Journaling Tips for Writers

Journaling for creativity is incredibly useful for everyone, no matter what creative 
endeavors you have. Let’s start by talking about how it can help writers. This can be for 
any type of writer, whether you are an author (published or not), write poetry or long 
novels, are a blogger, technical writer, or just like to write as a hobby.

When you are a writer, you are similar to an artist. You give a part of yourself to this 
form of art, so by journaling, you are able to unleash what you have hiding deep inside. 
There is a reason experts often tell you that your first novel should be about what 
scares you or be about something you have personally experienced – because your 
own truth comes down as passion on the pages.

Here are some different ways you can use journaling for your writing.

Start with the Brain Dump

Yep, you guessed it, we’re starting with a brain dump! The brain dump is going to really 
channel what you have going on inside. It gets out not just your ideas, but your 
thoughts, feelings, feels, insecurities, and passions. 

These can all be put down on paper when you begin writing again, but for now, just 
write it all in your journal and see what you end up with.

Write Down All Your Ideas

The next step after you have finished the brain dump is to write down any other ideas 
you have come up with. This is where you aren’t just dumping all your thoughts in the 
journal, but specifically your ideas for what you want to write next. 

Remember this can be anything, depending on the type of writer you are or want to be. 
If you like writing for your blog, but are a little stuck, just write down some ideas of what 
you might be able to cover on the blog, and see if you can flesh out those ideas. 

For poets or story tellers, write down just some basic ideas. Maybe you don’t know the 
entire story yet, but you have an idea for the main plot, some of the characters names, 
or just where it is going to take place. 

Flesh Out the Ideas

If you haven’t done so already, flesh out these ideas that you have written down. Maybe 
as you were writing down a location and decade for your story, you thought of a few 
townspeople that you believe with add something to the story. Just flesh out any ideas 
you have written down and make notes for anything you can think of.

This is all part of the creative process. Writing a book is not linear. It will be a lot of note 
taking, back and forth, changing things up, and going through many edits before it’s 
complete.

Do Some Personal Journaling

Journaling for your creative writing spark isn’t just about journaling what you want to 
write, but journaling for yourself. This is also very important to channeling your inner 
creative soul. Personal journaling is when you do a simple stream of consciousness, 
where you just write down whatever comes to your mind.

It is not necessarily a brain dump of all your thoughts, but you just naturally let your pen 
tell you where you want the journaling to go. You might be stuck on one thing bothering 
you in your life and need to write it down. Other days, you just draw a little sketch of 
how you are feeling. 

Use Journaling Prompts

You are going to get some examples of journaling prompts to use in the last section, but 
one thing to know now is WHY you should use them. Journaling prompts are often used 
by people who want to write in their journal, but tend to get stuck on what to write about. 
Perhaps the first few weeks you did great, but then your brain kind of got stuck on what 
to journal about.

This is where journaling prompts come in. Prompts are simple statements or questions 
that tell you a topic to write about. Some are simple and only require journaling a 
sentence or two. You can leave it at that, or use prompts to really think about the topic 
and explore it more in your journal.

Write Poems or Short Stories

Lastly, journaling can help writers by actually writing some pieces of work right in your 
journal. Not just brain dumping or writing ideas, but using the journal as your creative 
space. Make sure you save these journals to look back on later!

Try just writing a little short story that is no longer than a page or two, or writing a poem 
about any topic on your mind. These are not only great exercises to get back into the 
habit of writing, but are a lot of fun! They can be very therapeutic for anyone who wants 
to journal and be a writer at the same time.

