journaling (almost) every day

I'm not really an artist, so participating in Inktober wasn't something I was particularly pressed to do. My coworker asked me if I was going to do something along Inktober's lines with fountain pens. And I guess I kind of did.

Here's the thing, which I'm sure you already know if you've ever made an attempt at journaling every day: it's hard. It's harder than it has any right to be. I'm sure it comes naturally to some people (your brains! I love them!), but that's not how it works over here. It shouldn't be so difficult to find a fifteen or thirty minute pocket and drum up something that happened that day, good or bad or neutral, and put pen to paper. And yet...

There are many things that prevent us from doing what we want in this wild 21st century. The places you need to run errands at close before you get off work. It's almost impossible to make healthy meals at home and exercise and have a vibrant social life and not want to collapse into a puddle. Between it all, fifteen minutes spent writing about how your salad for lunch had a nice amount of vinaigrette when you'd really rather be scrolling through Twitter could bring a lesser being to tears.

It's not easy. I don't know if it'll get easier, ever. But there's a reason why this post is about journaling (almost) every day. Because, with honesty: journaling every day did not, and will probably never, work for me. First, I don't like it. Second, petulantly, I don't need to do it. But I definitely wanted to write more, somehow and some way, to fill up the journal a little faster than my current pace. So I set one small goal for myself at the beginning of October, and it was pretty simple: write more each week. No page minimums, no weekly schedule, no waking early or sleeping later. Four words planted between finishing a video game and buying birthday presents. Write more each week.

October's over now, and I definitely did that. I wrote a lot more each week. My journaling has been spotty at best over the past couple months, thanks to a combination of stress and laziness and simply not having anything to talk about. I unraveled a couple thoughts about journaling (almost) every day. I hope it helps if you're trying to do the same thing.

1. Find what sticks.

If you try it for a week and it doesn't stick, it's totally fine to think about whether or not journaling (almost) every day is what you want to be doing. You don't have to lie down on the floor and spend half an hour brooding, but if it helps then I won't say I haven't done it before. The core consideration is the same no matter how you ponder it: are you pushing yourself to do something that is ultimately helpful, or are you forcing yourself to do something that doesn't move the dial? One of these is freeing. The other is a pit.

Maybe writing a couple of pages once a week is good for you. Maybe you would prefer a line a day. Whatever it is, stay with it. Build on it or pare it back or mold it to your specifications. Try everything if you can.

2. A formula if you need it.
Back in high school a writing teacher told us that if we didn't know how to get started on an essay, to start it in the simplest way our teen brains knew how: by complaining. "Today I'm here to write about Great Expectations, and I didn't like the book. I'm supposed to follow this prompt which is..." His theory was that eventually you were going to get to the point. It worked sometimes. But my point here is that maybe you just start writing about the same thing every day you write. The songs on the radio. A funny conversation you had with a coworker. An article you read on your lunch break. It's worth it just to get the wheels turning. Maybe you spend four days writing the exact same thing with the smallest puzzle pieces exchanged. Whatever! Life is like that sometimes.

3. Your journal is for you.
But you don't need me to tell you this. Sharing your journal is a wondrous thing, but writing with the purpose of sharing it on social media is probably not the way to approach it. Write for yourself, and if you want to share it after the fact—do that!

4. Something to journal about.

Journaling doesn't always mean going over your day, you know? Sometimes it's copying quotes from a book you've read (above, Anne Carson's The Autobiography of Red, which knocked me right over). Occasionally it's jotting notes on the coffee you roasted that morning. Other times it's a deep dive into your current state of mind and body and being, a real intellectual gaze into the void as it gazes right back, until you've wrestled the beast back into its cage. And once in a while it's about the app you and your coworkers are obsessed with. All of them are equally valid. Let them get to know each other.

If you journal (almost) every day, what are your tips? What do you write about? And if you journal every day, can I borrow your brain? Just for a little while.