Getting Started by Jumping In

The easy way to get started is to select one of the commonly-available blank books and jump right in.  If you are not sure exactly how you want to define your topic, ... well ... leave it vague and open, but just write what is on your mind.  After you have tried out several ideas and directions, you will find some sense of direction on how you want to proceed, and you will begin to develop your content and style as you go along, letting your intuitions be your guide.  Certainly, that's how we let ourselves learn.

In any case, here are some ideas to help the process along.

Use a Bound Book:  Many people like to write their journal on their computer (or typewriter).  They keep  their printed pages into some sort of binder or a ringed notebook or spiral pad.  In the short term, this sounds good.  At least it is getting something done. 

However, in the long term, or even sooner, the holes start to wear, and tear, the pages turn ragged, even with careful use.  If you want to leave your work to family members, it will not last very long.  Many libraries or historical organizations would value your contributions, but they may have conditions on acceptance, such as only bound material.  And binding these pages can be expensive, assuming that they are in a condition to be bound.  If you are doubtful about this advice, then just think of a high school or college student who keeps his notes in just such a binder or notebook - they are usually in tatters by the end of the school year, much less five or ten years later. 

There is one other option to consider:  learn how to bind your pages yourself.  The members of our  journaling classes learn simple bookbinding, so that they can save money and can make their books any way they want to.  In the Bookbinding classes, they learn case binding, Japanese binding, coptic binding and book repair.  They often come to the sessions, never having met these skills before, and in 2013 at the State Fair, they took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes in the handmade books category.  And for a situation with printed or types individual pages, please do consider learning Japanese Bookbinding as a possible solution.

Some Ideas for a Purchased Blank Book:  Every person's journal is the result of individual choices and expression.  It represents you.  So here are some ideas to consider right from the start, and they are fun!

• Make a Title Page (maybe include start date, your name, etc.)
• Next, leave 2-3 blank pages in case you later need to add something you never knew you would need
• Then, on a new page, write a paragraph or two, very short, about what you think you are going to do and why you want to do it.  OF COURSE, yes, you can change your mind, meander into other things, whatever... this is just a launching pad to get the juices going.
• Skip another 1-2 pages at the front (just in case you might need them later).  This is where you will  put your first entry.
• For now, though, go to the very back of the journal.
• Don't do anything to the very last page... but take the next two pages in.  Cut them on a diagonal (the high side at the spine, the low side of the diagonal on the open side).  Tape the two cut pages together along the bottom and outside edges, making a pocket to store things you might like to keep for later use.
• Now, again, skip a couple of pages backward into the journal, and...
• Rule the pages to make a future Index.  (This method is invented by CR just as one way to do it - you might have your own way )  This Index will take anywhere from 2-4 pages, depending on how big your journal pages are.  In any case, on each page, divide the space into 4 quarters, 2 on top, 2 on the bottom.  At the top of each quarter, Write each letter of the alphabet (yes, "A", "B", "C"....), and since some letters are not used as much as others, you can probably combine Q and U, or X-Y-Z.  The advantage is that if you date your journaling entries, then you can index them by date and do fast look-ups when you are searching for something.  (Example:  Suppose you sketched a pattern for a  quilt block in your journal sometime last spring, and now you want to copy it out for your cousin.  You look in your Index under "Q" (for Quilt) or "D" (for "Daisy") and you see an entry which says "Daisy Block", 04/23/2012" and zip, right to the date April 23, 2012, and there it is.  And if, like most of us, you eventually have well over 20 volumes to search, something like that saves a lot of time.  (Note:  I do my indexing every week or 2 so it's not a big job later.) 
• Consider a New Journal Volume & Color Every Year:  It might be good to change the color of your journal cover each year, with the date on the spine, so that they are easy and orderly on the shelf, the the different colors help the eye when searching for something.

Some Words of Encouragement:

•  "Choose to plan for the future.  Write your troubles on a slip of paper and burn it.  Now make a list of what you [really] want to do..."  [Alice Hoffman]
• " ... because we don't know [when we will die], we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really.  How many times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it?  Perhaps four or five times more.  Perhaps not even that.  How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?  Perhaps twenty.  And yet it seems limitless."  [Paul Bowles, "The Sheltering Sky"]  
• If you write down the things which have meaning for you, it belongs to you, and in a journal, you can share it with your family, your community, the world.  This special memory.  It lives forever.  [CR] 

 The Cornerhouse.