Journaling As A Writing Tool

If you want to get good at basketball, you need to practice various aspects of the game. If you want to become proficient at anything, you need to practice the skill. It is no different for writing. You need to practice. One way to do that is to write daily. Writing in a journal can flex your writing muscles. But it can do more. You can use your journal to do exercises, jot down notes and ideas as well as writing the first draft of the piece. There are many possibilities here. They can be exciting. Use your journal to work on the areas where your writing is weakest.

If you analyze your witting style and find you repeat yourself a lot, as I do, you can work on that. Set yourself an assignment for the day’s journal entry. Try to describe a room in, say five to a thousand words, without using the same descriptive word twice. That’s a good exercise and one that will serve you well. If you do that often enough, then you will ultimately improve your writing overall. Practice describing things in your daily writing. Develop the skill of not using the same word twice too close together. Work to you weaknesses in your journal.

Keeping a journal is good for your writing skills because, if you are like me, you keep notes and write short pieces in your journal. From there, you can copy and paste any of those items to other locations should you decide to do so. Use your journal as a place to note down ideas and thoughts. I do that but I also copy those notes to another file where I can find it. My journal is electronic, which makes it easy to do such copying and pasting. You may find it helpful, but not everyone does. That’s OK, your journal is your own.

I write my blogs in my journal first and transfer them to the blog site. This practice makes it easier for me to do the rough draft. It has a two-fold purpose, I get words in my journal which I have made a goal and it also gives me a draft for the blog. It saves me time in the long run. I wrote the first draft of this blog in the pages of my journal. I find it easier to do that than to have my notes placed here and there. Yet, I don’t keep them there. I move them to another electronic file which makes them easier to find later.

It is possible to use your journal to do more than just record your life. Use it to explore your mind. Exercise your imagination in the pages of your journal. You will find the limits of your writing in its pages. Use it to push those limits. Describe your world. You have opportunities in your journal. Use them well and you will thank yourself later. Go ahead and get excited about keeping a journal. Try to stretch your writing and get better at it every day. Journal exercises, notes, and ideas every day and your writing will get better. Good luck.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!