The following excerpt is from Willowgreen Publishing’s book The Rewarding Practice of Journal Writing: A Guide for Starting and Keeping Your Personal Journal by James E. Miller.

Know that a journal is not a diary.

     A diary is a day-to-day record of how you spend your time. It focuses on the outward events of your life—where you went and when, what you did and with whom, what you saw and heard and said. While a diary may include your reflections about anything that’s happened, that is not its main purpose.
     A journal is different. It focuses on the writer’s interior life—how you feel about something at the moment, or what you think about some matter that has grabbed your attention. It may involve your memories about something that once happened, or your thoughts about what you hope will happen. A journal is always personal in nature. It’s written for no one but you. It’s an expression of who you have been, who you are, and who you are becoming.
     The French writer Anaïs Nin, who kept journals from the time she was a girl, described her journaling this way: “I chose the event of the day that I felt most strongly about, the most vivid one, the warmest one, the nearest one, the strongest one.” When you journal, you don’t attempt to cover every aspect of your life—you cover what you want to, what you’re led to, what means most to you as you sit down and begin.
     Your journal may bear some similarities to a diary. You may choose to write in it every day. (Then again, you may not.) You may refer to what’s going on with the day at hand. (Or you may not.) One practice used in diary keeping I’d encourage is to date every entry you make. Doing so will locate your reflections in time and help you monitor those changes that occur with the passage of time. I write the day of the week, the date, and the hour at the top of each entry. If I’m away from home, I note where I happen to be.
     People start diaries for many different reasons. Perhaps a crisis is leading you to write about what’s happening around you and within you as a way of getting a firmer hold on yourself and on life. You may be drawn to writing about your deepest longings and innermost thoughts as a way of clarifying yourself or freeing yourself. You may like the discipline of writing creatively about whatever attracts you—a marvel of nature you’ve come upon, a person you just met, a moment of serendipity you’ve experienced, an unexpected happening you struggle to understand.
     You will have your own reasons to begin writing if you’re new to this process, or to continue your writing if it’s already a part of your life. If you haven’t yet discovered this, you will: journaling is very much like taking a journey. You start in one place, you go awhile, and then you end up somewhere else. You can’t always predict what will happen along the way—it’s an adventure. But whatever happens, you’ll be the wiser and the better for writing about it. And if you’re fortunate, you’ll be the happier for it too.
     So do this: keep not so much a diary as a journal. Let it take shape in the way it wants. Let it grow in the way it will. Whatever else you do, make it no one else’s but yours.

     This writing is excerpted from Jim Miller’s book The Rewarding Practice of Journal Writing: A Guide for Starting and Keeping Your Personal Journal. In it Jim offers dozens and dozens of ideas for using one’s journal as a vehicle for self-expression and self-knowledge. This book is suitable both for beginning and advanced writers. Like all Willowgreen books, discounts are available when ordering in quantity.

Back To Top