It’s Friday and I have to tell ya, it’s time for another Marketing for Romance Writers 52-Week Blog Challenge Blog Hop. Or better known to those who Tweet: #MFRWauthor.
Aren’t we moving through the year rather fast? Is it just me? Is time sneaking away? Look where we are:
Week 25: Do You Keep a Journal or Diary?
Nope, I’ve never kept a diary in the true form of what a diary should be. As a teen, I scribbled out thoughts but was always careful about what I’d write. My mom was snoopy.
Throughout my life, I have written in journals. Keeping a journal is therapeutic and gets the creative juices flowing. Writing gets “stuff” out of my head. I’m a lover of pens, so having one in my hand and pressing it to paper takes me to a place of comfort. I collect pens and pretty notebooks.
One journal was a prayer journal or a notebook where I talked with my Lord through writing. I looked forward to filling pages daily. Another journal was about life in general. Thoughts about the “stuff.”
The prayer journal came at a time when I felt at peace with my life. My boys were growing rapidly, my marriage had been strong, and life moved on an even keel. Weird, huh? People usually do something like this when times are bad. This journal started when I began to study the Bible, and church had been a Sunday ritual. Nevertheless, the even keel began to tilt.
One antsy night at my cottage in the Allegheny Mountains, I had started writing my first book—another therapeutic outlet for me. This had been started in my mind before life slowly fell apart and before I stopped writing in the journals. The more hours I put into writing my book, working full-time, taking care of a home and family, and going to school myself, the less time I had for other things—and those journals came to an end.
As the keel tilted even more, the boat went under and down, down, down. Hope you don’t mind the analogy, but my mom often referred to bad times as the keel being off-kilter.
Ah, but years later, the journal writing picked up again in the form of a travel journal which included lighthouse tours in and around the states and Canada bordering the Great Lakes, and traveling to NASCAR and ARCA races here and there.
Eventually, and even more years later when I remarried, a new journal evolved—a romantic journal filled with back-and-forth love notes and short letters over a period of years. This is one journal I’m not ready to let go of, yet, but it’ll stay tucked away until I come across it again.
Now I keep a photo-journal for images of people, clothes, animals, places, etc., links, and a future title and character name journal for my books. I’ve been using Google Keep online for a lot of my book related journal or note-taking writings. Keep syncs with my other devices.
Now, I’d like to ask visitors who aren’t in the blog hop: Do you keep a diary or journal?
As a reminder that this is a blog hop where other authors participate, here’s the LINK to the main page for the 52-Week Blog Challenge Blog Hop and where you’ll find links to other author blogs.
I’m happy you visited here this week.
P.S. A week ago I wrote Driving is Privilege. For those of you who read that post, here’s an update. Wednesday, I spent three and a half hours waiting at the Secretary of State office. Can you believe it? Guess what? If you’ve been married more than once, or changed your name, make sure to take every piece of proof you have of name changes if you want to get a REAL ID driver’s license.
I didn’t take one marriage license to prove of my first name change. Heck! I don’t even have that anymore. I have to go back, but I still renewed my license without the Real ID enhancement. When my license arrives in the mail, I’ll get the Read ID added and an enhancement to visit Canada across the river. Then I came home and ordered a copy of the document I needed. $$$ (My ex loaned me his copy until it arrives.) Yes, it was weird asking him. By the way, there was no driver’s test for the renewal. (Michigan)
House: A Bittersweet Interlude, didn’t go over as well as I’d hoped, albeit, it does sell copies all year. This makes me leery of writing a fourth book.
Revised from the original to avoid spoilers.
I LOVED driving this truck and had wanted to make it mine—to stand out from the other thousands of 1995 red Dodge Ram pickup trucks on the road, so I bought chrome bed rails and had them installed, and a black bug deflector for the hood. Of course, I added a Mopar® front license plate. I called her Lady in Red and had logo made (in red lettering) as a decal for my back window. Oh, boy. Doesn’t this sound crazy?
