*Digging through purse* “Mint gum, letter from a friend, receipt, wallet, chapstick, picture little brother drew for me... Aha! There it is! My writing journal! It’s a good thing I found it. That idea was disappearing fast.
Hi! I’m Eliza. I am fifteen years old. I am a Christian. And... I enjoy writing. I'm not published yet, but that’s one of my goals for this year. In this article I will be talking about inspiration.
One of my main writing tools is a journal. I make sure I have one with me almost everywhere I go. I use it to catch ideas for stories, characters and settings, and sometimes even random sentences or words before they disappear.
I admit that not everything I put into this journal is worthy of a story or book. But it does help to have a few ideas for those times when I’m stuck and not sure what to write.
Do you ever get one of those sudden urges to write a mystery book when you’re riding in the car on a foggy day? Do you ever see that it’s raining outside and decide that your book needs a chapter where your characters dance and sing in the rain? Are you ever with a friend and just enjoy being with them so much that you realize that is what your main character has been missing all along... a close friend? Do you ever see three police cars at a gas station and automatically come up with an idea of what might have happened?
Take advantage of all of those wonderful ideas and maybe some of those not so wonderful ones too. Write them down in your journal. You’ll find it is extremely helpful. Sometimes it’s funny to go back and read your ideas a few days later. I’ve noticed that the ones I wrote down around midnight hardly even make sense sometimes. When I’m kind of bored or not sure what to do, I’ll pull out my journal and write down the first sentence that comes to mind. Sometimes the sentence is humorous, other times it's very dramatic or full of emotion.
One evening, my neighbor and my dad were sitting in lawn chairs in the front yard. I’m not sure what started it, but they began coming up with all sorts of phrases with the same meaning. They were sayings such as, “one wrench short of a tool box”, “one taco short of a combo”, and “lost a few marbles”. You get what I mean. Basically, they were coming up with creative ways to say that someone is slightly insane. I immediately ran inside to get my journal and write them all down. So far, I haven’t found a good time to use them in a story, but I’m sure I will.
Overall, I would say that my writing journal is one of my most important writing tools.
I hope I have inspired you, at least a little bit, to write down more of your ideas. I’ll leave you with this quote by Maya Angelou:
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Very inspiring! Funny, in the last few days I've been really thinking I should start a notebook, and things like this just keep coming up and confirming it. :P My trouble is remembering to keep the notebook with me lol.
ReplyDeleteThanks Flame! Sometimes instead of a little purse I carry a big heavy book bag full of notebooks with me when I go places :D I got a smaller notebook for Christmas so now I carry a normal sized purse :)
DeleteThis is really cool! Lol, I actually started keeping a small notebook with me during NaNo but so far I've mostly used it to rant about my book and try and hammer out some plot points. This post is making me want to do a little more with it :).
ReplyDeleteThat being said, there are two little journal tips that I've discovered that I would like to share if you don't mind :D.
1) Put quotes about writing in the front of your journal. I have like a bazillion in the first two pages of mine, and they're really inspiring. Like this one from Hannah Richell: "Read a lot. Write a lot. Delete a lot." or this one from Robert Cormier "The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon."
(Credit for finding all my quotes go to Pinterest - the world's most fun search engine :D)
2) Evernote. I actually learned about this last year. It's a free app for your phone (or computer - I hear it syncs) that lets you create Notebooks and make entries into them. This is what I've been using for the more "inspirational" ideas that I have. I have a Notebook for quotes, another for locations, another for plots, etc. etc. I really like it because it keeps your stuff organized and, like Flame said, you don't have to worry about carrying it around with you :D.
Lol Ashton! I like the brain surgeon quote :D I personally like writing stuff down in a notebook better than typing on apps and such but thank you, I may try that out :)
DeleteGreat tips Ashton! YES Pinterest is awesome for that. I have a whole board for writing.
DeleteWhat I like about a physical notebook is that you can also sketch in it, so you can have this whole book of sketches and story idea snippets and quotes and awesomeness!! I recently read The Story of Awkward by R.K. Ryals (I think that's the author's name) and the main character had a sketchbook kinda like that and it was SO cool and awesome and inspiring. :D
I love my writer's notebook--it's great for collecting snippets and ideas, as well as writing exercises, without feeling pressured to make them "good" yet. i also jot down ideas on index cards (I keep a pile on my desk and more in my purse) and store them in a shoe box. This was a very inspiring post--thanks a lot!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for reading it, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
DeleteHey! Visiting from the GTW's link-up.
ReplyDeleteYes, I totally agree that writing down ideas when you get them is very important. Only, making sure it's somewhere stable, like a notebook and not a piece of paper you're going to forget about and throw away, is also important... :)
Aidyl, thanks for visiting! This blog is for writers so feel free to look at other posts too :)
ReplyDeleteI don't usually carry a notebook/journal with me everywhere I go... I guess that's what the "Notes" section of my iPhone is for lol. But occasionally I will carry a notebook for when I get a random spark of genius for song lyrics.
ReplyDelete