journals – WRITE TIME AND AGAIN

What helps you to keep your writing ideas fresh? Do you have a bulletin board you pin them on? A three ring binder with sections for different types of ideas? Perhaps you have a journal you write in daily. If you do any of these, continue reading. Below are some ideas to chew on for writing ideas.

What is the worst nightmare you’ve ever had?
How would someone else describe you?
Describe your ideal getaway.
If you could have three things, what would they be? Why?
How can some of the trials and tribulations you’ve been through turn into something good/blessings?
What are 3 or 4 things you are grateful for?
Describe your favorite season if you were to combine two of them together.
If you could go anywhere in the past, where/when would you go? Why?
Describe your ideal day.
Write down three of your favorite things, and create a cartoon scenario using them.
What does happiness mean to you?
How have you changed in the last 5 years?
Write about your hobby.
Complete this sentence. I was walking in the forest when…..
What distractions are keeping you from being productive?
How do you spend your Sundays?

When you’re writing, whether it’s a short story, a novel, or a poem, do you pay attention to what is going on around you when you aren’t writing? Sometimes I’ll write down what I hear/see in my journal for later use and sometimes I don’t. Most times I remember. I know what you must be thinking. “How can you remember all that?” Well, I don’t. It isn’t until I’m writing a scene, and what I’m writing triggers a memory of something I saw or heard, then if it fits the scene, I use it. But, most often it’s only snippets of a conversation or something I saw that I end up using. Journals are a wonderful thing though and can contain a treasure trove of useful info. Take what you can from real life and mold it like clay.

The pictures below of are my journal for my novel The Triunix of Time. As you can see from the warn tabs and such, it’s been used quite a bit.