LESSON: Using a Journal Entry

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by lovelyxmalia, Nov 6, 2007.

  1. lovelyxmalia

    lovelyxmalia Banana Hammock Lifetime Supporter

    Messages:
    5,536
    Likes Received:
    9
    This topic may not pertain to you if you don't keep a journal. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I am an avid believer in journal writing. It is a stress reliever, a creativity booster, and an educator all in one. The things you learn about yourself and different writing techniques are endless. Consider a journal to be a narrator of your life/thoughts.

    I want those of you who do keep a journal to take an entry that you find to be different from most; an entry with ENERGY and elaborate on the thoughts you jotted down in that entry. Take that single thought/idea and pick it apart piece by piece and make something beautiful out of it.

    My entry of choice would be the entry I wrote about settling down:

    It hit me today, while listening to the radio on my way to class. They were talking about remembering their first phone number from the first place they ever lived.

    765-5175 Massachusetts
    281-6399 Pennsylvania
    248-5159 Massachusetts
    928-0407 Connecticut
    963-2080 Connecticut
    764-8211 Massachusetts
    267-1837 Massachusetts
    764-2354 Massachusetts

    I remember all of my telephone numbers. The sad thing is...I had all of these telephone numbers in a 4 year span of time. From 6th grade to 10th grade, these are all of the places I've lived.

    I understand now why I can not commit; why I need constant change. It is due to my inability to settle. I moved around so much during my most impressionable years; the years I learned the most about life and myself. I got off on the wrong foot of life during those years.

    My goal in life is like any others... To build a beautiful home that I can call "home" and live happily ever after there. Will I be able to do that? Will I be able to face the fear of settling down and commit to my life-long goal?

    At this moment in my life, I do not know what I want. I am facing these dead end streets with every hobby, job, relationship. Am I bored with them? Am I scared of them? I am out experimenting with my life. It's my newest project-learning what
    my life is. Who is the girl behind the mask?



     
  2. yarapario

    yarapario Village Elder

    Messages:
    2,242
    Likes Received:
    9
    Journal entry; 8/1/__ Going upriver, pass some houses, no walls, thatched roof, folks are naked, comfortable, Some fishing, kids swimming. Paradise and poverty all wrapped together a, balance of both. I want to go further into this jungle, farther from all of the world I know. I'm not trying to deny my world, this world is seducing me...with its beauty, its mystery. I can't explain this place, maybe I should live here, raise a kid here along the river bank, listen to the River, learn from the kid, grow my soul.

    As I re read these words from a dozen years, I think immediately back to the photogragh exercise, the kid with a bucket of kittens. The feelings are the same, I want to be important to someone. I'm heading for my wild place, my hideout. I'm gonna have myself brothers after all. I'm going to vanish into a world so wild and foriegn that it is the definition of mystery itself. I returned to "The Mother" the jungle as metaphor for the womb of life. From that place, from that womb, I found my brother...in that finding, I found me.

    As a footnote to this, as I lie on my bed typing this post, a beautiful copper kid is lying beside me. He is 14 now, much older than the little wild boy I first saw all those years ago. He's working on his English assignment. It's hard for him, English is not his first language. He and I are a long way from that River bank, he is not my brother, he is my son. Adopted, and now living here with me, he, too, is in a world foriegn and mysterious to him. He is my second son from the jungle, he has a brother, now in college, whom I also adopted. They have taught me much. We go back there as often as we can. Next summer we'll be there for a couple of months. Once again I'll be home, along that River, In that jungle, with my brothers.
     
  3. Bilby

    Bilby Lifetime Supporter and Freerangertarian Super Moderator

    Messages:
    5,625
    Likes Received:
    1,781
    How could I improve the style of writing in my Journal?
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice