Hello! Your most recent post about “things you like to write by hand” really made me curious about your journaling process for your book. What do you use your writing journal for? How do you use it to help your writing? If you could detail a little more of

Hi there! So my journals are very very messy. I really don’t have a process, but I find that sometimes writing by hand really helps me nail a scene or helps me overcome a momentary bout of writer’s block. 

To give you a better idea, I have about 6 journals going as of the moment. I pick up whichever one is closest to me and find a blank page and write on it. Typically, I write flashes of future scenes that I haven’t reached yet in the narrative and that I don’t want to forget. I’ll write snippets of dialogue and conversations that also come to me suddenly. If I feel stuck in the setting or scenery, I will write it out, because writing by hand requires me to write slow and deliberate. It forces me to weigh every word, whereas sometimes typing doesn’t do that (and I type extremely fast). 

Some scenes, such as romantic ones, seem to flow better when I write by hand because, again, it’s forcing me to slow down, to feel the tension in the moment.

I end up writing many random scenes and snippets, some of which will never get used, but if it helps me get over my writer’s block or a moment where I lack inspiration, I feel like it’s all worth it in the end.

I probably should be better organized about it. Although somehow I always magically remember which journal I wrote certain things in.