Most people who keep a diary/ journal write with an audience in mind. They write to someone, even if they don't ever plan to let anyone else read what they have written.

Try writing a diary entry about your day, or pick an average sort of day to write about. Choose who your audience is. As you write change your audience to someone else about midway through. How does this change what you write and how you are writing it?

Found on Wikipedia :

Escribitionist – a term for a person who keeps a diary or journal via electronic means, and in particular, publishes their entries on the World Wide Web.

What to Write

Any time you are not sure what to write or just can't seem to get started - read back your last post to the journal and comment on it. Did you meet any goals, achieve something or did the day you expected turn out completely different from what you had written?

Write with Pen and Paper

Take a break from the computer, sit in a different chair and use a different table when you write your journal. Buy yourself a paper notebook with blank pages for you to fill. Pick a pen with a nice flow and even a pretty colour of ink to write with. (Blue ink can be pretty - there are all kinds of shades of blue ink in pens once you try out a few of them).

There are endless books created to be journals. You can go to a book store and look at a display full of them. Pick something appealing to you. While you're there pick out a bookmark too. Not that you really need one but it's nice to have something to mark the page you last wrote and the new one where you will write again.

There is a nice feeling when you actually write with a pen on paper. Plus you will be practising your penmanship. keeping cursive writing alive and working through writer's cramp rather than losing those muscles and that hand dexterity.

Writing Every Day, or Not

There are those who believe a journal or diary must be written in every day. That's a lot to stick with. I know from my own experience how tough it is to stick with a schedule/ plan like that.

However, writing everyday does give you writing discipline. You can get into the habit of writing each day and then it does become easier. You will even find yourself composing your daily journal entry as you get up in the morning, on the drive into work or while you're doing something routine like brushing your teeth. Then all you need to do is sit down long enough to write it all out.

Putting thoughts on paper is a great way to sort out all the stuff going on in your head. We think about so many things, get so many ideas and plans and then poof, they're gone as we get busy with something else. Keeping a daily diary is a good way to keep track, solidify, and give more respect to your ideas, thoughts and plans.

As you sort out and give some real space to everything in your head you will find your mind become a little better at organizing everything going on in there. You can define your thoughts as you have to work out just what they are and how they could work in order to put them on paper.

Of course, there is no law saying you have to write in your journal or diary every day. So don't take it so seriously you end up not writing at all because you feel you haven't done enough with keeping the journal. It's there, waiting for you, when ever you come back for it. A journal is just a notebook, a collection of pages, it doesn't blame you or want you to feel obligated to it.

To Edit or Not to Edit

This is such a tricky thing. I did go back and edit some of my old diary posts. I regret it and yet, those edits are part of the history of my diaries now too. I still feel I should have just left them as I originally wrote them, however. I can never go back in time and be the person I was at the time I wrote them. It seems just a bit snarky to criticize or correct myself in any way.

Of course, some of what I wrote were not so much edits as comments based on how things turned out as time went by. The comments are pretty cool really. Now, even more time has gone by and I have yet another perspective on both the original post and the comments I made on it somewhere in between then and now.

One of the good things about keeping a journal/ diary on paper is that you can't so easily delete your old posts. Online you can make a quick decision to edit or delete something and it will be lost and gone forever.

Extra Tips for Diary/ Journal Writing

• The Benefits of Journal Writing
• 8 Tips on How to Keep a Diary and Stick to It - wikiHow
• How to Write a Diary - wikiHow

July 25th - July 31st - Week in the Life 2011

A seven-day documentary project, Week In The Life is an annual opportunity to capture the simple everyday details of your life with photos and words. The albums I’ve created using the basics outlined below are some of my most treasured in that they are wonderfully true representations of my family’s life at a particular point in time. From the mundane to the profound, it’s those simple little everyday moments that I treasure most.

If you choose to embark on this project, especially for the first time, I encourage you to read through the comments from previous years. There are many suggestions, answers, additional information, etc. that can be found within the comment sections of each post. And remember, there’s no right or wrong way to approach this album.

It’s an amazing adventure. Consider yourself invited.

Keeping a journal of your magickal road trip though Paganism.

The Book of Shadows is a creative and practical way to journal your adventures as you explore Wicca, Witchcraft and Paganism.

A Book of Shadows or a Grimoire is your journal/ scrapbook about your explorations into Wiccan and Pagan ways. The Grimoire is a bit more of a recipe book, like a technical manual. You may decide to keep a Book of Shadows with all your experiences, thoughts and technical details or you may have both a Grimoire and Book of Shadows to separate the technical side.

Don't make it a pressure cooker, something holier than thou you can only write in with perfect results. It is there for you to use, to keep track of little things and big things, great things and great mistakes. It's a guide to where you have been and would like to go.

Don't be intimidated by your journal, enjoy it and feel free to be creative. It's not perfect, it's not a symbol of your commitment to being Wiccan. You could even decide Wicca isn't for you and look at other belief systems and continue to use the Book of Shadows, but call it something else to suit you.

The book itself needs to be something adaptable to grow and change along with you. A binder with removable pages is good. That way you can move them around and sort them into subjects or dates as you choose. In some cases you may have physical elements to add such as photos, clipped out articles, some sand you used in a ritual, a feather you found on the way home, a napkin you doodled an idea on... don't feel limited to just what you have written on standard paper. If something doesn't easily fit into the book format adapt it, take a photo or draw it.

Use your Book of Shadows to collect phrases and quotes that appeal to you. These will be great when it comes to writing your own rituals. Not that you want to copy someone else but everything that inspires you should be saved. A special turn of phrase, one that feels right or opens your mind and emotions is a great way to jump start your own words for your own ritual. Your Book of Shadows is documenting your adventures.

Don't cheat yourself by taking short cuts like printing something from the Internet and leaving that as a whole package when it's only something you have read and not something you have really felt or experienced. Do print something from the Internet and make notes right on it or on another page which you attach it to.

It's a very personal book, this collection of your deepest thoughts and treasured moments, be careful about sharing it. If you are part of a group you might pick a topic and each person gives thoughts and experiences they have written in their Book of Shadows. But you aren't likely to photocopy a page and hand it over. It's not about keeping information to yourself as much as it's about having a safe place where you can continue to be very honest and open with yourself about the things you are experiencing and thinking as you take the Wiccan path.

Once upon a time I was writing for Suite101. It was actually the start of the second round I had signed up with them. But, I didn't see much point in staying. Basically just too little results for the amount of energy I had to put in. Yesterday I went back to check my account and I'm signed up as a writer but not allowed to post anything. I guess my login as a writer timed out as that was 2007. Anyway, here is the article which I had written for them. Deleted because it was written in first person, something that was not a problem when I wrote it but changed afterwards I guess.

What is a journal for if you can't mess around with it? Sometimes I add something here and think... people will think I'm a dork or... people will be tired of reading about dragons... Well, so what?

This is my place to mess up at will, and I will, frequently and intentionally. You are forewarned. I might even spell things wrong and not look it up to fix it.

So there.