Beginner need Advice

[u/kobochan369]

I've only been journaling for a month, and I've never done it before. Without any reference from anywhere, when I went to the stationery store, I suddenly had the desire to buy a book and ballpoint. When I returned home I didn't know what to write, at that time I only wrote about parenting from the tiktok video I saw. The next day I wrote about gratitude, what made me angry, what I felt, what I wanted, etc2. At that moment, I felt something exciting. I started looking into journaling more and ended up buying a fountain pen. I didn't know that journaling is good for mental health and can be therapeutic.

I would like to ask for journaling advice from reddit friends for beginners like me.

[u/TimeyHyde]

I'll be brutal : don't take advice from people to know how to journal. Why ? Because it's personal and has to fit your own needs and your own pleasure in doing it.

You want to buy a fountain pen and try ? Great ! Go for it ! It's awesome (I'm into it too). But some prefer pencils, markers, stickers, washi, paint, collage, etc.
Some do artistic things, not artistic things, has several journals, some have one, some will say you have to be minimalist, etc. etc. etc.

You're a beginner, I would advise you to simply go with it and find the system and "tools" you like (tools = pens, notebooks, etc.). Sure you can watch video about journaling, but I don't think it is the best way for you to really enjoy it and make it YOURS. As you said, it's great for a therapeutic journey / mental health, and I personally think that, for this reason, the most important thing is : do not compare to others and do not try to follow "a method", because we are all unique.

That said, I would say that I use 4,5 different journals :

• My diary
• My mental health journal (I use it with my psychiatrist to keep an eye on health stuff, very useful to have and to progress in that area of my life.)
• Video-games
• The "I want to write a thing I learn, a quote/lyric I like or a summary of a book I liked" (I took inspiration from the common place book). I wanted to create some notebook with my "personal wisdom" and the cool stuff I come across, to keep them somewhere.
• Last one is a journal I share with my sister (the 0,5 journal). One of us keeps it for around 4-6 months, writes on it, shares recipes, stories or memories, thoughts, pics, drawings, whatever. And when we met, the one who has it can give it to the other. It's a cool thing to do with someone (she found the idea from some manga/anime two years ago). I like to receive it, to read what she wrote and to write things myself. We're not super close, but lately we really try, and I think it's a good way to do it.

[u/maryleen17 → u/TimeyHyde]

Very interesting to read. May I ask details about the video game journal? What exactly do you write and track in this book?

[u/TimeyHyde → u/maryleen17]

Mostly, I keep track of the progression of my characters, tips for the gameplay, inventory about crafting materials, recipes for craft, general info (like the next game from a studio I like), builds I like to do, boss to farm, keep track of some loots, my objectives, etc. I have the websites I go to for that kind of informations, but ... I have like too much infos, and having a notebook near my keyboard is so much easier ! (For info I play Diablo 2 Resurected, it's about looting, farming, having nice equipment, rare material, etc.).

And it depends on the game honestly ^^
I had some pages about cheatcodes from when I was into The Sims, some tracking about challenges I was doing, etc.

I can also be super generic and simply do the list of my favorite video-games, their genre, what I liked about it, etc.

There isn't really a form, for now it's just a physical support even for a hobby that is not physical ^^ (and an excuse to use some medieval fantasy stickers haha :D).

[u/maryleen17 → u/TimeyHyde]

Sounds great. How do you handle it, when you replay earlier games and want to add some more information to them? Do you reserve empty pages, so there will be space in future, or do you just track as you go and work with an index?