“I don’t have time to journal - I’m a Writer!”
How I started journaling to get better, faster and more creative as a Writer.
By Sally-Shakti Willow
“I don’t have time to journal, I’ve got a PhD to write!”
That’s what I used to think, when I was writing my PhD. A four-year, 80,000-word, 5-book project, that included researching, writing, publishing and performing poetry. And writing weekly book reviews for the small-publishing website run by my colleagues in the English Department at Westminster University. And teaching Literature and Creative Writing to undergraduates.
In all my years teaching, reading and writing professionally, I had never made time for personal journaling.
For one thing, I didn’t believe that sloppy, self-reflective writing was EVER going to make me any better as a serious, professional writer. I was focused on where I wanted to be going, and that meant professionalism, prestige and large amounts of perfectionism.
So I sat at my laptop. Every day.
With a word-count, and a target.
And, mostly, I didn’t write ANYTHING.
Image by Elisa Ventur via Unsplash.
I couldn’t get it right. The words wouldn’t come out how I wanted them to. It never sounded as good as it did in my head. So I would start a sentence and delete it. Start again and delete it. Start a paragraph and give up and go for a walk.
I walked along the beach in those days. The windy, wintry, sea-blown beach that wrenched the breath from my throat, and flung salt-sting into my eyes.
I was angry, upset and confused. I felt like I couldn’t say what I wanted or needed to say. Words evaded me and slipped from the blank page.
Time rattled by and outran me.
My PhD deadline loomed and passed me by – and I still hadn’t written my thesis. I applied for an extension, without reading the small print. And, whereas before I’d been getting funding to complete my research – just getting by on what I was making on top of that from my writing and teaching – now I was liable to pay over a thousand pounds in fees, which I simply didn’t have.
I asked my Mum to help me, and she had to stretch her finances to be able to support. Then the very real risk became apparent: if I didn’t complete my thesis on time, I would have to repay all the research funding I’d received. The total was into the tens of thousands and there was no way that either Mum’s or my budget would stretch to reach it.
I had to write.
I had to figure out a way to get my words onto the page. Seriously, and fast.
But everything I’d previously tried wasn’t working.
I’d TRIED sitting at the laptop with a word-count and an important target.
I’d TRIED planning out everything I wanted to say in bullet-pointed detail.
I’d TRIED going for cold walks along the beach to ‘clear my head’.
And none of it was helping. I still felt deeply disconnected from my writing and my own wisdom. I was afraid that what I wanted to say wasn’t valid. I was afraid of speaking my truth and saying something new and powerful and exposing. I was afraid that, underneath it all, I wasn’t really a good enough writer – just a big imposter with big ideas and a big vision – who should just. keep. quiet.
So, I tried something new and counter-intuitive.
I started to give myself permission to just write. To just express what I wanted and needed to say. I bought a notebook that I kept as a journal. And I allowed myself to write in it every day. Thoughts and feelings. Memories and visions. Dreams and intentions. Research ideas and imaginative connections.
I found that, the more I wrote, the more I actually freed myself to write.
Image by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
The more I gave space on the page to the parts of myself that didn’t fit into my thesis – the parts that I’d been trying to hide and suppress and dominate and eradicate for the past several years – the more space I was able to create for the writing that needed to happen on the screen.
The more permission I gave myself to be imaginative and expressive, the more my research came to life with new ideas and creative connections that I hadn’t been making while I felt under so much pressure to perform.
The more I stuck with my messy journaling, the more my professional writing became better – and easier – as a result.
I completed my thesis and submitted it before the deadline, for the first time ever.
I passed my PhD and became a ‘doctor’.
Now I write regularly and I help other Visionary Writers to write.
It’s what I do.
And the foundation that I always begin with, and always come back to, is journaling.
✍🏽
If you are a Visionary Writer who knows you have something BIG to say but you don’t know how to say it, you can pick up my Visionary Writer’s Mini-Guide to help you get started 🎉
I would love to be able to support you, too!
