Journals

[Palerider]

May have been asked or discussed here before....just curious

Do you keep a journal and how do you keep it?

You write in a journal or do you keep it on line?

How did you get started keeping one?

[The Folk Prophet]

I have kept a journal every day now for the past few years. I started after my EQ president gave a lesson in it and I felt inspired to do so. I write in Word and safe the file to a cloud drive (dropbox or onedrive) so I have it backed up safely and accessible via any computer anywhere with internet. I type so much better and faster than I write that I would have a very difficult time writing by hand.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

I love to write, so I've always kept a journal.  I do better at keeping up with it at some times than others though.

 

By far the best thing I have done, journaling wise, was to get a journal the right size to carry in my purse.  I have it with me wherever I go, and I use random free moments to write in it.  I also made a new year's "motto" to journal weekly.  So far so good!  

 

I've also found buying beautiful journals helps motivate me.  :)  I don't know why, but it does make me want to spend more time with it. 

[Lakumi]

My journal is a collection of my thoughts and things, most are pretty heavy. Not light reading thats for sure, I seldom look back at what I have written, dark times a lot of those poems and whatnot were thought up

[Palerider]

I have kept a journal since I was 18 yrs old. I did not write in it everyday until I went on my mission. When I came home I continued to keep one. Over the past several years I write in it at least every week. I keep it close by so I can write something down that may have happened that day or if I remember something that took place earlier in my life. I like to write as opposed to doing it on line. I have over the years kept drawings my kids have made or now my Grandkids. I would trace the hand of my children in my journal and now I do that with my Grandkids. Sometimes when my Grandkids are over I open my journal and ask them to draw me something.

I like to read back in my first journal wheni was 18 and read about how I was never going to serve a mission. Then as time goes on you can see my attitude change and then when I was 20yrs old I went on a mission. I fought it for almost two years of not going. I did go and was I ever glad I did. Changed my life forever.

[Guest]

I started writing in journals since my mom gave me an "Autograph" book when I was 8. The autograph book was this kiddy girly thing which is pages of questionnaires (Whats your name, favorite color, name of your best friend, name of your crush, describe your favorite vacation, etc.) that you then let all your friends write their answers on. I loved it so much I started making my own Autograph book with a bunch of questions from magazines that I would answer with my friends... Then I started an Autograph book just for me and somehow it started morphing into a daily journal/scrapbook and when I turned 15, it morphed into daily letters... Each entry starts with "Dear J" for journal and I pretend J is my boyfriend who is traveling somewhere so I want to tell him what happened.... Then sometime when I was in college, Doogie Howser came on TV with his computer diary, so I saved lots of money to buy myself a computer and programmed in diary app on it just like Doogie's...

But somehow, it never felt the same as writing, so after I graduated college I went back to Dear J... then I got married and quit J because I didn't need an imaginary boyfriend anymore. And thus ended my journal-writing habit...

[classylady]

I am sporadic with my journal writing.  When I'm going through a depressive state I almost never write in my journal.  There will be years that go by that I don't write in it because I don't want so much negativity showing.

[Lakumi]

I always wrote in my journal when depressed. It gets pretty disturbing at times, like Batman villain disturbing lol

[Palerider]

My wife and I have 4 kids and they are all married and out of the house now. We get together as a family often and once in awhile they start talking about my journals. One of my daughters says she gets dibs on my journals when I move on to the next life because she wants to find out who the favorite child is......Lol

[Lakumi]

My wife and I have 4 kids and they are all married and out of the house now. We get together as a family often and once in awhile they start talking about my journals. One of my daughters says she gets dibs on my journals when I move on to the next life because she wants to find out who the favorite child is......Lol

mine will be burned along with me lol

[Palerider]

I hope my kids and my grand kids enjoy my journals when that day comes.

[Lakumi]

I hope my kids and my grand kids enjoy my journals when that day comes.

Well yours sounds pretty interesting, inspiring perhaps to the fledging missionary, mine is just a whole bunch of eerie dreams, scary poems and blood (I cut myself on the paper by mistake and it got everywhere, I wrote the experience in the book and proceeded to stab the book with the pen several times).

I was unbalanced as a teenager lol

[Palerider]

I would not be ashamed of those things. We all have a past and we grow from it and move on.

[Lakumi]

I would not be ashamed of those things. We all have a past and we grow from it and move on.

 

But is that really something you want to share with people? Some of your most inner most thoughts, idea's, feelings...

 

I donno if your journal is the same but mine is, it has my most private thoughts contained within it. I suppose after I die it won't matter but there are things I'd not want to share with people (eg feelings about relationships, unless I was already in a non monogamy relationship when I die? I donno I still think it should be burned upon my passing).

[Iggy]

Back in my previous life, when I was inactive and owned a tavern, I read in the Good Housekeeping magazine about how writing a journal can help you overcome the blues, keep you on track to overcome bad habits, blah, blah, blah. 

 

1st hubby was an alcoholic, abusive, cheating bleh! The regulars at the tavern were really getting on my nerves. Repeating the same stories they told me again, again and again - year after year. I bought a Mead 5-Subject spiral bound notebook and started Journal 1. That progressed to Journal 2, 3, and 4. All were 5-Subject notebooks, and all had to be kept hidden away incase 1st hubby found them. 

 

Those journals kept me sane. I wrote in them a lot. At times, three to four times a day. Sometimes not for days or weeks or even months. At one time, my older sister got me a beautiful hard bound journal. I decided that wold be my Good Journal. I would only write good, happy events. Until I left 1st hubby, that pretty journal was mostly blank.

