Sunday, August 23, 2009

Journal? Nah. Blog? Yeah. Part 1

It’s not easy writing a journal. It’s a lot easier to write a blog. Let me explain.

In elementary school, the teacher made us write little compositions: “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” and “What I Did This Weekend,” and “Things I Like to Do.” That was fun. After all, we were kids and highly impressionable.

In intermediate school, my English teacher encouraged us to write journals – something about something every day. I could never get into that. I was too busy with pre-teen activities. Then in high school, I had my news writing class to fulfill my writing urge.

In college, I was much too busy to keep a journal. And then I started working, and who has time to write for pleasure? Honestly, I just couldn’t figure out why and how people could keep diaries to record their inner-most thoughts. Everything just seemed so … personal.

About 10 years ago, I saw a blank journal book on sale at Barnes & Noble. Aha! This was the incentive I needed to begin my incredible journal journey. It was beautifully bound, smartly masculine distinctive. I had just bought a $400 Waterman’s fountain pen and could use it to indelibly record my inner-most thoughts – finally.

My first entry was a page-long description of what I was going to write in the journal, the discipline I would instill in myself – including things like: No writing drafts on a computer, only using my fountain pen, thinking through what I wanted to write before putting ink to paper … you know, parameters and stuff.

Guess what. Yep, you got it. That was my first and only journal entry.

Two weeks later, I carefully tore out the used page and gave the blank journal book to my wife. She said she wanted it for work, but I never saw her use it. It’s probably sitting in a desk drawer somewhere, rusting away.

End of hand-written journal. May it rest in peace.

Tomorrow: Blogging

2 comments:

R. said...

I've never been much of a journaler either. Do you still have the Waterman pen?

Craig Miyamoto said...

Yes, I still have the pen. It's a companion to a Waterman ballpoint pen my students gave me when I left the University of Hawaii to rejoin the PR agency I was formerly with.