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Journal Writing

Christina Sexton Wilcox

Finding Your Voice
(Part 3 in a three-part series on successful journaling)

Beginning writers are often told to "find their voice." For a beginner, this can be an elusive task. "What's the difference between my writing voice and my real voice," you ask? The beauty of journal writing is that they are one in the same. In journal writing there are no rules. You write as you speak, using your journal simply as a means of communication. No one cares (yet) how fantastic your prose is, or even if your spelling is correct. The goal is to open the floodgates of ideas. Think of your journal writing as just "talking on paper."

A friend of mine writes a local newspaper column, called "Sue's News." While working as a corporate sales trainer, she had to send her boss e-mails that outlined her daily activities while on the road. Out of these What-I-Did-Today logs blossomed interesting stories about the people she met on and off the job. She was writing stories and didn't even know it!

Sue had never taken a writing class, so she wasn't bogged down with the rules of writing. She would simply write as she spoke, casually, with her own voice. Now when she journals she imagines writing to her former boss, talking in the same voice, using snippets of dialogue and background information when necessary. It's a two-fold way of story writing that takes the pressure off while allowing your true voice to shine through.

To wrap up our series on successful journaling, I leave you with the following tips.

1. Write quickly, so you won't be bogged down by grammar, punctuation, etc. Make lists, use simple phrases, anything that works for you. The goal is to get the ideas out. Edit later.

2. Allow yourself to take tangents, go with them and see where they lead you. Ramble on.

3. Don't go for formal prose, write as you speak. Use slang and dialect as naturally as you would in your own speaking voice.

4. Use dialogue and lots of description. Leave nothing out.

5. Envision your audience reading your "letter." Think about his/her/their reactions. Is he laughing, crying, surprised? Why?

6. Cut and paste your e-mails or chat room dialogues into your journals for later use.

7. Title your journal entries by date and description of content for easy retrieval later.

 


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