Writers and Their Notebooks

They’re photographs of my mind and they help me make a kind of sense of my development as a person as well as of my development as a writer.

As the poet and essayist Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal in 1851, “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

Keeping a journal, if you’re capable of being honest with yourself, can facilitate a deeper understanding of the role you’ve played in some of life’s conflicts.

“Writing a journal means that facing your ocean, you are afraid to swim across it,” wrote George Sand, “so you attempt to drink it drop by drop.”

The idea is to record your first impressions of a place as quickly as possible, avoiding the filter of self-consciousness.

A gratitude journal, which is a place to record what you are thankful for in life. This type of journal nurtures a positive outlook and is a good thing to have when you’re feeling down.

A writing journal is only a process by which one looks at life and a way with words and symbols, with the possibilities of image and story, or the unfolding of a sequence of rhythms and discoveries of feeling.

the importance of journal keeping as a powerful tool for creative expression and self-healing, and a way to help solidify thoughts in both one’s personal and literary life.

First, as Saroyan mentions, a journal helps jog our memories of past events, the places and people we have known. Second, a journal encourages regular appointments with the desk and provides an orderly place to store the chaotic pieces of our lives. Third, journal keeping prompts us to notice the extraordinary detail in even the most ordinary day.