Happy New Year! Turning the calendar from December to January is always a good time to think about the last year and consider what might be on the way in the coming year. Of course, we can’t know the future. Most years carry some good and some not so good. But when we’re at the beginning of the year, it’s a good time to think about blessings.
For many years I kept a journal. I filled up my first notebook of thoughts about what was happening and what I was imagining or seeing when I was a young teen. Later, after I married and got serious about actually about writing something that might get read by someone besides me, my journal writing became a way to stay focused on my writing goals. At first it was only a quick notation of whether I wrote any words or pages that day or week.
Then it expanded into more words as I shared about my writing life through the years. That was mostly what I wrote about in those journals. I set goals and personal deadlines that I often didn’t meet since I had a young family that didn’t allow me much writing time. But the journals kept me on track to at least work toward those goals and meet some of my self imposed deadlines. I shared the high up mountain top moments when I sold my first story to a magazine and then later that first novel. The journal was a good place to come to terms with many writing disappointments and rejections too. I could moan and cry on those journal pages and then tell myself to stop the pity party and get back to work. And I would do just that. I’d come up with a new idea and head back to my typewriter in the early days or keyboard in the later years.
Each New Year, I would try to make sure to write a yearly sum up of my writing goals, successes or failures, along with remembering to be thankful for the many blessings in my life that had little to do with writing. My family. My children. My good life on the farm.
For fun, I opened one of my oldest journals to see what I might have written to welcome a new year. It was New Year’s 1977. I was so very young and so very eager to publish a book. At the time, I had not yet published a book. I had obtained an agent who had suggested I try a historical romance. So that was what I was working on. Here is some of that journal entry from long ago.
“My book is not finished – not even half finished – and my dreams of success (whatever that elusive word means) are no closer to reality. Success – book published. It seems that shouldn’t be such an impossible dream. ’77 is a new year, a new chance to be positive with new opportunities for success. And I’ll keep trying. It’s not going to be easy for me. Not like those others who just up and write books and sell them quick as a wink. But I’m stubborn enough to keep trying, to keep pounding out words. Surely someday they’ll be all the right ones. For now, I’ll just have to count my blessings. Of course, my family, a blessing without compare and my place to live and enjoy nature. But I have my literary blessings too. An ear for dialogue, pace and an inner bell that zings when I hear a clunker while editing my words. My five senses to feel things and know how they are, an increase in self-discipline to make myself work when when all my words sound horrible. Two typewriters and ten fingers. So come on 1977. I’m ready for you.”
I told you I was young. I sound very young. And hopeful. That book I talk about did eventually get finished and was my very first published book in 1978. It’s long been out of print and I had plenty of writing disappointment and rejections after that. But I’ve also had plenty of successes and new stories out there for readers. I am blessed.
My last two novels, These Healing Hills and River to Redemption, have been well received by readers and was given some kind reviews. But every story I’ve had published has been a writing joy for me and I appreciate all of you who may have picked up one of my books and read my stories.
The journals were my way of keeping track of writing progress or lack of progress. Now sharing here on One Writer’s Journal online seems to have taken the place of my ink and pen journal. While my posts aren’t quite like those I once wrote in my writing journals, I do enjoy sharing with you and having you share back with me. Besides, you wouldn’t want to suffer through those pity parties when I might be moaning about none of the right words coming to mind. 🙂
So have you ever kept a diary or a journal? If so, did you hide those journals away or let others read them?
I have always liked finding journals written during a time I’m researching. It’s a good way to jump into the atmosphere I want to create for my historical stories.
As always, thank you for reading and Happy New Year! May you have abundant blessings to list in the journals of your heart.
Comments 8
I keep a journal of events or just things I want to remember. I write down births, deaths, what we done to celebrate our birthdays, maybe when some of my family started a new job, or retired. I like to record first blooms on trees and flowers, or the first ripe tomato, so I can look back the next year and see if the bloom or ripening time was running about the same. I will write down when we bought a new appliance, or when we put in that new septic tank, dug a new well, or traded the car or truck for a newer model. Then as time passes on so quickly, when we are trying to remember when we did this or that, I can look back in my journal and come up with the answer.
Author
That’s really smart, Connie. We are always trying to remember how long it’s been since we did this or that, bought this or that, and it almost always turns out to be longer than we thought. If I was like you and wrote it down, I’d know, wouldn’t I? I have tried at times to keep a weather journal but I always get distracted and forget to keep it up. I haven’t read my mom’s journals, but I think that’s the kind of thing she wrote down. Just what the weather was like or what she and dad were doing. I need to hunt those journals up and look through some of them. But I don’t know if I have them or my sister has them.
I used to journal all the time, but it’s a sporadic activity now. I’ll write a few days, then lapse for a month or more before picking it up again. I find myself using it as a goal planning guide sometimes…it’s a way to keep up with sketches of what I hope to add to my inventory, and to write down ideas.
I’ve got several prayer journals tucked away on shelves. Every now and then, I’ll flip through the pages, and I’m always amazed at the way those prayers were answered.
But I have a true treasure of scrapbook journals that my grandmother left me. She created a scrapbook for every decade of her life, beginning with her parent’s marriage. There’s photos, writings and a wealth of information for future generations. 🙂
Author
I think that’s the best way to keep a journal, Lavon. To just write in it sporadically when you feel like it. Your prayer journal sounds like a blessing. It is good to remember how we prayed and why and then to know that our prayers were answered. Perhaps not the way we expected, but the way the Lord knew was best.
Your grandmother’s scrapbooks do sound like a treasure. Over the years, I’ve clipped pictures of my kids when they were in school activities and those of my grandkids too, but I never had the discipline to make a scrapbook. But your grandmother did it right by sharing her life with future generations.
When I was a teen I tried to write a diary , but I didn’t stick to it. I thought a diary had to be ecxciting so I never had anything to write. Chopping out tobacco and going to school isn’t all that exciting.
After my cancer diagnosis one of my closest friends, Linda, encouraged me to write a journal.I have done that.I wrote a lot the first year and only ocassionally now.She said I would want to someday go back and read it, I did it for her because I didn’t think I would be here now.I was wrong and she was right. God is so good to us, isn’t he?
Author
God is good. And I’m glad you are able to go back and read what you wrote in that journal. But even if I never go back and read what I wrote once upon a time, the act of writing it down seems to make me feel better about whatever is happening. Thanks for sharing, Lisa.
I just finished a 5 year journal. Each year was interesting to see what had happened the year before. Now my new 5 year journal has no history! I’ve been doing journals since elementary school.
Author
But you will be filling that new 5-year journaling book, Carol, with new things, old things and fun things. My mother kept journals for years. Mostly she put the weather and what she might be doing that day. I kept those journals but haven’t read them yet. Maybe someday.