Rational Insanity
The journal
I had always heard our friend John Iremil Teodoro tell us that the best tool for writers who would like to develop their craft is the journal. We ignored this suggestion at first but soon enough, Marz and I, we found ourselves scribbling stuff onto all kinds of paper, like table napkins, receipts and stuff. This would be perfectly all right if we were just as good in keeping these pieces of paper in one place, however, we tend to lose them, and with them lots of good material and draft poetry for later development. Marz suggested that we get ourselves journals. I took this suggestion with my tongue in my cheek at first, knowing that If I cannot take medication religiously, how much more write? Anyway, Marz went on to buy us journals anyway, and now I can't wait to open it everyday and just scribble and doodle thoughts that later turn out to be really great story or poetry ideas. I now believe in the journal.
I realized that having a journal is actually a means of making sure that your ideas don't leave you. Most of the time, writers have random thoughts; and most of the time, we are confident that we would remember these random thoughts when the time comes for us to write. Unfortunately, such is not the case. When we do sit down to write, we inevitably forget the random thoughts that we thought would still be there – past thoughts have been overtaken by more recent, fresher thoughts. The journal serves to chronicle and record these random thoughts. When we think of something, it is best to have somewhere to write these thoughts in; we never know what these thoughts would become as we sit down to open ourselves up to the creative process.
Now, I can't get my hands off my journal. There are times when I would be reading a book and I would find something interesting, and the journal always comes in handy for me to write down those little snips of sunshine that you get from a good read. What's nice about the journal also is that you are able to monitor and see your own thought process on paper. You understand how your mind works better, and you are actually able to harness these mental energies more efficiently than when you don't have a journal. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a great story idea. I always bank on the fact that when I wake up the next morning, I would remember the idea – not. I then end up banging my head on the bathroom sink regretting that I did not have a pen and paper handy when the thoughts came in.
Another good thing about the journal is that we are able to spend time everyday to write. Writing is a continuous process – Marz always likened writing to giving birth; you have the initial pang, then you nurture the pang until it grows into a mature idea, then you labor to give birth to your piece of poetry or fiction. Spending a regular hour or two everyday writing in the journal makes the gestation process faster and a bit more painless – yes, painless, because whether you believe it or not, a writer's life is not just a lonely life, but a painful life as well. I always told other young writers that pain is the fuel of many writers; we cannot really right beautiful things if not prodded by painful or self-changing experiences in life. We don't really write about our own experiences, but the emotions coming from our personal experiences serve to initiate the creative cogs and wheels inside our brains.
The writer's life is a challenge in itself. We tend to grab on to anything and everything that we think would help improve our craft. Keeping a journal is a ray of sunshine in a cloudy day. Being able to write is a joy to us writers; a joy even beyond being able to write something good (of course this would be a fringe benefit for most of us writers because not everything that comes out of our pens is worth the effort). All said, having a journal is a very welcome change in my boring daily routine, now I can give enough time to my craft; more than I used to spend on table napkins and the backs of dingy old receipts.
So, to end this week's rambling, let me start the contagion! Go out and get your own journal, young writer! Thanks to Marz for my really cute and jazzy journal – it came in my favorite color, purple! That's the only color I can accurately see, by the way, I am color blind!
Be rational; be insane… every once in a while! TTFN!
I love you all! Byers!