Quit Resisting Journaling and Use it to Improve Your Writing

Maintaining a journal can help your writing in many ways.

Photo by Thom Holmes on Unsplash

Article after article suggests that journaling is good for you in a number of ways, including your mental health. Studies show that journaling is linked to reducing stress, helping to deal with traumatic events, and increasing your physical health (it boosts your immune system and lowers blood pressure). It has even been shown to help in sports performance and reduce employee absenteeism. (You can read more about these studies here.) And that is all well and good–really good.

But how can journaling improve your writing?

Many of famous writers have extolled the benefits of journaling. And with good reason — the journal of a writer turns into a writer’s notebook, bursting with ideas, snippets of overheard dialogue, deep thoughts, plot ideas, character sketches, and more.

Journaling becomes a process of deep interaction with the world, your first line of defense in observing, processing and integrating.

I’m an off-and-on journaler. I’ve had periods in my life–long stretches, like ten years–when I got up every day and wrote in a journal first thing. (And to prove it, I’ve got three huge tubs of…