IDEA #95. Keep a journal

The number of unopened, unused journals occupying the bedrooms of America’s children must be in the hundreds of thousands; journals seem to be popular gifts from hopeful older relatives who see in the child perhaps a kindred spirit, perhaps just an interesting or provocative voice. Keeping a journal requires both a desire to write and an inclination to keep a record of one’s own life, so it would seem, that few people actually possess. While we are not surprised to find that our favorite novelist has kept a journal since she was nine, we are stunned when we learn that a good friend has done the same—such is the rarity of journal-keeping.

By narrowing the notion of “journal,” however, it might be possible to find a model that would entice even the least prolific or literary-minded young person to take a flyer. Back at IDEA #20 here we suggested keeping a sketchbook, a kind of visual journal, but here we are more focused on the written word.

This may be a daunting idea, and literature abounds with novels in diary form that are detailed transcriptions of events that run to hundreds of pages. But rather than providing an exhaustive record, perhaps the interested child’s first journal could have a focus on specific activities—matters related to a hobby or a trip, say—or on responding to a particular issue in the world or in the individual’s life. It could even be a record in prose of some ongoing phenomenon, even the weather. A journal may also be finite, lasting only as long as one vacation or one family journey.

By reducing the scope of “journal” to something manageable, the idea of regularly writing something down may not seem quite so burdensome or overwhelming. And though the image of a journal is a leather-covered tome wrapped in ribbon and written in fountain pen, there is no reason that a journal cannot be kept on line or at least on a computer. The idea is to write, to record; the medium is immaterial.

And any journal is traditionally the private property of the keeper, to be shown only when and to whom the writer wishes. If your interested child decides it might be fun to keep a journal of some sort, parents and guardians and other nosy types are politely invited to KEEP OUT!