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My hard-core journal writing started in college. I saw my room mate writing day after day...and there were times she was so excited about her entry, she would read some pages to me. It intrigued me. I was fascinated. It was time to give writing in a journal a try.

My journals have evolved over the years. At first that precious book was just for writing my thoughts and experiences, but life started getting weighed down by the books I was carrying. I had a sketch book because I liked art. Like the writing journal, I needed to keep at it everyday. I also needed the date and appointment book to write down all the "to do" things in my life. It was time to consolidate. What a freeing experience! Everything is now packed into one journal. Some pages have art sketches, some have the "to do" lists. There are big bold asterisks reminding me to pray for someone or something. Written in my journal are sermon notes, poems, and parts of songs, and I've even stapled in a wedding or birth announcement here and there. Of course I've written about those experiences too. The stapled add-ins were a bonus. My journal is has become very precious to me. It holds so much!

Sadly and stupidly, I have lost a few journals. Once, I thought someone stole a journal because it was brand new and had a beautiful horse on the cover. I was upset because I had written some good poems in it. Now they were lost forever. One word of advice...if something is important to you like a poem or a song, make sure you have another copy of it in a safe place. A month later I found my journal at the horse pasture laying on a stump. I had been filling the water trough and was called away quickly, leaving the journal. Another time, I received a package in the mail. It was one of my journals that had been left at the insurance office. It had been there for two years! Another word of advice: make sure you date your journal entries. Writing down the date each day will certainly help later in life. As you get older the dates of things get blurred together. As I flipped through the returned journal I found sermon notes, quotes, a few funny real life stories, and a few prayers about the frustrations and financial woes in my life. I caught my breath...was there anything in that journal others should not have read?

Some writers don't care what they write about, but I've heard of horror stories about fights in families when "unmentionable things" were written in a diary. That particular writer got into a whole lot of trouble

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