Journal Writing

For the past few weeks I have been keeping a daily journal reflecting on my day to day life. I have attempted to keep journals in the past but have never been able to stick to it, but the BAPP Arts course tasks has helped me to view journal writing in a different way. I started out writing a day to day account of what I had done each day but this soon got very boring. It was as though I was writing a calender of events that had already happened, so I have been looking into different journal writing styles and ideas. Here are a few ideas I tried and am still experimenting with;


- Choosing a word to summarise and conclude the day I had had. For example one day I chose the word "grateful". I had just done a performance and had the post show adrenaline and excitement. I reflected on how "grateful" I was for the opportunities I am given, the supportive family and friends I have and how thankful I am to be pursuing my dream.  

- Using Images- After reading through Paula's slideshow on using visual arts in a journal I tried the idea of "visual language". I am big fan of Instagram and check it regularly, I am constantly liking photos I see many of which can be connected to my life, many including quotes. I tried choosing an image a day that I had 'liked' and wrote about its meaning to me. For example an account I follow posted a simple black and white image of a quote saying "today is the beginning of anything you want". I took this and wrote in my journal about how "I shouldn't be discouraged my limitations" and how "I want to start viewing each day as an opportunity to do new things or do the same day to day things with a different spirt" and not "feel trapped into doing things how they have always been done."

-Doodling- another idea I grabbed from Paula's blog post. When struggling to find something interesting and inspiring to write about in my journal I took my pen and attempted to draw my day. The map of my day looked like a mess of squiggles at the end and I didn't personally find it a useful journal writing prompt but it did inspire me to maybe use the idea in the future as a choreography prompt. I had the idea of mapping out an event with a doodle and using the line my pen took to inspire certain movements.

- Corrections and rehearsals- I have been keeping a separate journal for specific dance corrections and rehearsal notes. In this book I log specific corrections I get in class or specific notes I get in rehearsals. Writing down these points helps me to remember them and think about them in more detail. Then when I come to class and rehearsals these specific points are more vivid in my mind and I think more about them whilst dancing which speeds up my improvement and understanding of how movements should be performed.

I really encourages those others of you keeping a journal to try out different methods and styles of writing it! Would love to hear any other ideas people have had on how to go about writing journals as opposed to just writing a account of a day?!