Journaling Out Loud

When I began, I was self-conscious. It felt like I was shivering naked at the edge of a public swimming pool. I felt watched by "the voice." Even though it was my own voice!

And then I kept on, and created one of the most useful habits in my life: recording my thoughts with a voice recorder.

It's handy-wonderful when taking walks. Hey, I'm multi-tasking! But this is much nicer than talking on a cell phone. I'm pursuing ideas out loud, at a gentle pace, with only myself as audience.

You have to push yourself to find solutions. It's uncomfortable to start something new. But the problem of "not enough time to write," or "no time to journal," surfaces in the lives of writers day after day. Could it be the answers are simply all around us, but we aren't willing to try something new?

I challenge you to find a new way to fit writing into your routine. It might mean getting a voice recorder. Nothing fancy. They start at thirty bucks. It could be you already have one languishing in a drawer. And you don't need voice recognition software, or the ability to turn the audio files into text - that's just your brain procrastinating, making everything more elaborate and expensive. Most of the time, my "writings" stay in the recorder.

This bit of journaling sorts my life. It brings me to a wide open vista. I breathe cleanly. I can see for miles. I'm no longer worried about how I sound, or how I look. My voice becomes my best friend.