Journaling for Writers

Hey guys!  Today I would like to share with you a bit about journaling, how it impacts a writer's life, and my own (failed) attempts at it.
So, journaling.  To me it's like a little light in the distance I can never seem to reach, but I never stop reaching for it.  I think my record for amount of days journaled in a row is about 7.  Which is really kind of pitiful.  I have tried so many different methods, like just journaling on important days, keeping my journal next to my Bible so when I read at night I won't forget to journal either, keeping my journal in my purse, etc.  I fail, every single time.  (I'll have you know my current method of trying not to forget is keeping my journal on my desk right on top of the notebook I use all the time.  Plus, my journal is so pretty right now that it's really hard to resist it and get to actual work, so maybe that'll help).  So why in the world do I try so hard at journaling even when I've failed so many times?  From school assignments to personal assignments, it doesn't matter, I still fail.  So why do I still try?  Because I believe journaling is a great asset for writing.  Not like, because it gets your creative juices flowing (though it might do that too, as a warm up to your actual writing), and I know that looking back on something time after time doesn't always inspire ideas, but every so often, your brain is in the right mood and BAM.  Amazing story idea from something you wrote a year or two ago and had read tens of times over.
Another benefit of journaling is it's very good for working on your descriptive abilities, but for the most part, I think working on that inside your book instead of inside your journal is the better option.
My friends will tell you that I don't like to delete anything writing related.  We are working on a project together and our "Archive" page is over 100 pages long just from two months of work and chats and stuff, merely because I didn't want anything to be deleted.  I wanted to go back over it all years from now and see how far we had come.  Now how in the world does this relate to journaling?  For the same reason.  I don't like to forget stuff, but I simply don't have room in my head to keep day to day events rattling around up there.  I have much more important stuff to remember (like the taste of that delicious cup of tea I had this morning, or something), including story ideas that were inspired on the spur of the moment.
I think that having the option to look back on your life in writing is a great resource for inspiration and writing.  Maybe at one point you journaled when the anger boiling up inside you was almost unbearable.  Now you look back and remember that anger from an unbiased PoV and you can translate that anger into an actual character, and because the feelings you gave the character were real, more than likely, the readers will feel that at that moment the character was especially relatable, because they too have felt that way when they're angry, and real, because the feelings, though not in an actual person, CAME from an actual person.
So I believe journaling is amazing for story inspiration, but I also think that you can get too much of it.  I don't like to spend more than ten minutes in mine, writing, for the most part, no more than a page.  Mostly because I like to save paper and time by not rambling on about my amazing cup of tea, but also because I don't want to spend an hour writing something that isn't important, like my amazing cup of tea, compared to writing an hour of something that IS important, like my actual current project.

How about you?  What are your feelings in regards to journaling?  Do you feel it's useless, or useful?


Viola June HFA-DGN