Keeping a Journal — New Voodou

Last evening Julia Cameron was signing books at Collected Works, a local favorite bookstore. I didn't go as I have attended her workshops several times before and have been writing the "morning pages" she advocates in her book The Artist's Way for 30 years. But she has been on my mind because with the arrival of the new year talk of journal keeping and diaries has been all over my reading including Substacks from Austin Kleon and Rob Walker as well as the New York Times opinion page piece "How to Go Back in Time." All these writers recommend daily journaling of some kind. Walker's brief jots are a diary of passing moments. The more obsessive Kleon keeps four notebooks —a logbook with lists of daily activities, a pocket notebook for random ideas out in the world, commonplace diary for collecting quotes and ideas and a true diary. In the NYT John Searles recommends writing down what you will want to remember in the future.

My morning pages practice began in earnest about 1994 with my discovery of Cameron's book, subtitled, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, maybe a little woo-woo for me but... In the beginning I worked diligently through her 12 week "course" writing my three pages a day, answering her challenging questions, and taking myself on a weekly artist's date alone. Over the years what stayed with me was the daily journaling — me writing to stay in touch with myself, to figure out what I want to accomplish, sometimes to help me get out of my own way. Happy times or sad, I turn to my journal.

Most often I write in bed, I am of the tribe of the bed people. I have written in my own beds in New York, in Cambridge, in Santa Monica and Venice and here in Santa Fe. I have written in hotel rooms and cafes in Paris, London, Mexico City, Milan, and Cannes. I have written on plans and trains. Years before discovering Julia Cameron, I wrote in small notebooks on my daily Amtrak commutes between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Journaling that helped me get off the train and become a consultant.

Over the years, I have taken my notebooks to a variety of workshops and for the last three summers I have been a part Jami Attenberg's 1000 Words a Day for two weeks in June. While I confess that I didn't have a clear picture of what kind of creative work I wanted when I began all this writing, I now have a published book and another ready to go, both filled with my stories and photographs. Apart from my journal I write regularly, small stories, mini memoirs and these Practical Voodou posts. It turns out I want to be a storyteller.

Nota Bene: My choice of notebook has evolved from days of the little train journals to today's Rhodia notebooks with their smooth Clairefontaine pages. The paper in the popular Moleskine notebooks bleeds my fountain pen ink to the next page, halfway through a regular legal pad my left-hand bumps against the previous pages. As for pens I currently use an inexpensive LAMY, although I used a beautiful Parker, a gift from Jeff, for years. Its leaking and needs a trip to the fountain pen hospital.