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Handwritten Journals

katmeow

katmeow

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Aug 20, 2002
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I keep both an online and a handwritten journal, but I've noticed recently that I much prefer writing in my handwritten one. I find that my thoughts flow more easily with a pen in hand and I'm becoming much more circumspect about making my thoughts public in an online journal.

I received my first journal as a birthday present when I was 9. I've been writing on-off ever since. I think the longest period I stopped for was around a year, but something keeps drawing me back. I love reading over old entries and I think it definitely helps in keeping memories fresh. I find it much easier to write about things that are troubling me in there rather than talking to friends about it and I normally find that I resolve things fairly soon after I've written them out. I currently live with my family and have had no issues with them reading it, but I think I would be a little concerned if I was living with a friend or partner, because I tend to record EVERYTHING in there!

*~*~*~*

Is there anyone else out there who keeps a handwritten journal? How long have you been writing for? How personal is your writing there? Do you worry about anyone else reading it or have you ever had someone read it? If you keep both a handwritten one and online/public one, do you feel there is much difference in what you record in each? For those who did, but stopped, why did you stop?

Kat :)
 
<3

Originally posted by katmeow
Is there anyone else out there who keeps a handwritten journal? How long have you been writing for? How personal is your writing there? Do you worry about anyone else reading it or have you ever had someone read it? If you keep both a handwritten one and online/public one, do you feel there is much difference in what you record in each? For those who did, but stopped, why did you stop?

^I've always kept a hand written journal, since I was able to write. :).
I have them packed away in various places at my parents place, and at my current house...they're a part of me I treasure.

They're soaked in my darkest tears, and covered in pink ink and stickers. They have photos and cut out magazine pictures folded into the pages, and various, 'I
hearthrob.gif
___' plastered within.

I will always keep a written journal. There's just something about scrawling away in a little corner, letting your thoughts scratch their way onto the lined paper that will always be a comfort for me.
 
Re: <3

CHiLD-0F-THE-BEAT said:

and various, 'I
hearthrob.gif
___' plastered within.
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I laugh when I look at the pages where I would have I love... then 3 or 4 names listed after it. And the pages of writing your own name in different combinations with boys last names.
 
I have kept handwritten journals since I was 8 years old.

That's... 22 years 8o

One day, I imagine they'll be published when I'm famous ;)

It's funny though, in the last few years since I've been typing more and more, I find it extremely cumbersome to write my thoughts with a pen and paper. They flow FAR too quickly for me to capture them... I think I've just gotten used to the immediacy of online script.

But the feeling I get writing in my handwritten journals is far different, and far superior to any online entry I could write. It's somehow more secret, more private, more special... I have spilled thoughts and fears onto those pages I'd never write online. I feel typed words almost don't do justice to the intracies of the emotions involved... it's all so, standard... the words I mean. The characters on a screen are so 'same' and flat.

And there's nowhere near as much joy as I get out of lounging back with my old journals, with pictures, photos and concert tickets stuck in them...love letters tucked away in the back...and reminiscing on the person I used to be.

Despite this I find myself writing in my handwritten journal less and less these days. It's sad but part of the reason is because I don't feel it's safe. Some of the things I want to write in there are things, at times, I would not want my boyfriend to read. And because I don't want to go so far as to actually *hide* the journal from him, I just don't write as freely in it. Not that I think he would ever actually go poking through it but it's - y'know... a possibility. And that scares me.

Also I can not write in my journal unless I am completely alone. And that rarely happens when you live with someone else :\
 
I started my first handwritten journal when i was around 7 if memory serves me correctly, kept going for a few years, then stopped.
Started again wen i was 15, and going through an extremely bad patch in my life. My journals from that year contained very dark matter.
Unfortunately my mum found it and wasn't extremely happy with the contents so she disposed of it.
I never wrote another one after that.
Also, i've found online journals suit me much better, for some reason i'm able to think more clearly when typing.
 
I've made a couple of attempts. I went through two journals between when i was 11 to when i was 14. Then no more. Then i was given a beautiful leather bound journal with my name engraved on it for my 21st. I wrote in it once and then it sat neglected until (let me check..) the 8th of April this year. I've written in it nearly every day since then.

I'm not really a journal-keeping kind of person, but that day I was hit with this incredible burst of motivation to 'get things done' - anything and everything. For the next two weeks I felt incredibly 'driven' and I felt like every action I made was getting me closer to my goals and dreams. And I wrote about it all, every day.

These days that has waned somewhat (i want it back! so I'm considering trying Nootropics :)), but I still write in the journal most days.

I guess I do it because there's so I much I feeel I cant talk to anyone about, even my closest friends, so it fills in for them.

Why do all of you keep journals?
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PS: Also I had an online journal for a very short while, but it never really took off. I prefer writing in a handwritten one as the ideas flow more freely - it's more of a true rendition of where i'm "at". With the online journal I never really relaxed, each entry was very stilted and sort of planned out like an essay almost.
 
potato said:


Why do all of you keep journals?
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I told you, because I'm going to be famous after my death ala Anais Nin/Sylvia Plath and people will ooh and ahh over my brilliant insights and melliflous artistry with words ;)

Actually to tell the truth the journal is just my friend. Like my cat, or my pillow. It's a confidant and comforter. I am often crying when I write my best entries. It allows the emotion out, out out, seeping out onto the page and leaves me feeling more empty, clearer and able to cope.

