The hardest thing about writing, for me, is facing the blank page.
Octavia Spencer
Hey, Lovelies.
I had the most wonderful and interesting message in my inbox yesterday, accompanying an order for one of my Planners and Journals. Part of it said this:
I’m so excited about this journal and this might seem like an odd request but I have purchased so many journals that are still empty because I find them intimidating so could I ask if you can do something/anything on the first page of the journal to start me off?
Of course, I answered that I would be delighted to do so.
But it got me to wondering.
Do you have that same kind of problem?
I have been journalling since I was eleven, and I find it one of the most nurturing and transformative activities in my life, but I understand that some of you struggle to work out how to start, or what to write about.
Would it be helpful for me to develop something to give you some simple and meaningful techniques and ideas to get you started and keep you going?
Give me your feedback in the comments. I’d love to see your blank pages become filled with the whisperings of your heart!
Love, words, and a library full of filled in journals, Nicole xx
PS – My Journeymaker’s Planner 2022 is filled with guided questions and prompts to get you writing too!
Dearest Nichole,
Just for thought. Observing oneself and being honest about the results is the hardest part. To start things of on a cheerful note, you could ask them to watch how many times they honestly smiled in a day. Pick any day, no stress, but it’d be nice if any of their loved ones chose the day for them. That way we are not trying to look like a bunch of goody two shoes in our journal. Just our honest rugged sweet selves.
Just for thought.
Lots of love, prayers and hugs,
Yes I would love a path into journaling flow xxx
That would be delightful and helpful!
Why not keep a nature journal? Write or draw what is growing and arriving around your home. It is bird migration time where I live. I realized that the summer red tanager was spotted on the very same date as the year before! It helps you get into the rhythm of nature.
I’ve decided a long time ago that journaling has no appeal for me. I am not wistful about missing decades of notes. Maybe it’s not the star I under which I was born…
Love to all xxx
Ps how did the haircut go ?
yes please – assistance greatly appreciated Nic Lorro x
LOL I think I need to donate all my blank journals to charity because besides not being able to start and mess up just one page the dilemma is compounded by which journal to choose. And then I decide they are too beautiful or I don’t have the perfect pen. Hilarious really now I’ve written that. Seriously though I stopped journalling when the critic was having way too much to say and the words spilling onto the page were just really destructive. Any tips to making journalling an enduring and positive process would be fabulous.
I thought I was the only person with that compounding pen issue!!
Hi Nicole, yes please, I really appreciate your help. I have purchased your journal for 2022, very new to this idea at 65. I am hoping to write each day as a new habit. I need all the help I can get. Hugs Cheryl
Gosh this community is just filled with gorgeous thoughts and feelings this morning!!! What a totally delightful and honest request from your correspondent. I wish her luck and I offer my understanding as I too have had that problem in the past. No doubt your contribution to the first page will strike the spark. My break through has been in finding a nice journal that I can buy over and over again and that is not so precious that I don’t feel the pressure of the words being good enough. I would definitely like some suggestions etc that you have mentioned. I too have written for most of my life, at times on and off. It is the best and most uncomplicated therapy around. Keep going! Keep trying! There is no word unworthy of being put onto the page. No thought. No feeling. All is welcome and transformed in this space.
I too have a hard time with a blank page. However, I can usually start all gung ho then just peter out. How do you keep it going?