Guest Post by Mariana Ashley

Writing about writing: 

The importance of a writing journal 

by Mariana Ashley

At one point I wrote so much I felt as though I was going crazy.

On top of my freelance writing duties, I try to write a little bit of my own fiction on the side every day or at least a few times a week. If I’m really on a roll, I could be writing over 3000 words a day counting my professional writing and the fiction that I do in my spare time. I wish I had more of those days, but sometimes I just don’t have the energy to produce content constantly.

About a year ago, amidst a particularly grueling week of writing, I found read a post from some writing blog (I can’t remember the name for the life of me) that advocated for keeping up a writing journal. Is this person out of their mind? I thought. I’m putting in tons of hours to write for work and for my own personal enjoyment, and now it’s expected that I keep up a journal too? How could a person possibly cope with that much time in front of a page? 

Despite my misgivings, I tried keeping a journal on the side of everything else. The post made it very clear that this writing journal was meant solely for you to express how you were feeling at that moment, no matter what was on your mind. Relationships, writing habits, career ambitions, and general musings were all fair game. The writing journal isn’t about sketching out a new story or figuring out the next plot point in your novel; it’s time for you to reflect on you.

According to the blogger, the point of the writing journal was for you to wrestle with any emotions or troubles that kept you from making progress or breaking through on your other work. Rather than sublimate and dismiss any negative emotions, you could feel free to write them out in full in the journal.

I can’t even begin to articulate what the writing journal did for me. I had been plagued with doubt about so many writing projects at the time that it had seriously affected the quality and quantity of my writing. Once I started working out those doubts and inhibitions on paper, I could see clearly that the things that worried me and kept me up at night had no basis in reality—they were just negative thoughts that kept me from taking serious leaps in my work. I worried too much about how people would receive my writing rather than take the time to actually develop and shape it. Seeing these thoughts splayed out on the journal was like a revelation.

Now I write in my writing journal almost every day. It’s an indispensable tool for keeping my emotions in check and staying level headed when the writing process because particularly grueling and difficult. I recommend a writing journal for any writer, if just to get in touch with your emotions.

Do you keep a journal of any sort? I’d love to hear about it!

BIO: This guest post is brought to you by Mariana Ashley, a prolific blogger who provides web content to a number of blogs and websites. She's most interested in providing guidance to prospective college students who wish to attend online colleges in Montana. When she's not writing or researching online education trends, she enjoys riding her horse, George, and spending quality time with her four nieces. Mariana welcomes your questions and comments at mariana.ashley031@gmail.com.

Guest Post by Mariana Ashley

Hearing Voices: A Brief Guide to Writing

by Mariana Ashley

We writers are a strange breed. Often idealistic, we also have to realists; often introverted, we are “people-people,” fascinated with everything outside ourselves. We also tend to classify ourselves as writers before we have written anything—this at least is my vice.

I am fortunate enough to write for a living, but that only makes days when I don’t write all the more hypocritical. In all my years of writing, there is one question that I am still unable, no matter how deeply I research it, how frequently I ponder it, or how desperately I agonize over it, to answer: Why is it so hard to write?

The search for an answer to that question has produced several conclusions, mostly about psychology, anthropology, and whether or not I should seek professional counseling for wanting to write in the first place.

What asking that question has not done, however, is force me to write.

If I have learned anything from my pursuit of the writing craft, it is that second-guessing the pursuit gets us nowhere. Anyone with enough courage to call herself an artist of any sort will also inevitably contend with self-doubt; art is an unconventional career path, and one that does not provide easy answers.

To be a successful writer, you only have to do one thing—write. Take your dream seriously. This advice is certainly easier said than done, but if you follow it, you’ll be writing your way to fame faster than you ever thought possible (I’m assuming here that, like me, you sometimes feel like it will never be possible, therefore any time frame will be faster).

There’s nothing easier to listen and/or give in to the many voices in your head telling you not to write, for whatever reason—don’t worry, those voices are normal, I looked into it. Half of the challenge of being a writer is finding ways to outsmart and out-connive those voices. But there are some devices that have helped me when all I could see was the vast emptiness of a blank page, and all I could hear was the belittling voices of my subconscious.

• Write like clockwork. You’ll hear a lot of talk about your “creative times” and some crazy theories about when you are most attuned to the Muse’s song—don’t listen to it. Pick a time to write, and write for an hour. Every day. Wake up at 7am and write for an hour before work; write for an hour right when you get home; write for an hour before you go to sleep. It doesn’t matter when you write, just make writing a consistent thing in your life.

• Set goals. During your one hour writing slot, have a goal to meet, no matter how absurd. In fact, sometimes crazier goals make for more productive writing sessions. Tell yourself you’re going to write one full page, two full pages, a new character, a synopsis of your story, an outline, anything. It’s easier to break your art down in to pieces than it is to sit down once every six months and try to write the next great American novel.

• Just do something. You won’t be inspired every time you sit down to write, so don’t expect yourself to be. And don’t just write when you’re inspired either. If you’re stuck, paralyzed, bored, beaten down, just take the pressure off yourself by writing something unrelated to your current project. Do a character sketch, try to recall a conversation you heard during the day, write a haiku, imagine an alternate ending to your day, make up a fairy tale, call a friend and talk non-sense. It is more the act and process of creating than the final product that inspires.

You’ll never get anywhere by questioning your abilities or lamenting your creative block. Learn to tune out the voices that would impede you, and you will have learned your secret to success. And always remember: if you’re writing, you’re on the right track.

Bio: Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031@gmail.com.