Journaling 101: What to Write When You Balk at the Blank Page

My travel journal, separate from my everyday journal, just before writing the inaugural entry on 20 October 2012.

A page from the inaugural entry in my travel journal.

A recent volume from my everyday
journal, a "document" in more
than three dozen volumes
stretching back to 1994.

Why would you sit down to journal if you had nothing in mind to write about?  Well, if you owned a fountain pen you would look for excuses to use it: you might indeed sit down to journal with nothing to say just yet.  You might sit down with one thing in mind and then, at the last minute, decide not to write about it.  No need to get up, though.  Here are some ideas for journaling when you want to write but you have misplaced your mojo.

1. Lists.  Write a list of your favorite movies or TV shows or books or all three.  Begin a "Bucket List."  Write a list of your favorite places to visit, places to live, questions you would ask a deceased progenitor or famous person in history, favorite works of music, favorite inventions, favorite designs, etc., etc., etc.  

2.  Freewriting.  Write nonstop for twenty minutes.  Write about anything.  Write about one thing or start with one thing and move from topic to topic.  Just write, don't come up for air, keep your eyes on your paper and keep your pen moving at all times.  If you cannot think of anything to say, write " I cannot think of anything to say" and keep writing it until you do have something to say.  If you get stuck in the middle, repeat the last word you wrote and keep writing it until you can move forward.  The key is to write nonstop: keep your pen moving for twenty minutes. 

3.  A Letter You Will Never Send.  This is your opportunity to unload, to vent from both head and heart, and to be completely candid with someone.  Choose any recipient, maybe a friend who let you down.

4.  Audio Snippet.  Listen to twenty seconds of a TV or radio newscast or podcast or TED Talk and then write about what you heard or what you think you heard.

5.  News Headlines.  Find a newspaper, preferably with salacious headlines, like the San Francisco Chronicle.  ("Male genitals found near railroad tracks.")  If you only have a traditional newspaper, no matter.  In either case, pick a headline but do not read the story.  Instead, make up your own story to fit the headline.

6.  Rewrite a Classic.  Take a familiar children's story and rewrite it in your own words.  Or rewrite the ending.  Or tell it from the viewpoint of a different character.

7.  Transcriptions.  Copy verses from the Holy Bible, paragraphs from a favorite novel, lines from a favorite play, or stanzas from a favorite poem.  Write carefully and work on your penmanship.  For poems, pick one by a classic poet your grandparents' generation studied in school.  Choose a poem with a good cadence (e.g., Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner or Wordsworth's Daffodils).  Read a stanza and really read it.  Then copy it.  Then move to the next stanza.  You'll have something to write, and over time, using classic poetry, the rhythm of your sentences will improve.

8.   Quotations.  Usually shorter and more cherry-picked than transcriptions, you can cull them from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, from a favorite work of literature or inspirational book, from your family's oral history, from websites dedicated to quotations (but beware of phonies!), even bathroom walls and other havens for graffiti.

9.  Travel Journal.  Write in detail about a recent out-of-town trip.  If you are on such a trip right now, start keeping detailed notes about where you go and what you do so you can write about the trip effectively later on.

10. Journal Your Journaling. How would you rate your journaling these days on subject matter, frequency, coherence, legibility?  Are you satisfied?  Are you getting better at it?  Are you unsure of what does and does not belong in a journal?  Are you lost?

11. People Who Influenced You in Childhood.  Use a broad definition of childhood, if necessary.

12. Weather Report.  If you can, go beyond a simple listing of the temperatures and one-word summaries of the conditions (e.g., "55 degrees and rainy").

13. The Five Senses and Mindfulness.  Go outdoors and find a place to sit.  If the weather is an obstacle, stay indoors and sit by a window with a view.  Indoors or out, have something to snack on or something other than plain water to drink nearby.  Now use all five of your senses to take in the scene and your surroundings.  If you are outdoors and a breeze comes along, feel it, smell it, hear it—concentrate your attention and actually listen to it, see its effects.  If you are indoors, your surroundings include the room you are in, the fact of your looking out a window, and everything you can see through that window.  If there is nothing else to smell or taste, bring your snack or drink into play.  Stay there for twenty minutes and be in the moment for all twenty.  Then go back inside (or close the curtains), do not look out on the scene, and write about your experience referring to all five senses.

14. Current Events.

15. Research Topics.

16. Prompts:

• If I were president, I would …
• I remember when I was ___ years old, I …
• Whatever happened to …
• When ______ and I go to ______, I want to …
• It pisses me off when …
• I wish I could …
• The opening line of a book, play, or poem

These are just a few ideas.  Make a list of your own ideas, your own prompts, and see where that takes you.