Pens are free to run in writers’ journals
By Jennifer Bastien
April 28, 2010 9:00 p.m.
In a journal he kept while writing “The Grapes of Wrath,” novelist John Steinbeck wrote: “I have very grave doubts sometimes. I don’t want this to seem hurried. It must be just as slow and measured as the rest but I am sure of one thing ““ it isn’t the great book I had hoped it would be. It’s just a run-of-the-mill book. And the awful thing is that it is absolutely the best I can do. Now to work on it.”
This quote has comforted me in the past ““ when I do something I think may be awful ““ I tell myself it’s just because I’m hard on myself like Steinbeck, and it is probably a sign that whatever I’ve created is actually not as bad as I thought. This is just one reason why it’s nice for writers to keep journals. It’s all a matter of perspective.
Some more rational reasons that journals can be helpful are enumerated in a new book “Writers and Their Notebooks,” edited by UCLA Extension Writers’ Program instructor and author Diana M. Raab, which came out earlier this year.
The book is a collection of essays by more than 20 professional writers on their journal-writing practices. Most of all, it is a summons to follow their example and take notes.
When you read it, you can see why. The writers each have a different (but all overwhelmingly positive) relationship with their journals. For some, the journal serves as inspiration for a novel or poem; for others it is a travelogue, an emotional outlet (and in conjunction with that, a necessity for maintaining sanity) or a tool for research.
All of the writers mention the freedom they feel when writing in a journal ““ as a contrast to the assignments, deadlines and rules we are all used to. This freedom also means that they don’t have to worry about writing badly, because this is just the beginning, a first draft at best.
I couldn’t help but wonder, while perusing “Writers and Their Notebooks,” what great works of literature we might be missing if authors had not been brave enough to write down a really terrible first draft in a journal. The final line of Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises,” for example, underwent many mutations before becoming the iconic, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” And again, it should give you hope ““ perhaps the things you’ve created are just drafts and edits away from equaling the accomplishment of “The Sun Also Rises.”
The paradoxical counterpoint to this approach (the I’m-free-to-write-badly-because-this-is-just-a-journal side) is the fact that this very liberating way of writing can sometimes lead to a better output.
As novelist Robin Hemley writes in his reflection “On Meeting Yourself”: “This is often when I write my best work, when I’m not trying too hard to make “˜art.'”(College essay writers may replace the word “art” with “the grade” and find it even more relatable.)
Raab calls the notebook the writer’s studio or workshop ““ a warehouse as opposed to a museum. There’s no limit to what you can find in there.
Most importantly, each contributor to “Writers and Their Notebooks” makes sure to mention that journals are not just for the literary. Everyone has things to write down ““ they just might not realize it. In his reflection, Hemley notices the surprising way that noteworthy happenings seem to appear in his life.
“I find that when I carry my journal, things worthy of being recorded seem to pop up all around me, which leads me to suspect, of course, that these things are always happening around me.”
“The Written Word” runs every other Thursday. E-mail Bastien at [email protected].
