Blogging for Creativity

I kept a little white diary with a gold lock and key tucked under my mattress as a girl. There, like Anne Frank and so many other little girls, I shared my most personal secrets. Later, in high school, my little diary gave way to a journal. Here, the budding writer in me learned to experiment – to jot down ideas and play with story lines. Suddenly, my journaling wasn’t all about me, but an extension of me. It became my playground, a safe place to explore creatively without fear of having tender ideas being shot down before having a chance to fully develop. It was also a storage area for ideas that I didn’t see a use for at the moment, but might find a use for someday.

My journal became the place where I sketched wedding plans and later jotted down lists and lists of baby names, crossing some out and adding others as my husband and I debated.

Today, much of my journaling has moved from the leather-backed book with ruled pages (I write downhill otherwise) to electronic format. Regardless, I rely on this journaling as a place to get my creative juices flowing. I go there when I’m wrestling with something – coming up with new copy at work or something more personal. I also find myself journaling when I’m blocked. Somehow that seems counterintuitive: why use writing to try to get yourself out of writer’s block? Journaling is a different type of writing than I use in my professional life. In my journal, there are no rules. Okay, good grammar still applies – I was an English teacher once upon a time – but beyond that, anything goes. And best of all, there is no editorial approval process. Nobody sees this copy, or sketch or list of crazy thoughts but me. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to kick myself back into gear.

I wrote an article once, interviewing Kathleen Adams of the Center for Journal Therapy about how she uses journaling to help people bring about change in their lives (Adams, n.d.). Around the same time, JAMA published a study showing how writing about stressful experiences in a journal actually helped to improve the health of some people with asthma and rheumatoid arthritis (Smyth, 1999). I think we all have stress – copy deadlines, mortgage payments, gymnastics and soccer practice. A stressed-out writer has problems producing good copy. Journaling, then, can be used to reduce stress and release creativity.

I’m not alone in this belief. There are books and Web courses specially designed to help boost creativity through journaling. Some offer journaling prompts (“list 10 noteworthy events in the last 24 hours” or “what’s normal?”) while others show journal posts from others, which can be used as a launching point for one’s own creativity.


References
Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com/2009/09/11/119-journal-prompts-for-your-journal-jar/
Adams, K. (n.d.). Center for Journal Therapy. Retrieved from: http://journaltherapy.com/journaltherapy/kathleen-adams/about-center-for-journal-therapy
Creative Magic Academy (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://www.creativemagicacademy.com/creative-journal-magic-turn-your-journal-into-a-magic-wand/
Creative Writing Prompts (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://creativewritingprompts.com/
Smyth, J., Stone, A., Hurewitz, A., and Kaell, A. (1999). Effects of Writing About Stressful Experiences on Symptom Reduction in Patients With Asthma or Rheumatoid Arthritis. JAMA. 281(14):1304-1309. doi:10.1001/jama.281.14.1304