What to do with an empty journal?

Remember the times when you're lying on your stomach, on the bed, bored, when even the phone seems dull. All of a sudden, you get this idea of cleaning your cupboard and come across a notebook you purchased long ago and didn't use at all. Well, it's time you stop being nostalgic about it and finally pen something down in it on this New Year's.

Here's a list of things you can pick up in order to utilize your empty journal. 

1. Personal Diary. 

I know, I know. It is much more challenging than it looks. In fact, I can think of some dank memes here. Like how we all decided to maintain a diary at some point in our younger days and ended up forgetting about it. Now, let me grab your attention towards this. It is not at all important to write your everyday moments in it. You can choose some specific events that took place, like some days that hold some significance for you. 

         Picture this : you had your Math quiz today. It was horrible (God forbid) and now you need to calm yourself down. You need to pour your feelings out. You know, to vent. That's what you need. The best thing would be to take those emotions down. Yes, write it. Write everything you feel. How your parents and teachers might react to the test. How you think you despise the subject (which I do, too). How you thought while scrolling Instagram that you will be able to do it but the tables turned. 

Moreover, it can be the other way around too. You may also want to jot down a few thoughts about each day, in order to have a brief description of your everyday life, which, I believe, is fantastic in its own way. For instance, whenever you feel like recalling something, you can always turn to some pages and damn, you are there, living it all again. Yes, that's what it feels like. You get to live each of the day on the flip of a page, whenever you wish, wherever you wish.

It is not essential that everything in it needs to be a certain way. You can do it the way you want.

A diary is supposed to be something very personal (unless you don't wish for it to be so).

Not everyone needs to be Anne Frank anyway.

2. Creative Writing

This one is for all my writing fellows out there. Your 'Creative Writing' notebook will comprise of various writing prompts you can write in your own style. This equisite thing is meant for you to improve your creative skills, which is a crucial part of writing. Let's put it this way : The stronger your imagination, the better your book.

A writing prompt can be of various types. It could be in the form of a couple of sentences which you need to continue and morph into, say, a short story or account. In addition to that, it could be in the form of a situation where you need to think, imagine and write. 

This is the thing about writing prompts. Each person writes the same prompt in a quaint manner due to the fact we all think differently. We all have various imagination and it all depends on your ability and insight to go into the depth and write (Oh, that rhymes). 

If you're an amateur writer, this is definitely something you should try because it helps to build and construct your imaginative mind. 

If this is something you might want to work on, the following are some of my personal favorite ones : 

a) Write about a funeral from the dead person's point of view.

b) Your best friend is accused of nineteen murders. You have been called as a witness to defend him when in reality, you are the killer.

3. Travel Log

Whenever you plan on touring around a place, take the notebook with you. You can start off by jotting your feelings down while you are on the way—how excited or curious you are to visit that place. When you travel, you can write about any emotional connections to the place, the kind of people you saw, the food you ate, blah blah. 

The next time you open your travel log, you can have a nice time reminding yourself about the things you did. Also, don't forget to mention if you would like to visit the same place ever again.  

Pro Tip : Stick a good picture of the destination taken by your camera. It will enhance your description writing. It looks neat and you'll want to look at it over and over again, maybe. 

4. Dream Journal 

When you wake up, drool dried on your mouth and fingers scratching the scalp, do you like to revisit your dream? Everyone does. Especially the weird ones. 

One of the many excellent ideas is to keep a Dream Diary with you for times when you dream. 

Scientifically speaking, you can see upto 6 different dreams everyone however, you forget 90% in total of all. However, the major parts that take place can be noted for you to come back to it later. 

If there's a case that you don't remember your dreams at all, then the next alternative can be more suitable for you.

5. Vision Tracker

Now, I want you to think of the moment when you depress yourself by overthinking. In some or the other way, all of us indulge in it. Imagine sitting in the class, elbows on the table, your palms cupping your cheeks and your chin resting on it. You are hopless in love with ‘your crush of the month’, silently screaming at them to look at you, grab you face and kiss the heck out of you.

Well, that's a freaking Wattpad scene. 

Write about that. Write about your daydream. It won't happen for real but plotting a scene whatever the way you like is legit crazy and since YOLO, you must do it. 

Writing about it is more productive than overthinking about it. *Wink* Just make sure nobody else finds it. *Another wink* You're welcome.

6. Letters Matter 

We don't write letters to one another anymore, which is a bummer because as a writer, the feeling the real words hold can never ever be replaced by any text. Now, I am not being a Grandma but meaningful things like that never get out of fashion. 

You can write letters to yourself or you can address them to your parents or friends or the one you love or your pet or your favorite K-drama actor or a fictional character or Queen Victoria or Jesus Christ or Justin Bieber or a dead person...it doesn't matter. Whoever you wish. 

Of course, you won't post the letters because there's no use but writing them is a lot of a fun. 

      

      The only disclaimer that I would like to give you is to keep your letter notebook faraway from the hands of your siblings otherwise, you might end up getting a boyfriend because remember To all the boys I've loved before? Yes, that's what I'm talking about. 

7. Notes 

You can also go ahead and utilize your notebook by doing something in it which it was made for. I know it's boring and you hardly might want to try it out but we are talking of studies here. 

     Maybe you can try learning a new language. Or maybe the posh, royal British accent. You can make your own notes for all of that because as much as effortless the eNotes and the online PDFs are for studying, your handwritten stuff is the thing which will lead you through it all. 

 

Just a reminder that you should advisably use pretty shades of different highlighters and sticky notes. Or atleast you should use pens of pleasant colors and take down the notes as neat as possible so that it wouldn't look dull and will make you want to study more often. 

Hope it helps. Leave a comment to share your thoughts.