Write for yourself. If you write under the pretense of a "story" you are implicitly writing for somebody else.

>>7820965
I've tried doing this several times before but I always end up cringing at what I wrote 1-2 months later and give up. Not because there as anything particularly wrong with what I wrote, I'm not sure why I don't like it.

I just write whatever pops into my head. Normally I go over some things that stood out that day, like reading a good book or meeting someone neat. A lot of it tends to be about my relationships with certain people, and things that didn't happen that day but are bouncing around in my brain. When I started I tried to impress my imaginary audience with faux philosophy and big words, but I lost that eventually and now it's a really comfy experience. Don't try to recoed your whole day like a story. Release whatever's on your mind.

As for hiding, I generally put mine behind some tall books on a shelf, and hide the previous volumes by burying them in my closet.

>>7820966
I just feel like what I write will be read eventually. Like I'm not sure how to write something that isn't made for an audience. It is such a foreign concept.

>I just don't know what the fuck to do. I feel so lost. I'm not sure where I'm going.
It feels like I'm writing that to someone. I dunno.

>>7820977
That's your ego talking. Nobody cares to read your journal.

I've kept a journal since the start of the year, the absolute hardest thing to write in it was the very first sentence. Once that was done everything came out like a torrent. It helps my mind so much and unravels the stress

>>7820965

Yeah

Why would you want to complicate writing a journal for your future self? Write anything you want as long as it's readable/understandable years later.

I'm long-winded, had terrible handwriting, and was a bit paranoid so I sometimes coded some words into another language.

Those characteristics were a bad combination.

It was a devastating sore point when I was looking back at my earlier entries like: "I found a good 10/10 series after browsing from XXXXX. It's XXXXX work. Same genre as XXXXX, but XXXX and XXXX. Check entry XXXXX for earlier XXXXXX. XXXXX characters were..." or "I had a problem with XXXXX. After checking various sections, the solution was XXXXXX..."

Thus, some of my previous entries turned out to be mysterious things I can't solve.

Of course, you could try using a cipher if you're both paranoid and diligent in keeping up that system or else you'll even make more a mess with your journal writing.

>>7822417
I just write in sutterlin script.. No one can read it but me. So I can be an angsty bitter asshole all I want

>>7822457
Yeah, that's the stuff. Good idea. Be creative and specific enough on working with your paranoia that you can still unlock whatever it is you coded years later.

Wished I did my other journals under those rules in mind like you did. I just thought that my terrible illegible handwriting would be a deterrent as it is and now I can't read some of it.

I've been keeping a little book of dreams for about a year now, it's almost full and then I'll be moving on to another. Tried journaling in the past but it never took, so I'm really happy to have stuck with it this time.

>the absolute hardest thing to write in it was the very first sentence.
Now I'm curious, what did I first write down when I started journalling? I'll go find it quick.
>today contol was not maintained.
Holy crap, it's even cringier than I remember it being! Ahh, the dark depressing memories...

>>7822748
Whooa. That's neat, man. Good work on filling up that dream journal. When do you write them? How do you describe your dreams? How many dreams per entry?

I did that for a year and it was mostly an incoherent read. Sometimes it was a short single sentence like: "I dreamt I was walking down an endless autumn road." Other times it took up pages of disjointed dream rambling. I kept forgetting details since my dream remembrance jumped into various points of other dream threads.

Honestly how the fuck do you start off a journal? I'm thinking about just making it into a dream journal at this point since it's a lot less of a hassle

>>7823278
You don't really start it off. You just begin with a normal entry, as if you'd written one the night before, and the night before the night before, and so on. If you try to do anything special you'll cringe really hard if you ever go back to read it.

If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing, I'd tell him to keep a journal.

And yet I still don't do it now.

>>7823312
*quote about the best time to plant a tree *

This is one of those times anxiety has come in quite handy. I always have some thought or memory ricocheting around in my brain that I can emotionally and emphatically write about. Sure, it's usually something trivial, but it feels so good to get it out.

>>7823278
Listen to >>7823304. Why are you so hung up on creating the perfect journal entry? Were you expecting it to come alive one day and it'll spill your secrets ala Tom Riddle's hocrux diary?

A dream journal needs more work done to it since remembering and being aware of a dream is hard once you wake up. Of course, you could also try to create a journal of doing your own dream journal if you're out of ideas. :^)

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>>7820965
OP, I found your spirit animal.

>>7820977
Just start it as you want. It will be read eventually, by you. Whether it's to maintain your thoughts or to understand your process or to grow your storytelling, a journal will show you your mind over a long period of time.

To use one well you should probably know your reason for writing, so you can commit to it whether it's more technical or expressive pursuit, and not be concerned with things that have nothing to do with it. This takes knowing yourself as a writer, where you want to be with it, and how comfortable you are with your thoughts. At worst you cringe, at best you will have some inspiration, you'll probably just see yourself improve.

Also, Isn't it a bit embarrassing to have to hide it?

>>7820965
Just write it for you. The moment you'll set quality standards for your journal it wouldn't be a journal anymore. Just write what you think, even if that are just fragments of your thoughts.

Started a dream journal this morning. Thanks, brehs.

>>7823039
Thanks! When I said it's a little book, I meant it's really small (one of the tiny softcover moleskine journals), so I don't feel pressured to bloat my writing for the sake of filling up a page. I usually write in the morning but sometimes I won't remember a detail until later in the day, so I write whenever. My reason for starting it was to learn to recall my dreams better, so I don't really care about it being elaborately written. Yours sounds really similar!

>>7820975
I do what this guy does, and mine hides in plain site.

OP look into Denham's work on Frye's notebooks. Frye's style of keeping notebooks is a great way to avoid feeling pretentious or constantly asking for whom you're writing.

Write what's important to you. Go read Rilke's first letter to Kappus, on how to decide "what's important to you." Don't write every single thing that happens to you, and then try to "make it good." Find the seeds of goodness and uniqueness inside yourself and then develop them.

Hide it in your ass.