Sometime last week – possibly 9 days ago if you want to find it – I wrote about why I’m writing this journal (Journalling, 25 Feb 2021). Today, I woke up thinking a little more about how I write and how some of this insight might help others benefit from writing too.
As a professional writer, I’ve definitely given quite a few folk pointers on how to write that essay, letter, article, bio or anything they might need help with. It sounds simple, but it often starts with going back to the basics: the beginning, the middle and the end.
The beginning is the introduction, setting the scene for what’s to come. When writing an article, these often follow what I call a sell and others call a standfirst: a short 20-word summary of the beginning, the middle and the end, or a precursor to it. I call it a sell, because that’s how it was taught to me but it also makes sense and is a super helpful device. The sell draws readers in, it suggests the angle, it entices and promotes. Even if you don’t need or want one as part of your writing, it can be structurally beneficial to have a sell in mind.
This journal is more of a stream of consciousness but I’m usually still aware of the general theme of what I’m going to write before I begin. I’ll probably have an angle, which means I’m thinking about a title too. I’ve called this entry ‘Wild Words’ already, as a reminder of what I want to share about this journal the most. If it needed a sell it would be something like: ‘Keeping a nature journal – therapy in observation and imagination’.
As this journal is technically public, it’s not the place where I’m sharing every last detail of my life. It’s not a bare all, unleash the skeletons from the cupboard kind of thing. But it is an honest account of my days, of the mundanities of life but also the otherworldliness. Things I do, things I observe, things I think about and imagine. Interestingly the word mundane is usually interpreted as boring, repetitive, tedious and everyday but it can also mean earthly and worldly as opposed to spiritual or heavenly. There is more power in mundanity than we think.
For me, the easiest way to connect these aspects of our lives is through nature and thus that is a common thread throughout it all (for the past 10 weeks, that and homeschooling!). Writing about nature, gardening, making botanical artwork – it all involves looking closer at plants and flowers. But it doesn’t stop there. It always leads to thoughts and ideas about the bigger picture.
Observe a ginkgo tree, for example, and you might just see a beautiful green or yellow leaved tree. Look closer and you’ll notice it’s fan shaped leaves. Think about if you’ve ever seen this shape leaf anywhere else and marvel at its uniqueness. Look it up and discover that it is a living fossil. Ginkgo biloba: the only living species in the division Ginkgophyta, all the others being extinct. There are fossils of this plant dating back 270 million years. Thus we know that trees were around at this time, certainly this tree. Evidence shows that it has been widely cultivated in China and Japan, often in temple areas. It is still widely cultivated today, often found on streets or in parks in the UK. It prefers environments that are well watered and drained. It is one of the only living things to have survived the atom bombing of Hiroshima. Its seeds have been used as herbal medicine and food for thousands of years. This in turn is well documented in the name of shared knowledge, truth-seeking or similar recordings of mundanity.
What I wanted to document today is how observing nature is something that anyone can do and it is incredibly therapeutic; the act of observing is also an act of connecting. A reminder that we are all part of nature.
When you write these observations down you have a choice. You can be incredibly literal. I saw a pink flower. Or you can choose to describe that flower in your own words: use metaphors or similes; go through all the senses; be quirky and unique with your language (I personally love making up words – and this is your journal after all); weave in any scientific or cultural associations that you might know; dig deeper and get all philosophical; see where you get to at the end. You might start writing about that pink flower because you saw it by the side of a path but you might end up equating it with how you feel.
The more you observe, the deeper you go into the story of plants and flowers or the weather, the sky, the sun and the moon, or birdlife – all things we encounter everyday of our lives – the more liberating it becomes. There’s always something to write about. There’s always knowledge to acquire and share. There are infinite ways to describe something.
A journal gives you license to go deep but also be tangential. I can’t count the number of times I’ve started writing about the sky and then somehow found myself expressing my emotions before concluding with how my garden grows. You might also have days where it’s all about the imagination: it’s pouring with rain but you’re dreaming of desert island life. Use your power of observation to bring these imaginings to life too. Description is colour. Colour is therapy. Knowledge is power.
If you combine observation or imagination with a deeper knowledge of the fundamental workings of our world – how the soil, the solar system, the weather, the seasons, the sunset and sunrise or plants and flowers work– it’s easier to philosophise too. So read, read, read. Or watch documentaries. Listen to podcasts. Scroll that internet but with a thirst for knowledge. With an endgame. Make it meaningful not mindless. Learn about the world you live in. Understand that we’e all part of the solar system. Learn about you.
You never know, your journal might very well become the guiding light of future generations. But if not, it can definitely be therapy for you in the here and now. It most certainly is for me.