Scribbles by ME

Diary/Journal/Blogs: Give me a Writer's Notebook

I would suppose a diary is a cute little book with a lock on it that I wrote in when I was in middle school.  Dear Diary:  Today I ate hot dogs, flunked a pop test, slapped Johnny, kissed Donnie, and watched I Love Lucy.  Talk to you tomorrow.  Me

I have no clue what a blog is.  I have no idea how it is supposed to be used or why someone would want to read mine.  Having been a motivational speaker for several years and as a teacher, I tend to give advice.  Or, I might just tell you about the joy I had with my grandchildren during Christmas. In the "olden days" I might have given you a piece of my mind or cut you to the quick with my words.  But, I have decided to try and "blog" whatever that is as many days as I can this year.  So, if you can tell me what I should be writing in a blog, that would be most helpful.  Then, I could get on with my life.

I use Journals in different ways, probably because I sponsor a high school writing club and I have them set up a Writer's Notebook.  I use the word Journal interchangeably with Notebook and the kids can call it whatever they want.  To an English teacher I believe the term Journal applies to student's responding to prompts--like the dreaded: Tell me how you spent your Christmas vacation.  Or, you might ask your students to reflect on Billy Budd as Jesus Christ.  Or, compare your life to Juliet Capulet.

Here is how I ask my students to use a Writer's Notebook: 
Get a notebook--I prefer they use something around the 9.5 x 7.5 to 8.5x 11 size.  Then we divide it into five sections:  Journaling, Lists, Ideas, Crafting, Pictures. 
Journaling:  I give them topics to free-write on or they may pick their own
Ideas:  This is  where they put their writing ideas. Personal stories they might want to tell.  For stories I tell them to be sure and look at the newspapers and magazines for Stranger than Fiction story ideas.  For instance, we found one about a soldier being changed for his destroyed bullet proof vest when he was injured!
Lists:  We divide these pages into smaller  groups of pages ( 2 or 3)  and make pages for lists like:  sayings they like; Words they like and want to use sometime;  pieces of conversations they hear that are intriguing;  Names for people they might use; quotes they make up; descriptions they think of;  etc.
Crafting;  This is all about the craft of writing.  Overcoming writer's block; poetry forms; How to edit; How to review a piece for others, information from famous author interviews that might help them.
Pictures: Whatever they fancy.  I find that pictures help me to write poetry or whatever it is I do that I list under poetry.  When I wrote a novel once, I had pictures of all my characters, homes where they lived, city maps, school buildings and other buildings and places in the book.  That was helpful. 

If the kids don't like these sections, they may use whatever they want as long as they have the Journaling one we call Scribbles and the Lists sections.  I usually give them five entries to write over a two week period--You are a trash can outside the Italian restaurant, tell me how you night's going; or What attributes do you think a good friend should have and how many of these do you have and use yourself?  Students do not have to use my prompts.  I encourage them to write about what is on their mind, about what's happening in their life, or what they see themselves doing in 10 years.

Personally, a diary or journal does not work for me.  I have my Writer's Notebook and a spiral notebook where I do rough drafts.  I love to write with pencils and can't think as well on a computer.  I rarely post anything on wdc unless I have edited well.  I notice some people must put their rough drafts up.  I don't think I would want someone to see my first five drafts or so.    But, those are just my idiosyncrasies.