Keeping a journal, or perhaps several journals for different subjects, is one way to provide yourself with material to write essays, poems, and stories.
On the subject of nature writing, see Nature Writing. Scroll down to the "Table of Contents" and click on "naturewriting ideas". On the left side of your screen, click on "Thoreau's Model for Nature Writing" and you'll find an article with ideas about a nature writing journal. Back on the home page for the website Nature Writing you can scroll again to the "Table of Contents" and click on "nature journal" and find samples of journal entries by a number of writers of varying ages and interests. Interesting material there.
You can do a search on "journaling" and find all sorts of resources on the internet. Keeping journals is pretty easy to do for yourself, though. Just grab a notebook and start writing! You can have one journal for everything, or you can have several journals--such as one for writing, one for nature observations, one for spiritual thoughts, one for family history and information, etc. You don't have to write everyday. The main thing is to capture important ideas and information that you can refer back to.
Try it out!
4 comments:
I often think that I keep a pretty good mental record of events without journaling. When I do read enteries or even things I have posted on forums, it kind of surprises me how it brings something back that I may have stored away. I tend to white-wash my journal too much. I do think one can be positive and keeping not of what one is grateful for is important. However, it is important to see struggle as well. I marvel at some autobiographies and the details. I think that they relied on journals and Memoirs when writing.
On a different note, I started to read about the experiences on Walden by Thoreau. However, he said he never learned anything from an elderly person in the beginning part. Also, I was not sure if he was putting down farming as a profession. I can understand how he may feel that some put their cares too much on this world. I have a lot of respect for the family farmer. If he was prejudiced against those areas, I did not know if he was worthy of my time. I would be open to know if I missed out on anything in not reading further.
Barb, I am often surprised, too, when I go back and read a journal entry or something else I've written. It's easy to forget more than we realize! I also agree that while a journal ought to be positive, it's good to show the struggle. We can then show how we deal with it and sometimes that can inspire us later to persist in overcoming that struggle.
I love Walden! I come from a long line of farmers so I have a lot of respect for them. I haven't read Walden lately, but I think what Thoreau was protesting was needless destruction of nature. He may have wanted a lot less farming than would be practical, though. He seemed to have the idea that everyone could always live at a really simple level, but that just doesn't happen. Still, I love the overall ideas of Walden. It always makes me want to clean the clutter out of my life!
As I value your opinion, I plan to revisit Walden and glean from it what I can! :) I am glad that you keep this site going with ideas for writers!
Thank you, Barb! I really do think you'll enjoy most of Walden. His discussion of what he does and his descriptions of nature are great!
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