A journal entry a day keeps the writer’s block away! At least, that has been my experience. I don’t have any scientific studies to back this claim up. But I do have lots of anecdotal evidence from my own writing practice. In this blog entry, I want to guide you through how I go about journaling and how it helps with my fiction writing.

Lots of people have this pre-existing image in their head of what journaling looks like. It is someone (maybe a heroine from a Jane Austin novel) sitting down at a little, writing desk before bed time to chronicle the events of the day. It’s a romantic image but not a very practical one. Who has time for that? And what does that do for me? How can something as mundane as journaling fix writer’s block?

How to Journal for a Writing Warm Up

The secret is that it doesn’t matter what you write about, just that you write! How many times have you sat down in front of your computer, swearing to yourself that today is the day, only to feel too distracted to focus? That used to be me every day.

Journaling is the perfect segue between real life and the world that only exists in your drafts. It’s like having one foot in each world before taking the full step into writing-land. A little warm-up drill to wake up your muscles and get your blood flowing.

I start my journal entries with how I’m feeling. Every emotion can be a reason to slack off or a springboard into creative action. Whatever is in my head, gets pulled out! The stresses of the moment are recorded here. And the wins of yesterday are tallied as well. This is the time when I acknowledge how I’m feeling. Journaling about the positive things allows me to spend time with them, be grateful for them, and then put them to the side so my writing can take center stage for a few hours. And Journaling about the negative stuff helps get those nasty, thought spirals out of my head.

Once I’m done writing about my life, I shift gears and I start journaling about my writing. Forgive me for getting a little meta, but writing about writing has cracked my writer’s block on many occasions. I take stock of what I need to work on that day. Which scenes have I envisioned in my head but haven’t written down yet? Which beats should I reorganize to make act two flow better? Etc. If I’m stuck and I don’t know how to move forward, I start workshopping right there in my journal. I brainstorm ideas, make lists, and cross items out when I realize that won’t work.

And sometimes, I write the scenes I’m envisioning right into my journal. In this day and age, the keyboard is the best friend of writers everywhere. They keyboard is great! It allows you to fly with your thoughts. But that’s not always what I need as a writer. Sometimes, the best answer is to slowly write out my thoughts with a pen and paper. Check out this other blog post for more on the benefits of writing by hand.

At the end of my journaling sessions, I close my notebook feeling refreshed with enough charge to get me through several hours of productive writing. Obviously, this is all just my personal experience. But I encourage you to give it a shot! If you try this, let me know in the comments and tell me how it went for you! I’d love to hear from you!