Jotting, Not Journaling

I buy a lot of blank journals. And I should be filling them up by writing in them every day. You know, Journaling. It's what writers are supposed to do. Everyone says so.

Janet Burroway, in her excellent text WRITING FICTION: "... a writer's journal is an essential, likely to be the source of originality, ideas, experimentation, and growth."

Aine Greaney in another useful book, WRITER WITH A DAY JOB, says "I strongly advocate for daily journaling as a way to build your daily writing practice and your writing voice."

The first chapter of Susan Tiberghien's ONE YEAR TO A WRITING LIFE? "Journal Writing." The opening sentence of that chapter? "The first step toward a writing life--and its foundation--is journal writing."

(I also happen to buy a lot of books about writing. Why does this not surprise anyone?)

But I don't "journal." Certainly not daily, and not anything resembling how the above advice-givers, and plenty of others, would have me journal.

This is not to say that I haven't tried it their way. Believe me, I've tried. And I've failed. So I do something else. Yes, I carry a notebook with me, and I scribble in it now and then. But I don't journal. What I do instead is Jot.

Jots aren't anything close to complete thoughts, or even complete sentences. Jots are potential story sparks, evanescent images I need to capture before they vanish, funny names, dream scenes, word combinations. Fictitious band names, lots of band names. And every so often, particularly when I'm fumbling around for a new story start, I page through last week's, or last month's, or last year's, jottings, looking for something that might ignite a blank page.

The top row in the picture is a sampling of my untouched notebook and journal collection. The bottom row, mostly smaller Moleskine notebooks or quad ruled Steno books, is filled with Jots.

I also have a Word document (laughingly named "Working Journal.doc") in the computer full of Jots, and an Easy Note file for my iPhone, too.

Here's half a dozen examples of what can be found inside those notebooks and docs, chosen more-or-less at random and taken verbatim:

1. Woman on subway - "I have taught myself how to sing every Michael Bolton song in sign language."

2. Liquor cabinet contents for list story.

3. I was nineteen and Jewish then.

4. Convention crasher.

5. Does Amber smile?

6. Two squirrels working their way through razor/barbed wire/chain link fence as if any other thorny vines.

And although I still feel bad at not being able to 'build my daily writing practice and my writing life' like every else does, this is what works for me. I wrote this blog entry instead of working on fiction because I wanted to start on something new, but didn't have a beginning. But now, looking at my Jots, I'm wondering about Amber, and why she never smiles. Maybe the nineteen year old Jewish boy can find that out.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen