Do Writers Need Journals?

Margie and I are both huge believers in journals & journaling. I've always written in big "feel them in your hands" journals. In high school, I filled more than 50 spiral notebooks and sketchbooks with poetry. Take a look.

Here's a trip back in the time machine of my journals:

Soon I will be standing before you

As I was only days ago

Will you sense that everything has changed?

That my hands are already packing

And my heart finally beginning to let you go?

Soon I will be standing alone

Before myself

On the ground of a dream

We had not too long ago

– April 8, 1998

And you can see a photo of me at 16 HERE. (This qualifies as the only kind of photo I allowed to be taken of me around this time.)

But when we do presentations, Margie always holds up her tiny moleskin journal – the one she keeps in her purse – and says, "Every writer needs one of these. A place to write down your ideas before you forget them exactly 3 minutes later."

I always feel pathetic when she waves her little black journal. I don't have one in my purse. I end up writing all my epiphanies at stoplights, on the backs of receipts or in my checkbook.

So a few days ago, guess what Margie, the-best-writing-partner-ever, gave me…

My own little red notebook! Now I feel like a real writer.

I'll still write in my "big" journals because there are a lot of ideas that are just too big for a tiny notebook. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I have gigantic serial killer handwriting so I need lots of room. My journals consist of everything from:

poems — mine & other people's
songs & song lyrics I love
phrases I can't get out of my head
lists of names & places
photos or pictures torn out of magazines — everything from houses and landscapes to paintings and clothes — I like to imagine everything about my characters from the music they love to the clothes they wear
drawings & doodles
scenes

Here are a few of my favorite journals, of the larger variety…