Journaling for writers

I was recently invited to be interviewed on Jennifer Troester's podcast on journaling. I love Jenny, her podcast, and journaling, so I leapt at the chance to chat with her about it.

I began keeping diaries as a kid. These days, my scribblings take a few different forms and serve different purposes, but all are important.

1. THE SCRIB: Where I scribble each morning by hand (this soothes me and is part of my morning ritual)
2. An INTERSTITIAL JOURNAL: To track my daily worky-work doings (this is like a TO DO list on steroids)
3. And my PROCESS JOURNAL: where I track what’s going on in my current writing project and how I am feeling about it (this is … necessary)

Let's focus on the process journal. This journal is focused on the act of writing and how I feel it’s going. I began to do this when I was working with writing coach Jennifer Louden.

The important thing for me about this one is that it is a PROCESS journal, not a PROGRESS journal.

A progress journal can feel like (and has been called) a treadmill journal where you track your words, writing time, pages written, and so on. I know this can help some folks, but it doesn’t work for me.

I keep my process journaling pretty simple with this fill in the blank template, and invite you to use it too:

Notes of the day:

Coming IN to this writing session I feel:

Ongoing notes: anything I want to hang onto

And when I’m done, I do note the following:

Did:
Felt:
Learned:
Going OUT of this writing session I feel:
Length of work session:
Next Steps/when: Make a plan to come back to it
Celebration:

The hardest thing to fill in is CELEBRATION. I always forget to celebrate the work I have done. Though I do love to track progress, I keep the focus on my process, remembering that it’s the “doing” that is where the joy is, not the “having done.”

Listen to the full interview on Spotify or Apple, or read the recap on my personal blog.

And join me for the Writer in Residence Showcase on May 17.

Go easy - Pam Bustin, Writer in Residence