 

I still have those spiral bound notebook journals. I have been  separated from him for 15 years, divorced from 1st hubby for 11 years,  He has been dead for 4 years. I was going to read through them to see if it is time to burn them. Can't make myself read them. I am not healed enough to go back and read of the hurt he did to me. I don't want to burn them until I am healed enough to read and then toss. 

 

Husband #2 isn't even interested in reading them. He saw the suitcase they are in, and inquired as to why I had never *unpacked* it. He has an ammunition box full of letters from his daughter, and an old girlfriend. They were hurtful, hateful letters. I have no desire to read them, and when he is ready to destroy them, I will stand with him as he does it. 

 

I purchased a journal that I downloaded to my computer. It is Personal Historian. It is LDS based.  I don't write in it as often as I should - 

[classylady]

My father died when I was six years old, a few months shy of my 7th birthday.  I don't remember my father.  I have very few memories of him.  I would give anything if I had just a few pages of journal writing from him.  Something that would help me to get to know him better.  I wouldn't need books and books, just a few pages would have been nice.

 

I can see the importance of keeping a journal.  We never know when it will be our time to leave this life.  Even, if all you did was write one page about your testimony.  That would be a treasure to me if my father had done that.  Journal keeping is part of the Spirit of Elijah.  It turns the hearts of the children to the fathers.  Lately, I've been trying to find any journals of my ancestors that I can.  I'm finding it much easier to find journals from my male ancestors than my female ancestors.  That's a shame.

 

Now, my mother is a prolific journal writer.  When, I read through some of her journal entries, it seems to be an itinerary of what she has done for the day--"I canned 40 bottles of peaches.  I sewed two dresses for the girls.  I worked on one of the quilts I'm making."  I would like to have more personal stuff, such as her feelings written down.  I have to really glean through her journals to get to any emotional meat.

[Bini]

When I was primary age I kept an ongoing journal. When I became a teen, I did something stupid, and threw it away. Never kept one consistently since then. But I keep a cedar chest that stores important memories and milestones in my life.

[EarlJibbs]

I have tried off and on with journals and have never been very good at it. I have kept a very steady pace with my new one for the past year now because it is digital. I use Day One, an app on my iPhone. It has been great! I add photos to my entry, it keeps track of where I was when I wrote it, the time, the weather.... I really enjoy it. I have even found myself posting in it when I have any spiritual thoughts at church. You can tag you entry also, which makes it great for later if you want to find anything that was tagged with "spiritual" or "trial" for example. I actually look forward to it now. It backs up to the cloud or drop box and you can export to PDF.

[Iggy]

When I was living with husband #1 before we were married, we traveled all over the 8 states of the west coast - he was an installer for Stromberg-Carlson. I wrote letters to my girlfriend who lived in Seattle. Every day I wrote a 3+ page letter. Every day I mailed them to her. The only time I didn't mail a letter daily was when we were on the road traveling to the next job. So for about a week to 2 weeks, it was every day. Then for 3 to 5 days I would write, just not mail them. 

 

Did that for 6 years. She kept every letter I wrote to her. She also used carbon paper when she wrote her letters. (you over 40 year old's out there, do you remember carbon paper?) so she had copies of her letters. When I was going through the worst part of my life - the many mistresses of my 1st hubby getting in my face flaunting his infidelity, etc. - I wrote to her. I also went and stayed with her for two weeks, trying to decide if I could live with her or near her if I should leave him. Those letters were like journals of my life. Her life too. 6 years of my life on the road, and then 20 years of my life with 1st hubby. 

 

I re-read all of those letters. She had kept them in file boxes- each month to a folder, in chronological order. I was going to save up the money to pay for making copies of them all. Never did save up any money. She was going to use our letters and write stories about them. It was fine by me. All I asked was that I receive 10% of the royalties. A few years went by, actually it was nearly 10 years - on the day I got my Final Divorce Decree I called her and said - well, are you going to write some books or not? Yep, she would get started right away. The next day she told me that she went out to the garage to get the boxes of letters and ALL of them had been taken over by mice and rats!! 

[Palerider]

I love going back thru my older journals and reading what I entered and looking at the things I saved in them.

[classylady]

My journal writing is for my children and grandchildren.  I hope my testimony shines through the pages.  I want them strengthened in the gospel.

[Palerider]

My journal writing is for my children and grandchildren.  I hope my testimony shines through the pages.  I want them strengthened in the gospel.

I truly hope my children and grandchildren enjoy reading my Journals.

[Lakumi]

mine would make small children cry lol

[Quin]

I am a terrible journalist.

Journaler?

Journaltrix?

Yeesh.

I'm bad a it!

I've tried numerous times, to always fail miserably.

I thought the internet might actually make it a feasible endeavor (can't lose the internet... Or at least, if the Internet is lost... We have bigger fish to fry), but alas. No.

I created a fake blog for a novel, and THAT I managed to write in consistently. As the character.

But my own life?

Snicker.

A lost cause.

The most interesting bits I'm far too busy to be able to, and the boring bits have already caused me enough pain the first go-round.

Not that I don't periodically keep taking stabs at it.

I've always had a soft spot for lost causes.

Q

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

mine would make small children cry lol

 

LOL, I tell my kids not to snoop in my current journals because it will give them nightmares.  They just laugh and agree with me.