Your Info (New Era)

Writing What’s Wrong … and Right

by Jeanette Goates Smith


When you catch the greater vision of keeping a journal, you’ll find it can become one of your best friends. Here are some hints to inspire you.

Joys of a Journal
Jeanette Goates Smith, “FYI: For Your Info,” New Era, Sept. 1991, 40


As you write in your journal, you’ll discover benefits such as these:
—Your journal can help you make difficult decisions.
—Your journal can be a positive way to get rid of anger.
—Your journal can help you think clearly when you’re confused.
—Your journal can help you understand yourself better.
—Your journal can make you a better person, since knowing that you’re going to record your actions can encourage you to do worthwhile things.

Spicing It Up

To make your journal more interesting, you might try a few of the following suggestions:
• If you like to draw, include a few sketches or cartoons to illustrate your entry. Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words.
• If you’re not artistic, clip a comic from the newspaper that illustrates your feelings.
• Tape or paste in relevant photographs or ticket stubs or programs that are souvenirs from the event you’re describing.
• Add pages from your day planner, if you keep one, to give an idea of the daily things you do. Or write your journal directly in your day planner.
• Remember to date every entry and include the location and full names of the people you’re writing about.
• Try using subtitles. They’ll help you locate a particular subject or event at a later date.
• Include poems or quotations that catch your attention. Write them in an interesting way so they stand out.
• Use color. Pens, stickers and photos work nicely.

The Miracles of Modern Technology

What? You mean you don’t like to write? You don’t get off that easy. Modern technology offers you a choice when it comes to journal keeping:
1. Write on the computer and keep your entries on a hard drive, a floppy disk, or make a hard copy and destroy the electronic evidence.
2. Record your feelings on a cassette tape. Don’t forget to index each tape.
3. Make a video journal. Film yourself talking about recent events, and interview the people involved.
4. Use something unique to record your experiences. You don’t have to use a serious, hardback book with Journal written across it. There are all sorts of fun binders and notebooks available.

Start Up

Having a hard time figuring out where to begin? Try filling in the blanks of the following sentences for starters.
Whenever I have free time I like to ____________.
I was so happy/sad when ____________.
I like/don’t like because ____________.
When I go to church I feel ____________.
I laughed/cried so hard when ____________.
I want people to know me as the one who ____________.
(person you admire) is so ____________; I wish I could ____________ like he/she does.
When I meet the Savior, I want him to say to me ____________.
If I could change on thing about my life, it would be ____________.

P.S. Don’t feel like you have to write every day, but catch yourself if you let more than a week pass without writing in your journal.