I am a documentarian. Yup. I know that about myself. I'm one of those compulsive types that just has to keep records of well, not everything, but of a lot of things. I don't know why I do this, I do it like it's something that needs to be done, as if it's important somehow, but maybe only for me.
I keep a daily journal. Some may say it's a diary, but it's not. That's a different thing entirely. In my journal, I jot down things that were important during that day and my journal of choice is a steno pad.
Steno pads are great for journaling because they are user friendly. You just flip the cover up, not to the side, never to the side, and write, continuing where you left off from the day before. I jot down things like how things went at work, dreams I had, processes I felt compelled to go through, moods I was in, and of course the juicy and dramatic events I partook in or witnessed.
As the filled pages turn, or in this case flip, data is accumulated and most of this data is forgotten not long after it is entered because, of course, new stuff comes to take its place.
My steno pads of choice are made by the Mead company and are 80 pages to a side. When I finish filling a steno pad, I have 160 pages of material.
Depending on how dramatic and fast-flowing or backwater slow and uneventful my life is, my journal entries could be long or short, and thus each steno pad takes a different amount of time to fill. The one I'm currently completing has covered the last nine months.
A lot can happen in nine months! (Or not)
In this particular journal, I am a page and a half from completing it and once it's done it is with great and unhurried pleasure that I will sit down and read it from end to end in one sitting. There will be numerous things in there that I totally forgot about but what is telling about each and every journal I've ever written is how I, once slightly refreshed in memory, will read a passage and no matter how old it is to me it will seem like yesterday.
It’s easier to use a steno pad
Our lives are made up of days and usually we forget about them as soon as they pass, unless a dramatic event occurs. But, even so, our memories of what actually occurred fade over time. But not if what occurred is written down! There it is forever preserved.
Many times I am shocked and astounded at how something I thought I clearly remembered actually played out differently than I think it did, the journal setting the facts straight.
Dreams I have had point to issues I am dealing with. There might be recurring ones or ones that indicate progress.
Also noteworthy is that I can see myself changing over time. This is apparent in my reactions to things, my judgements upon things, and the tone and pace of my journal entries. As well, moods are clearly indicated. The mood I was in that day, or on successive days.
If someone other than me read my journaling they wouldn't understand half of it. It would seem to them to be in some sort of code. I know the material intimately so I don't spell things out so much, I use shorthand and abbreviations to jot down the material faster because it is laborious to write in a manual fashion, which is my preferred method.
I have sworn for years that my next journal would be much easier to write if I would just choose to enter the words in digital form but no, I won't go there. It has to be hand written. This stuff will never appear in digital form, and thus, will never make it's way onto the internet. That's where my blog posts go. The journals are not to be purveyed by the prying eyes of the persnickety public.
Nope. Just by me.
I could finish the one I'm on right now and read it but you can't hurry a journal. God forbid! Worst thing you can do. I've tried that just to wrap things up but you lose purity-of-the-moment that way, and it's telling. You have to put material in there when the drive and desire to do so is there and so that last page and a half sits blank for now 'cuz it's just not time.
But it will be soon and then I will get to read it!
This is raw writing, speed writing, in-the-moment writing, so it's got a lot of flavor- maybe too much flavor, here and there. A lot of experimenting with word arrangement goes on here, flow, pace, and many other things related to style. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. I learn from doing and hopefully many of the skills I've developed have transferred into my blog posts.
My deciding to do blog posts came about as the natural progession of doing decades of journaling. Practice, practice, practice, trial and error, and just doing it. (But journaling has never been work).
Words don't just appear on pieces of paper for the world to read. Formatting, spelling, arranging, word choice, so much goes into writing. It's like speech. You use all the tools.