Whenever an artist friend shares her journal with me, I am
awed at the slips and slices of creativity captured inside. As a writer, I routinely force
my fictional characters to keep journals so I can spy on them and share their secrets with my readers.
But do I personally keep a bound journal? Nope.
Yet this was one of Lin Oliver’s pieces of advice for
writers in her keynote speech at the SCBWI Spring conference this April.
For many writers, blogging has become a way to journal our
lives as creative people; to engage with the world; to enjoy the process and
share that joy with others. The word blog is a shortened version of the
original phrase: web log. A blog is a log—or journal—you keep on the web. And
share with the world.
In the movie Contagion, Jude Law asserts that he is a
writer. Elliott Gould’s character responds, “Blogging is just graffiti with
punctuation.”
Ouch. Unfortunately it’s sometimes true. Even for moi.
Then again, not everything you write in a bound journal will
be the stuff of great literature either. It’s not meant to be. We journal
partly for our own purposes of finding ourselves and partly to explore ways to
share our findings with the world.
Do you keep a journal? Do you blog? How do you journal your
creative life and share your joy with others?
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for this life and
for the creativity you gifted us with. Help us find ways to explore the gifts
you’ve honored us with. Show us ways to share your love and glory with others
today. Amen.
WHAT ABOUT YOU? Do you keep a journal?
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This article recently ran in an issue of our Northern California regional newsletter for the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI).
