Benefits of a writing journal

A writing journal is a great way to create and explore tons of new ideas and articles.  It’s a beneficial tool for the fiction writer, poet, novelist and even a freelance writer, especially if you are currently pitching ideas to lots of different magazines.

I have a couple of different journals.  One is set up to help me keep track of the places I submit my short stories and poems too.  The other is just for writing my ideas in, story starts and little exercises I try out from time to time.  I’m also in the process of organizing an excel file just to keep track of all of my poems and their subsequent drafts. 

As you can see there are a number of uses for the writing journal.  You can:

• work on writing exercises
• write out your stories and poems by hand
• jot down quicky ideas for everything from articles to novels
• track your submissions
• organize your work

Writing journals don’t have to be physical books either.  You can set up a document on your computer if you feel more comfortable using it to work.  I like both for different reasons.  I like to put my thoughts in a simple spiral bound journal because it’s something simple and quick that I can open and it’s highly portable.  I also keep a hardcover spiral bound book to record my submissions because I can quickly flip open the book to see how many times I’ve submitted to whom and what pieces are currently out in the mail. 

If you haven’t used a writing journal before I suggest starting off with the simple spiral bound book for all of your needs.  Should you start sending out story submissions you can log them neatly on the back page of the journal and reserve the front of the notebook for your ideas and exercises.  Once you fill that notebook you’ll have a better idea of what you’ll use your journals for and whether you want to keep more than one for certain purposes.