The Write Side of My Brain – Page 3 – Creating the Things, Making the Art, Doing the Work

I’ve never really called my journal a diary.

Your verbiage may vary.

I’m not sure when I first started journaling. Probably sometime in high school when I first began to discover my desire to write. It’s even possible that somewhere in a closet, or the attic, or some long lost box, I still have those early journals.

I wish I could say that I’ve journaled consistently over the years. I can’t do that.

Over the years when I have journaled, I’ve written or journaled in many different formats. About ten years ago I started a practice of writing a thousand words daily in Google Docs.

On a side note, should I pass unexpectedly, I need one of you to promise to delete those files and clear my cache.

I digress.

I’ve not kept up with that practice on a consistent basis. Earlier this year in the midst of rehab, I tried get back in the habit of a thousand words a day. It didn’t happen.

Needless to say, although we all know I’ll say it anyway, I’m not apologizing for anything I did or did not accomplish over the last (now) seven months.

In my journaling, I’ve followed many formats. And just writing about it recently, or searching for a new notebook has prompted a flood of ads on Facebook for the best journals or journaling methods. I’m sure those work for some people. But, with all due respect, I do my best journaling in a blank notebook.

Prior to the recent unpleasant events, I was working daily in my journal with notes, pictures, stickers, stamps and more. It just sort of evolved to my own method of recording events and feelings. Because all my supplies currently reside in my upstairs office, I’ve modified that a bit.

On another side note, I made it up the stairs on Saturday. I managed to find my office in disarray, and also managed to get a shower. It was a day’s work. I hope to be back up there on a regular basis soon.

As I was saying, I’ve developed my own method. My favorite book is, of course, an unlined or grid-lined Moleskine, but I’m currently using a less expensive lined notebook.

What works for me, in my current still-recovering stage, is to write my morning thoughts, make a to do list, and do some sketching. My current internal debate is whether my daily carrying will include just the journal or will add a sketch book. I have time to figure that out.

I’m currently reading The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. Allen tells us how we got the Moleskine, but gives an overview of the development and use of notebooks over the centuries.

You may or may not like to journal, or carry a notebook.

Honestly, I’m still figuring out the best method for me. The marketers out there have some fascinating products, but they’ve never really worked for me, and that’s okay.

Find what works for you.

For me, journaling is important. It can be therapeutic. It can keep me grounded. It can jog my faulty memory.

And we all know that’s the only jogging I’ll do.

Writing Wednesday: What Are the Odds?

Journalism was the odds-on favorite to win the 151st Kentucky Derby last weekend. While I have no stake in the Derby other than sentiment from having gone to college in the Bluegrass, I was sort of cheering for Journalism. Both he and his owner had narrowly ecaped the savage wildfires in California a few months back. In the end, Journalism came in second to Sovereignty and the Derby was history.

My other connection to Journalism is that I once considered it as a career.

After all, I’d edited my high school newspaper and my college yearbook.

When I decided not to pursue the art major at Virginia Tech and opted instead for the music major at Asbury College (now University), got in a little over my head.

Okay, a lot over my head, Music Theory II nearly killed me.

After the first quarter of my sophomore year, I dropped out of the music department and changed my major to English. At the beginning of my junior year I changed to what was, at the time, Speech Communications. It now reads as Communications Arts.

But that was back before Asbury developed the incredible media department it now has. I had no practical broadcast experience.

After graduation and a trip out west (you should have read about that in the Old Man Bucket List posts), I moved back to Kentucky. Briefly.

In a story that I promise you will go in the book, I ended up moving home in September.

I briefly pursued work in the journalism field, but the offers never came.

Well, not exactly true. When I interviewed with a television station I was told they couldn’t hire me for on the air talent. But, in the same interview, he asked if I was interested in being a camera man.

In what may have been one of my most foolish career decisions, I said no. After all, I had no experience or training. It was not until long after the interview that I realized the interviewer was implying that the station would train me.

In what may yet be another chapter of the book, I ended up with a job as a lab assistant and later as a social worker. The latter eventually led to some forty-plus years in politics and public policy.

I certainly didn’t plan that. But I don’t believe in coincidence. Here in retirement I’ve realized that, while it didn’t make me rich, I had a pretty decent career.

And the stories. Oh, there are stories.

Still, over the years I tried to make the journalism thing work. For a while through this blog, or variations of the same. I wrote for several media outlets including several years as a contributor and magazine editor for Bearing Drift.

None of that morphed into the full-time writing career of which I dreamed. None of that has, as of yet, landed me on the New York Times Bestseller List.

I’ll keep writing.

What’s that lyric from Hamilton? “Why do you write like you’re running of of time?”

It’s true that my recent health struggles delayed my retirement writing plans. I’m not fully recovered, but I’m much further along than just a few weeks ago.

By the time you read here on the next Writing Wednesday, I plan to have conquered the stairs and be back in my home office.

That’s the plan.

Sure, we know that, whether they were made forty-five years or forty-five days ago, plans can change. And that’s okay.

Whether I’m writing for my regular readers (both of you) or whether I eventually make that bestseller list, I always have been, and always will be a writer.

I’ll take those odds.

All My Bags are Packed

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS

Half Away the Old Year Passes

Recaffeinated Mondays: Connections

Go West Old Men: A Travel Memoir. Part 16

Writing Wednesdays: Dear Diary

Writing Wednesday: What Are the Odds?

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