Passing on the Love of Journal Writing

by Terrie Leigh Relf

When I first began journal writing, I was about eight years old.  At that time, I mainly recorded my dreams at the urging and supervision of my grandmother, who was an avid journal writer.  As I went through puberty, my entries mainly consisted of that proverbial teenage angst, stuff about boys, tiffs with friends at school, problems with family, spiritual and philosophical explorations, and my first attempts at writing poetry and short stories.

When I was about 18, I threw all those journals away.  Why?  At the time, I remember hoping that it would purge me of my past. I wanted a ceremony, a rite of passage, to transform my “girlish self” into womanhood. 

To this day, I still regret dumping kitchen garbage on top of my twenty-to-thirty-plus journals so that I wouldn’t be able to salvage them.

Hey—I was only 18, what did I know?  It’s true what all those adults say: hindsight is one of the best teachers we’ll ever have…

Now, I’m one of those oft annoying adults who lectures anyone who’ll listen to me on the merits of writing—and more specifically, journal writing. My students are subjected to my rhetoric on a regular basis, and even though my daughter has a stack of journals, I still need to urge her to write in them.

How did my daughter start journal writing?

I won’t take credit…It was her godmother who gifted her with a journal (and a love of office supplies) before she could even write her name. 

She started with scribbles and stickers, “graduated” to copying her name and other words she learned, over and over and over again. As the words became phrases, she still added in stickers and drawings to illustrate what she could and could not write.  I also attribute this behavior to her godmother, who would send her letters interspersed with stickers and clip art to represent some of the “bigger” or more fun words.  I think I enjoyed these as much as she did.

Now, at nine, she is quite well-organized—even secretive—about her various journals.  She knows I’ll never read them unless she offers as I remind her that they’re private (with the exception of her school journal, which she carefully censors).  She has a well-developed, media-enhanced secret agent/spy kid mindset, as evidenced by a difficult-to-decipher system—just in case her words fall into the wrong hands.  She tells me very matter-of-factly, though, that she has a special secret decoder ring engraved in her brain!

Here are just a few of the journals my daughter maintains: 

• School Journal (e.g., based on free-writes, reading, etc.)

• Spy Journal (‘nuff said)

• Slumber Party Journal (complete with prompts, games, party ideas, menu items)

• Family Lineage Journal (with photos, drawings, and family anecdotes)

• Fashion Design Journal (complete with mother-daughter designs)

In May, I moved again, and no doubt you’re not the least bit surprised that I found a few partially filled journals wedged between some books I hadn’t read for awhile. It’s now four months later, and these journals have seen quite a bit of action! 

I’ve mainly filled them with ideas for books, poetry, observations, and my daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and “do-before-I-go-to-that-great-writing-workshop-in-the-sky” goals. In an attempt to be able to tell which journals are being currently used and which are not, I’ve started a new technique where I fold each finished page into a triangle. (I’ll keep you posted as to whether this new system works.)  Just labeling them has never worked for me.  I seem to work better when I have an “everything” journal to carry around with me. 

I guess I thrive on ordered chaos…

Want a peek into my journal?

Hehe…Maybe I’ll just follow my daughter’s example and keep the contents of mine to myself…

Until Next time!

Terrie Leigh Relf, M.A. is a writer, editor, and writing coach living in South Park, an eclectic community burgeoning with writers in San Diego, CA.  You may contact her at tlrelf@cox.net, or by phone at 619.234.0763.  She’s really not all that secretive…