I used to keep journals in the fancy ones. I think I had 3 I actually filled. A few years ago, when I realized I hadn't written in one in over 15 years, I threw them all out. I tried starting a new one and I just couldn't write in it. My writing ends up in all different places, now. On the computer, in a little spiral notebook in my purse. Sometimes, even on store receipts when I can't find anything else. Because I finally realized, that while the writing might be unique, it really wasn't precious. I think I finally realized the concept of "kill your darlings" when I was able to throw away something I'd written.

Connie, did you get my return e? I couldn't open the file because for some reason my computer can't "find" Notepad. No idea what that's about.

Yes, I did, and I sent--I think--a reply with a Word6 file from my WordPad.

Just got it, connie! I'll read it now.

Fuck the person who tells me what to feel. But I am curious about what they feel.

This, and I also want to know *why* they feel what they feel. I have a hard time explaining my opinions sometimes; I read criticism in part to enhance the vocabulary of my mind.

As for what to write in ... I have a composition book that I'm using to do writing exercises, and I think it frees my brain a little. Though of course, if I ever do anything worth keeping in there, I'll have to retype it (I can't handwrite more than a page or three before my hand starts to kill me), and that's never fun.

I like white, college-ruled legal pads. I get weird about pretty little journals, too, and I always try to make them for something specific, like only for ideas about one particular project, but it never works and I wind up writing grocery lists and odd snatches of other things, too.

I bought one for my dh, and each of my kids this Christmas, but as a gift with a twist. I wrote on the first page that it was a Give Back Book. They had to give it back to me, as soon as they read page one. Throughout the year, I will use the journals to write to or about each of them. Next Christmas, they'll get what I've written as a present.

And I thunked it up, all by myself.

(Now let's just see if I do it.)

t not really here, since I'm copyediting like a good girl

Throughout the year, I will use the journals to write to or about each of them.

I love this idea! When Jake was a baby, I started a Mother's Day journal, where every Mother's Day I was going to write about him, and being a mom, and what we'd learned or done or laughed about together.

It didn't last long. Then I thought I would do the same on each of the kids' birthdays. That didn't work out so well, either. Which was kind of why I decided to do the New Year's summary, for lack of a better word, about the family as a whole, but it's not very personal.

I resolve to try this again! Birthday books for each of the kids! (If you do yours, I'll do mine...)

t /not really here, since I'm copyediting like a good girl

that's a great idea, Cindy.

Connie, mine got here as a plain text attachment consisting of a few odd heiroglyphic squiggles, and nothing else. Wanna read, damn it.

No notebooks for me. I'm a computer writer, the same way I used to be a typewriter writer. I'll make notes in passing, or if I'm away from the computer, research notes and just sensations that will find their way in to the book eventually, but not prose.

These days, even if I did write that way, my ms-ridden wrists wouldn't allow it. Typing's just way easier and I write very quickly, a state of work for which the speed of the computer is a humongous plus.

Thanks, erika.

I resolve to try this again! Birthday books for each of the kids! (If you do yours, I'll do mine...)

I was going to be more structured about it, like Scott on Mondays, Ben on Tuesdays, etc., but then I knew it would feel like a chore. I do write about them each from time to time though, and think to write more, but sometimes, the subjects are too personal to them to post on the web. So, I figured now, I have a place to put it. Let's hope next Dec. 24, I'm not trawling through my own LJ, looking for something to desperately copy into the journals. *g*

The wife's speed awes me, as I've written many times, the inner Munchkin wants me to say I uh, make it up in stamina. But in every other way, Deb is me here. I sometimes miss the productive-sounding clicking of typewriters, too.