The Provocation of Journal Writing

by Jan Marquart LCSW CAS Author

Journal writing is one of the tools and creative arts we can do anytime and anywhere. Ironic as it might seem, journal writing doesn’t have to be written in a journal. I’ve gone out to eat at times without my journal and had creative ideas flood my thought process. I then find myself writing on napkins, placemats, paper towels, order slips from a waitress, or some other piece of paper I can acquire. I spill my thoughts out as a list of words or sentences to be developed when I am in a more conducive place to be alone and write. If I don’t write when ideas come to me they soon enough become the ineffable and then they are lost forever.

If you don’t write often, the mere act of having sat once and written can feel like earning a four year college degree. However, if you write every day your small pieces of writing can turn into stories, poems, essays, venting monologues, dynamic dialogues, letters, visions, dreams, goals, therapeutic rants, or any other form of expression known to womankind.

That is why journal writing can be the most significant part of a day. It might lead you to make a more dignified choice in life, reveal that you have found a spiritual home, acknowledge that you feel something you hadn’t realized, and transform you to become a better you.

It isn’t just the written expression that is important when you journal write, it is where your private internal voice takes you through the written word that makes the difference. The written word is powerful.

I can speak directly to how journal writing changes a life because I have written daily since June 1972. As a psychotherapist I have witnessed clients overcome post traumatic stress distresses by writing through their pain and the fragmented pieces of horrible experiences. Every physician should recommend writing. 

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Jan Marquart is an author and facilitator of Story Circle Network classes. She’s CEO and Founder of About the Author Network.

Her class, 'The Provocation of Journal Writing' begins today. You can Sign Up Here.  You can also find Jan here: