I was at the initial class of a program that I will be teaching in creative writing yesterday. I discussed journalling with the class. The topic of sharing your journalling came up.
I think this is a bad idea. Why? The journalling is really an exercise in silencing your inner critic and idea mining. If you start sharing your journalling in the raw form that its in, you will eventually silence your free thought. Journalling, if done freely, should read like a stream of consciousness. Topics change quickly and can be returned to. Listen to the topics that you continually return to. These types of topics may be your blood line or vein of gold as some call it.
Your journal should never be shared in its raw stage. Why would you take the risk of drying up your source of ideas for longer, more polished works.
This blog is really like journalling to a certain degree. These are thoughts straight out of my head to screen, unpolished. Am I failing to follow my own advice? I don't think so. That's mainly because I know the exact purpose of what I want from this project. At some point I would like a discussion of some of my ideas but right now the blog is simply primary source material for potential projects so I'm okay with it. If someone was to write that my writing lacked sparkle and shine, I wouldn't mind as it isn't suppose to sparkle at this point.
Journalling technique taught to the emerging writer must stress the privacy of thise writings, those ideas until they are in a polished state to be shared. If you don't do this, the emerging writer may creep back into the sideline shadows letting their own stories shrivel away.
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