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Do you keep a journal?

Joe Nerve

Joe Nerve

Oct 7, 2000
18,619
38,942
New York City
www.joenerve.com
Disclosures
Endorsing artist: Musicman basses
#1
This is something I started doing when I was 17, and did/do, fairly religiously from 23 till now. I don't often read through my old journals, but did today. It's amazing to see the growth and change over the years. One thing that really popped out at me though was a particular entry from 1998...

I had just found a dollar, which I was excited about because it brought me $1 closer to buying the Bass Player magazine that had my band review in it. I had to scrounge up the rest from a change jar. I only vaguely remembered that, and got instantly grateful that I haven't had to live like that for many years now. And I own a Rickenbacker, and 4 Musicmans, and 3 Fenders, and a custom bass, and... Yeah...

Anyhow. Just one of many things that I had kinda forgotten were my reality back then.

Anybody else keep journals? Have any thoughts about them? Reasons maybe for NOT keeping one?
 
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#3
Eight years ago or so I was going through a rough patch so decided to buy a notebook and write in it everyday...just to air out my thoughts. I kept at it for about 6 months and then the notebook ended up in a box in a closet. I recently came across it and sat down to read it. It was horrifying. Maybe its just the passage of time and the maturity that naturally comes with that but I found my journal entries in that notebook to be ridiculously lame, self-absorbed and entirely overly dramatic. I guess I'm glad I wrote that stuff just so I can now look back on it and see how significantly I've changed since those days. But still, almost every entry was cringe-worthy when reading it now so I don't know that I'll read it again.

These days when I feel the need to document thoughts I usually just open up an email in Gmail, type my thought, give it a re line and just save it in the draft folder. Just opened up my Draft folder...here are a few of the subjects within it that aren't too personal:

Curmudgeon's Log, stardate 1-22-16
2016 Commuting Issues
Not so deep thoughts...
Writing ideas
Memo to Sibling....12-19-15
Commuting Confrontations

So for me, keeping a regular, daily journal was a bit of a disaster but I like writing the odd thought every now and then.
 
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#4
Fleebag said:
I've tried on and off over the years but always have a hard time making it habit. I tried again this last new years but didn't get far. Just curious what drives you to keep one?
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A lot of down time at work. Plus I find it to be a good tool for getting my thoughts together, and thinking creatively. It's a good way for me to vent, too.

I quit drinking many years ago, and found journal writing helped me navigate through the things I used avoid by getting drunk and high.

A few of the things that drive me...,
 
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#6
I used to keep trip journals when I was younger, so since I was pretty young for some of our family vacations, I got to get a new perspective on some of those experiences I doubt I'll be able to relive (egypt and west Africa aren't tourist friendly now, plus I can't afford to get there anyway). I wish I had kept more.

I still keep music and art journals, so I can see where I was at creatively at different points. Except most of that burned in a house fire, so now I just have my digital records and a few journals.

Thanks for this thread. I think I'm going to start a more formal, organised journal and art system. Happy journaling to all!
 
#7
I kept one on my computer pretty religiously throughout middle school. After that, I just found myself too busy to keep up with one.

It was a nice tool to organize my thoughts and ideas, and it gave me the opportunity to reflect on things.
 
#9
I tried it after I quit doing heavy drugs and was weeping like a baby every day for a while. It became a chore rather than something tberapeutic. I think I kept at it for maybe a month before I tossed out the notebook.
 
#11
Marial said:
I tried a couple of times, but I'd go back and read what I wrote and was so mortally embarrassed I decided no one, including me, needed to bear witness to what was going on inside my head.
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I think that's what keeps throwing me off the tracks. I write with the fear that one day someone will read it and wonder what kinda whack job I was/am, which in turn makes me unable to write with 100% freedom making it kinda pointless for me.
 
#12
Fleebag said:
I think that's what keeps throwing me off the tracks. I write with the fear that one day someone will read it and wonder what kinda whack job I was/am, which in turn makes me unable to write with 100% freedom making it kinda pointless for me.
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I have an almost pathological low tolerance for embarrassment, not just my own, but that of others, and reading some of the horridly, tragically, awfully, sophomoric crap I wrote in high school gives me hives just to think about.

Oddly, I have far less inhibition when it comes making music. I don't know if it's because what I write/record on my own is instrumental and the lack of words makes a difference, but I am far more shameless, for lack of a better word, when it comes to music.
 
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#13
Marial said:
I tried a couple of times, but I'd go back and read what I wrote and was so mortally embarrassed I decided no one, including me, needed to bear witness to what was going on inside my head.
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+1. Best tip I ever got was starting sentences with "I feel......". I got a lot more from 5 mins of that than anything.

Started writing a book. It helps you learn to structure your thoughts and find/develop your own unique "voice". You spend most of your time rewriting initially, then you finally start to write some half decent stuff. Kudos to best selling authors - such a refined skill they've developed.
 
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#15
Back in my second year of college, our 60+ year old female English teacher had us keep a daily journal and it was to be part of our final grade. What the point of that was, I'll never know. She had us hand them in at the end of the semester, presumably so she could read them. Well, mine made the "Dear Penthouse Forum" look like a Dr. Seuss book..... I filled it with so much filth that either she had an orgasm or heart attack when she read it.

Probably one of the few college classes I ever got an "A" in.
 
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#17
Mike N said:
Back in my second year of college, our 60+ year old female English teacher had us keep a daily journal and it was to be part of our final grade. What the point of that was, I'll never know. She had us hand them in at the end of the semester, presumably so she could read them. Well, mine made the "Dear Penthouse Forum" look like a Dr. Seuss book..... I filled it with so much filth that either she had an orgasm or heart attack when she read it.

Probably one of the few college classes I ever got an "A" in.
Click to expand...

My new hero, you are
 
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#20
I've never kept a journal as such. My oldest brother was a writer and when he and I lived on opposite ends of the country we wrote letters back and forth weekly. He passed away four years ago, when I cleaned out his home I come across letters that I had written in the 1980s. (I still have some of his as well.)

Mine were about latest girlfriends, work, motorcycles and gigs as a drummer. At that time he was writing obituaries for a major newspaper. He wrote about his latest stories and the financial struggles of journalism.

It was enlightening to see what mattered to him and I thirty-some years ago.
 
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