Why to write
On writing because you need to
Scroll to the bottom for: UK (Margate) and US (Chautauqua) speaking dates • Electricty gets a lovely mention in Stephen Fry’s Inside Your Mind podcast, which is also a great intro to neurodiversity and autism for anyone who’s curious •
If you ask me, I’ll tell you I don’t write a diary. I could never get into the habit of sitting down every day to log my actions. The same applies to a journal: I am nothing if not precise, and that ‘jour’ - meaning ‘day’ - bothers me. I never could commit to the regularity of anything.
I do write in a notebook though, all the time. I’ve written before about how I keep my notebook, and the kind of things I include in it. But today, I wanted to write something more personal about how writing in a notebook when I feel like it - no pressure, no obligation - helps me to cope with everyday life. This is all about the messy stuff - the words that are for no-one’s consumption but my own.
Writing is an incredible tool that most of us have freely available, all the time. It doesn’t replace the work of a therapist (I do both), but it is a form of therapy, a net in which to catch yourself. It makes me sad that most people come to associate it with display and attainment - this idea we get from school that it must be neat, and that it will be graded. It stifles us, makes us more worried about punctuation than the beautiful, fluid grammar of the self that flows out onto the page when we let it.
My own notebooks are mostly illegible, and littered with non sequiturs and wonky spelling. It doesn’t matter to me at all. They are completely private spaces in which to think, and I value them more than any other object in my life. All I do is talk to them with a pen - no fancy construction, no artifice, no self-consciousness. I just tell them how I feel. Actually, sometimes I can’t get to that right away. Sometimes, I just tell them what’s happened, and let it stand on the page, witnessed.
I don’t write every day, and I don’t worry about keeping an exact record of my life. I just open the book when I need to, and let my mind spill onto the page. It’s a deep relief to have this incredible technology of the soul at my fingertips. And so, today, for anyone who has never written in this way, I wanted to share the kinds of things that can be usefully written down. This is not a how to write, but a why to write.
Here are 10 reasons to open your own journal.
To work out what you think
I’m never sure how some people have such strong, instant opinions on everything. For me, it takes a little longer, and my notebook helps. By working through all my different thoughts on a matter, I can often come to some clarity. I have to admit, however, that notebooking tends to help me to see complexity. It makes it harder for me to adopt a simple position on anything. I don’t mind that at all.
To log fascination
One of the questions I get asked a lot about Enchantment is: ‘Are you born with it, or can you train yourself to have it?’ I always say that it’s a bit like a muscle: as you exercise it, your capacity grows. My notebook provides a forum for this - a place to record my fascinations and moments of wonder, and to play with them. For example, if I see a particular plant that I hadn’t noticed before, I might do a little research on it, and record that in my notebook, along with a sketch. I sometimes even press leaves between the pages. It deepens my relationship with these things, bringing them into my own life, and building my knowledge. That rebounds back into my sense of wonder the next time I see that same plant. It’s less like a muscle, and more like resonance.
To witness yourself
When I open my notebook, I’m just as likely to read as to write. I often go back through the last months and years simple to see my own concerns. As I don’t write every day, my entries tend to be written at the peaks and troughs of life, and I get a good sense of what excites or upsets me. What I notice, overall, is that my emotional states don’t last long, even if they seem intense at the time. It’s very helpful to know that. (By the way, a tip: I always leave the bookmark at the beginning on the previous note, rather on the next blank page. That way, I re-read it before I start writing something new. It gives me a feeling of continuity, especially when I haven’t written anything for a week or so.)
To be lost
It’s hard to be lost in real life - or rather, it’s hard to express a sense of lostness to other people. After I had my son, I spent years that felt like wandering in a metaphorical tundra, unable to know what direction to take. It was hard to talk about it, because I didn’t have any solutions; my thoughts were endlessly looping. Writing helped. It let me be lost in privacy, without having to see other people’s frustration at my lack of progress. I needed to be lost, and my notebook allowed me to work towards the answers as slowly as I had to.
