"On Keeping A Notebook"

I found Joan Didion's "On Keeping A Notebook" highly intriguing, and also relevant in the sense that her idea of notebooking/journal keeping is parallel to that of my own.  I keep a personal journal myself and I follow no guidelines or rules for what I write into it.  It is often a mixture of poetry, stories, quotes, random sentences, or ideas with only dates as timekeepers.

I found her reference to keepers of private notebooks as "children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss" particularly fascinating because I have often thought much about why I keep a journal.  This theory is interesting because sometimes I feel like if I do not write down the events or thoughts I am experiencing, I will lose them all entirely.  Journaling effectively minimizes this fear of loss, if not shutting down the fear completely.  While I am unsure if I write in a journal for this reason alone, it is certainly an interesting theory to probe.

Ultimately, I feel like Didion stresses the idea that notebooks are personal and meant for the one writing in it.  In her essay, she writes about how we are not meant to be focused inward, and how we are brought up to believe that others are more interesting than ourselves.  I enjoyed how Didion managed to turn this idea on its heels by saying that journaling is a way to rebel against this notion, that journaling is purposeful in that it gives "a meaning only for its maker".

In summary, I find that Didion believes journaling is a way for us to connect with the things we have experienced in an intimate and personal manner.  "It all comes back."  Perhaps by journaling, we are able to connect more deeply with ourselves and creatively analyze the things that go on around us.  It is a private way to map out the way your mind works.

I find that journaling is useful for much of the same reasons.  It is a way to connect yourself with your life.  It can be as creative or as simple as you would like.  It can be fact or fiction, or even an in between.  There are no strict guidelines for how to journal.  However, I do believe that journaling can inform your writing style because it will show you how you analyze the things in your life on paper.  It will give you free time to flesh out these ideas in a manner that is personal to you.  I feel that we can easily find our voice through our journals, and if we pay close attention to that voice, we can help to develop and nurture it for use in other areas of writing -- professional, academic, creative, etc.