Using Your Journal Content

One of the disciplines I teach my clients is to use every bit of their content. And be as creative as possible. Last week, I had the opportunity to follow my own advice.

I finished my journal entry on the last page of the entire journal. The new journal was already waiting on my bedroom side table, but what should I do with the old journal? Use the content in as many ways as possible.

Armed with small sticky notes, I flipped through the older journal and scanned the entries. Some were written rantings which I mostly ignored. We do, after all, need a safe place to vent. But other entries contained my personal commentary on Bible verses, metaphors about something that happened that week, or detailed descriptions of my latest emotional or mental experience.

I marked the Bible commentaries for future studies I might write or teach. Though I don’t consider myself a scholar, God does sometimes reveal truths which later become part of the outline for a study. One example is the book I just published, Sustain Us, Oh Lord: Finding Strength When Life is Hard. That book was the result of my journal findings from a biblical search of the word ‘Sustain.’

The metaphors and similes in my journal were marked for possibilities as a future poem or even a nonfiction article, using the tool of creative nonfiction. Less is more, but when used effectively — metaphors and similes become creative ways to illustrate a topic. And sometimes, they add a bit of whimsy. One example was a nonfiction article I wrote several years ago where I described my adolescent son as the larvae of manhood. The editor who accepted the article loved that particular description.

My own journal experiences can easily become first-person articles which usually sell well in most magazines. No one can discredit our personal experiences, especially if they carry topics that are unusual or rarely seen. Or if they focus on some of the lesser celebrated holidays such as: Labor Day, Arbor Day, or National Eat Chocolate Day.

Personal experiences from the journal can also become the germ of a future memoir or a character in a short story or novel. My book, Reverend G Meets the Memory Thief, contains personal references that my family and I experienced regarding our parents’ dementia issues. Those journal entries added flavor to the book and some of the humorous situations kept the novel from becoming too dark.

So use your journal as a valuable tool to vent, to record your life, and to practice writing with consistency. Then use it as a resource for your next article, story, or book. Use every bit of your content to impact a reader’s life. But above all, keep writing.

©2025 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved

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Shameless promotion with two of my books mentioned above: Sustain Us, Oh Lord: Finding Strength When Life is Hard and Reverend G Meets the Memory Thief.