Stories entertain, instruct, and provide historical record. Television removes us from the story telling table where grandparents, aunts and uncles, Moms and Dads intrigue us with fable. Today, meals get gobbled, and everyone runs-off to meaningless activity. In most homes, everyone grabs what they find in the fridge to eat alone and lonely while television drones someone else’s made-up story.

Journal writing refines and defines our worldview. With a journal, we write a page to be added to the chapters we call years that compose the book we call “our” life. Most of us consider our stories jejune or vapid; we choose detachment from our nuance and unique circumstance.

A client wrote to me recently, “I write in my journal everyday, and I’ve done this for 25 years. No one will ever read this stuff except maybe my kids.” My impulsive response suggests there might be a lot of wisdom and story in those 25 chapters of his life. Such journal narratives become the fodder for stories. Stories that regal and rivet our attention while lessons and laughter. Some of them become movies!

When writing a journal, you may get a spiral notebook or enjoy a The Legendary Notebook used by Hemingway, Picasso, and Chatwin
The Moleskin Blank Journal Imported From Italy.

Journal writing involves some instruction. If you have an intense commitment, read Ira Progoff’s At A Journal Workshop.

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” - Cyril Connolly (1903 - 1974)