That's probably why I don't write much when I'm happy and settled.
 
I keep a journal.

Have now for 2 years. My old counsellor said it's a good way for me to release emotions and negative feelings if i can't get in contact with her.
I don't see her anymore, though i still write in my journal. I'll only really make entries when i need to get stuff off my chest, am mildly depressed or if i can't handle the frame of mind i'm in and won't let myself ask for help.

No names are ever mentioned or specific situations. It's all descriptive with alot of hypotheticals.
No ones has ever read it, nor will i let them. It's like a key to my mind. So yeah you could say it would be like someone was reading my mind/thoughts.
 
I find an online journal way easier. Like you kazza_baby, I find that words flow alot easier when I'm typing.....and I don't have so much trouble reading my own writting!
As I am going through alot of shite at the moment, I find it has really helped me to get my thoughts together and make sense of them.
 
i don't keep a 'diary' as such, but i do keep a journal (in that i don't make regular, even, daily entries, but i am constantly writing notes). i've been keeping them for the last couple of years or so, and i guess i have about fifteen or so.

lots of other notebooks from over the years though, too. there's something very free and visceral about keeping a real journal, and it's something that i'd never stop doing. for anybody who values their creativity and free thought, i don't understand why you wouldn't keep one.
 
I have both, although since coming online heaps ive turned more to online journal than anything... I find writing though gives me a sence of relief more than anything online could.

There is a psychological explaination to it all.. writing with with hands creates you to sit differently and that stance helps open up many parts of ur inner self that typing can not offer. Writing with your opposite hand is even more so releasing.

I write with both hands, i especially write with my " other hand " when things are going really bad for me. It opens up the side of your brain that becomes lazy and what is designed to do is help you calm and let go of your inner self. Its pretty amazing and pretty empowering. Its almost like your two parts of your brain speak to each other...

One hand is YOU , the other is the INNER YOU.

Anyway i spent countless hours over a book which taught me this and was recommend by a very good Psychologist....

Online journals dont help as much as writing stuff down does... it will never bring me the same comforts.
 
Oh the book is called " The Power Of The Other Hand " for anyone interested, i cant for the life of me remember the author and ive left the book in Perth... doh
 
i've been keeping handwritten journal's since i was about seventeen. writing in my journal is something that's very important to me and i pretty much write in it everyday. Like Katmeow i write everything in there so they're very personal and i too feel very uncomfortable with the thought of a partner, or anyone for that matter every reading one of my journals.

with the whole online journal thing: i don't have one mainly because i feel like whatever i write in there has to be relatively censored, hence it doesn't provide the same emotional outlet which is what i truly desire in the whole process.

also, i just wanted to mention that i did try doing the doogie howser thing a couple of times and keeping a journal on my computer, but it just wasn't the same... there really is something special about the pen to paper feel.
 
Originally posted by up all night
^ I have three. :p


yeah, the gun icon wasn't so good for portraying sarcasm ;)
 
I have my LIvejournal, which is more about general day to day stuff, some photos of friends, stories of whats happenned. As well as how i feel about issues with people, things that have happenned. Lots of angsty teen venting.

I have my room. The walls of my room are buried in photos of my friends, family memories. My room is like a memory box. Each time i look at any photo i get a visual reminder of what happenned.

I have my "workbook". I have one which is my ideas of work, imagery i like, articles on anything and everything which inspires me and makes me think about anything i think is interesting. It's also full of crappy sketches, and developments of ideas whcih i have never gone through with. As well as things i have written, becasue i use a lot of text in my work. And heaps of poems, stories what have you that i collect, as often i will appropriate other peoples words, and add them into my work too.

Then i have my visual journal for uni. Which is all the stuff they tell us to do. Assignments, wirtten tasks, articles of artists, exhibitions. They say we can put whatever we like in there... But, when someone is going to assess it, read it from cover to cover... Then most of the stuff in my other journal, i don't want to them to read.

I guess my journals, aren't so much about handwriting. They're about collecting and finding a general home for everything i think. WHen i think it.
 
i used to have a handwritten diary when i was younger...then my mum read it :X *bitchslap* and found out all manner of inappropriate things that her 13 year old angel was up to ;)

end hand written journal episode until last year when i decided that my overburdened mind really needed an assistant...i started another handwritten diary but soon found it a little tedious.....though i do enjoy the idea of a hard copy journal....years of uni assignments mean that my handwriting is hardly practical....plus my hands get sore after a while!!!! ;)

i have my bluelight journal but actually have just a word doc (saved under "yeah it's my diary biatches"...nice and subtle :p"") which i put my deepest darkest thoughts and feelings in :)

i have a journal because my mind races eleventy seventy miles a minute and i find my thoughts get rather cyclical if i don't vent and let them out so i can move onto the next process ;)

also i'm criminally self-indulgent. also i love reading over the old stuff. also like SLM i hope my memoirs are published one day and ideally a "letters" type edition including my diary also :p
 
Mary Poppins said:

also i'm criminally self-indulgent. also i love reading over the old stuff. also like SLM i hope my memoirs are published one day and ideally a "letters" type edition including my diary also :p
Click to expand...

I know it's so egotistical isn't it :D I can't help it... I adore reading my own writing. I challenge anyone to say they don't, actually. I'm sure I"m not the only one.

In a strange way, it sometimes reminds me who I am. Because I get so lost sometimes.

ps. this thread has really inspired me to start writing in my handwritten journal again :)
 
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