At a talk with David Almond a few months ago, he pulled out his novel journals and flipped through, showing us his crazy notes. Immediately I put a Moleskin journal on my Christmas list, which (spoiler alert) I found under the tree Christmas morning. I’ve been really enjoying filling it in and playing around, and below are my tips for how to use your journal for noveling (away from the computer—gasp!).
1. Customize it
If you get a light-colored, blank cover, you can draw on it. I opted to do some quill-and-ink wave things with an amateur attempt at calligraphy for my working title. Another option is to find (or make) a “central image” for your novel. One of my good friends who has a shape shifter WIP just printed this image (that I made her) and taped it to the front.
2. Doodle and brainstorm
With the blank or the grid journals, it’s fun to doodle your characters or designs for their world. I’ve been working on a country flag in my journal, covering the page with doodles and color notes and brainstorming possible symbols they might use.
3. Go outside the lines
Do the stuff that’s hard to do one a computer. Make epic family trees. Make plot charts. Make relationship maps. Draw arrows pointing to stuff. Write word clouds. Go crazy! Sometimes it’s these simple, almost mindless exercises that help me unlock important insights about my story.
What sort of things do you like to do in your writing journal? Comment with ideas below!
Until next time, be wary of music in the woods and keep being awesome!
– Lys