. Here are some ideas I wish I’d had then.

Alternative journals to try now

Character Journal

In junior high school, this would be called a “slam book,” but now that you are grown up, you can call it a Character Journal and get away with it. When you are in the coffee shop looking hard at work, covertly observe the others looking hard at work. Make detailed notes in your Character Journal about their looks, their demeanor, their God-awful clothes, and their clueless conversation, although you’re not judging, of course. Just observing.

These specific and detailed observations will provide excellent fodder for your next story and will probably boost your self-esteem.

Reading Journal

Personally, I wouldn’t bother. Much easier to do it on Goodreads.

Gift Journal

Believe me, you’re gonna need this one more and more as time goes on. Unless you are the best minimalist in the world, and you don’t keep anything, it is devastatingly easy to forget who gave you what. Contrary to popular belief, some mementos don’t remind you of a thing after enough years have passed.

I’ll see a treasured trinket and feel good feelings — but I have truly forgotten why. Someone gave it to me; I surely didn’t buy it for myself. Probably a family member, so I don’t dare give it away. I should have at least have marked it on the bottom with a Sharpie.

We learned this lesson in a bizarre way. This fall, we gave our adult son a volume of quotations from Robert Kennedy that we’d had on our shelves for years. When he opened it, he saw by the inscription that we had given him that same book some ten years ago. Not the same title; that very copy. We didn’t remember doing that at all, and we had no idea how it ended up back on our shelves. We made sure he took the damned thing home this time.

Bullet Journal

Great idea. Keep a list of people you’ve shot, or wish you could shoot. Also list people not worth the bullet or the jail time.

Whine Journal

Keep track of your productivity and your effectiveness by recording the complaints you have lodged, who you spoke to, and the outcome. You can also list the complaints you are going to lodge next and the arguments you are assembling, so as to be ready when it is time to pull the trigger. (See Bullet Journal.)

Dream Journal

Everyone needs a Dream Journal. At the top of each page, it will say, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Then, you can record all your great ideas, like the one you got that time when you and your friend were a little bit drunk, and you dreamed up the notion of a powered scrubber for women, and you would call it “The Manhandler,” and you would go on Shark Tank together and they would back it and you would make millions, and then in the morning you woke up with a hangover and realized that there were already all kinds of powered scrubbers around. Also “The Manhandler” would be kind of a problematic name, wouldn’t it?

So you wrote it in your Dream Journal to remind yourself that if you can dream it, sometimes all you really should do is dream it.

Travel Journal

This notebook is where you write about all the places you think about going but realize you probably won’t go because (a) You can’t afford it; (b) Your partner won’t go; or (3) You can’t afford it. Write down all the reasons why it sounds good, but would probably be a bad idea. Also list what you will do with the money you will save by not going. Like pay rent.

Writers Journal

This one is essential and should be used every day. For best effect, open it every morning, sit down, and write: “Go write something.”

Then close the journal, and go write something.

…

May all your journals be joyous ones.