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[pegkerr]

EMBODIMENT PAPER JOURNAL PROJECT 2008 | LEARN MORE + JOIN


This is an interesting community to watch, because people do such imaginative things with their journals. As I've noted before, I've been keeping a daily journal since the age of 14 (and I'm 47 now). I'm such a creature of habit about it: I always buy the same type, the At-A-Glance Standard Diary that has one page a day:

Standard Diary

But, as I've noted several times this past year, I've had some unusual trouble this year keeping it up. I've skipped days at a time, which is something I never used to do. My entries feel dry and uninteresting, and I continually fight the feeling, "I've said this all a million times before, so why repeat it?" Partly it's the depression, of course, and perhaps part of the trouble is that I'm keeping this LiveJournal, too, and the two sort of compete for my energy. And frankly, the LiveJournal is rather more fun, because I can add links and pictures and get comments back. But I still would like to keep up a paper diary, too.

I wonder whether trying to get boldly experimental, like some of the folks at the embodiment community do, would help. I've never considered myself much of a visual artist, but perhaps if I added more of an element of play to the paper version, that might help?

Do you keep a paper journal as well as your LiveJournal? How long have you done so? How do the two different journals perform different roles for you? Why do you like to keep both? What do you do to keep the paper journal interesting for yourself? How have your journaling habits changed? (As you got older, your life changed, as you added LiveJournal, etc.)

Comments

[franticgoddess.livejournal.com]

I've been keeping a paper journal since I was about 6, and I've had my livejournal since I was 14 (I'm 21 now). I do notice a shift in my paper journaling habits once I got a LJ, although I've been regularly writing in both though the years. At first my paper journals were everything: day-to-day activities, doodles, thoughts on life, things I thought were interesting, fan fiction before I knew what it was and everything inbetween. My paper journals also took a bit of a hiatus in my early LJ days. I ended up using them more for personal fiction and fan fiction rather than as a daily journal.

In the past few years though, that's changed again. My paper journals have become much more personal but at the same time much less detail-oriented (as far as details of my life, what I do every day, that kind of thing). My entries are often very similar to those at jr_nal or embodiment (some of them are here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/allthishappiness/sets/72157600090776539/) although they've been heavily edited and such post-photos). My paper journal now is much more visual, and since I abandoned art classes and art school it really serves as my outlet for those kind of creative thingies and arty bits I miss. I really enjoy my paper journals. I had a hard time filling journals with words only, but filling them up in any way possible has really helped--it's also really relaxing!