For writers, a journal is your Swiss-army knife. It can be used for just about everything, While journaling is traditionally used for jotting down what’s going on in your life – tracking your actions, activities, and emotions, one of my favorite ways to use a journal is for clarity and decision-making.
Whether you’re pondering your next writing project or dealing with a personal matter, you may find yourself mulling it over constantly … and sometimes to no avail. However, when you take pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard – you are much more likely to come up with an effective solution.
To gain clarity for about just about anything, try my directed journaling technique. Directed journaling is stream-of-consciousness writing spurts, focused on a specific theme, issue, or problem.
Here’s how Directed Journaling works:
- In your electronic calendar, schedule between three and five 15-minute sessions over a few days. Be sure to set a reminder.
- When you get the alert for your appointment, set a timer for 15 minutes, and start writing. Note: While there are numerous benefits to writing by hand, if you are more likely to complete the process by typing on a computer, go for it!
- During each journaling session, ask yourself pointed questions.
- What’s the genre? The format? Novel, screenplay, story...
- Who is the main character?
- What's the motivation?
- What's the theme? How do the characters reflect the theme?
- How does the story begin? End?
- What's the issue?
- How can I resolve it?
- What are all the possible solutions?
- What are the pros? The cons?
- What are my other options?
Here’s the Trick
- Do not read any of these journal entries until you have done the process several times.
- Once you have exhausted your thoughts on the subject, then you may read the journal entries.
- As you go through them, note the ideas you repeat – those are what you are most drawn to. You may also come up with solutions that seem to come from left-field. That’s what happens when you allow yourself to babble on paper.