To say boring things
A lot of my notebook entries are not exactly the substance of sparkling conversation; neither are they the kind of thing you could usefully tell your therapist. They are the mundane minutiae, important to me in the moment, but horribly boring in any other context. I just need to park them somewhere. What I’m trying to say is this: I have a gnat bite on my ankle, and it’s moderately itchy, and I’m just finding it kind of annoying, you know?
To find confluence
I promise I’m not just boring in my notebook. I spend a lot of time writing down ideas that nudge my thinking: quotes from books, notes from films or TV programmes, details of conversations I’ve had. One of the effects of this is to notice confluence, that experience of overlapping interests and ideas flowing together. Sometimes, all of life seems to chime with a common message, delivered through a range of different means. I see this rising up in my notes. It’s usually important.
To try out counterfactuals
What if… is one of the most useful questions we can ask in life - and notebooks are a safe testing-ground for these enquiries. For me, these are often creative alternatives. In the middle of my current book, I’ll spend a couple of days making intensive notes toward a different book that suddenly seems more appealing. Or I’ll sketch out projects that I could work on instead of my current career. I find this incredibly helpful. It often gets me unblocked when my work feels stale, and it encourages me to imagine different ways to live. Some of these ideas become realities for me; some of them are parked forever. But a lot of the time, they make me feel safe. Other lives are possible. If this all falls through, I have plans.
For somatic soothing
We don’t talk enough about writing as a physical act. Whether it’s pen on paper, or fingers rattling over a keyboard, writing is a way that I can find rhythm and ease through my body. When I’m feeling slow, I love moving an ink pen over creamy paper, carefully forming loops and lines, watching the ink pool in certain places and barely scuff the surface in others. When I’m wound tight, I love to type fast, taking pleasure in the percussive feedback on my fingertips and the glorious noise of frantic keys. Writing is a mind-body thing, all at once. It’s fantastically calming.
To make things real
I often find it hard to truly absorb new things - life changes, bad news, good news, and everything in-between. Writing them down inches them a little closer to being real. It doesn’t happen all in one go, but it lets me work on it. Seeing unfamiliar facts written down is very different to just thinking them. It brings them into the outside world.
To process complex experiences
In the outside world, time moves on very quickly, but in my notebook, things are a little slower. So something will happen - for example, I will discover that there is a hoard of Viking treasure buried in my back garden (this is not true) - and I will talk to my friends about it for a while but then everyone loses interest and I can’t talk about it anymore. In my notebook, the treasure carries on being a hot topic for months to come. That’s a pretty shallow example; in real life, I’m often processing more abstract concepts, like my relationship with my parents or my ever-changing career. I’m finding out how to think about those things, trying on different ideas until something sticks. It is the work of a lifetime, which is why I will always have a notebook by my side. Not because I’m going to write in it every day, but just in case I need to.
If you’d like some ideas for writing in your own notebook, I publish regular journaling prompts on Sundays.
For the next two weeks, I will be on holiday, and so I have some truly excellent guest posts lined up for you. Watch this space!
Take care,
Katherine
My next live appearances:
UK: Monday 15th July: Margate Book Shop with Dan Richards for his Climbing Days tour (no booking link yet but put it in your diary!).
USA: Friday 9th August: Chautauqua Institution, NY, speaking as part of the Interfaith Lecture Series. Details here.
If you think a friend or loved one would enjoy The Clearing by Katherine May, gift subscriptions are available here | Website | Buy: Enchantment UK /US | Buy: Wintering UK / US | Buy: The Electricity of Every Living Thing UK / US
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“A net in which to catch yourself”,love this, sums it up so well.
I’ve just re-started a journal/notebook/sketchbook thing and I needed to hear that it’s okay to just use it and spend time in it, not even every day, even just to look through it sometimes, and not aim for anything beyond boring and messy ; ) It is all about letting the grammar of self flow out - for me that’s the hard part, to let it flow out without passing through all those ‘should’ filters first, so maybe I’ll think of this notebook thing as a place to learn to do just that.