I’m often asked about how to write a journal. There is no one answer, of course. Journaling is like thinking: No two people think exactly alike no matter how much they have in common. Still, I have these suggestions, all of which deal with process rather than content.

Isolate yourself
Remove yourself — literally. You need space in which to write, a place you can claim as your own, be it for several minutes or hours. The space doesn’t have to be a mountain cabin or room of your own. It can be, as in my case, a specific table in my favorite coffee shop, or, if no one is home, my dining room table.

Speak the truth
Your journal is yours, a sacred space in which you can express your innermost feelings. Joy, rage, doubt, longing — all have a place. So don’t edit. You do enough of that in real life.

Repeat yourself
Allow yourself to repeat, reiterate or even regurgitate. Face it: Personal issues often go unresolved, the power of some experiences never lessens (which is not to say they should rule your life). So let yourself revisit what still draws your attention.

Be flexible
Journaling is not compulsory. Just as it’s okay to write every day, it’s okay to write once a week, or month or year. Don’t aim for a set word count. Your goal should be to reach yourself.

Banish your audience
Many of us — especially writers (including myself) — want not just to journal but to write great prose. We reread our entries, polish our sentences, cross out whole passages, nip and tuck … as if people were going to read our journal with the same critical eye they read books (if, indeed, they were going to read our journals at all). But journals aren’t books. They are not plotted. It’s personal development, not character development, we’re after.

Related article
“10 Steps to Keeping an Ongoing Journal”

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin

How true, too, of writing, with its constant ebbs and flows. When words do not come, it may be time to gather raw material; when the material does not spur us to action, it may be time to step back, to rest–to wait, with patience and faith. 

Newsletters have great appeal — to a limited number of subscribers. But that’s okay. A limited number can be substantial; it can even run into the millions. To gain subscribers, you must focus on them. Here are five steps.

1. Narrow your scope
Newsletters differ from mass market magazines and newspapers in that they appeal to a very specific, narrowly targeted audience. The narrower your focus, the greater your depth. That’s because you provide the specialized information your targeted readers want, need and simply can’t get elsewhere.

2. Create a reader profile
No major magazine gets launched without first creating a profile of its readers, and neither should yours. The reason is obvious: You can’t determine content or format, attract advertisers or even determine your format (particularly if yours is an off-line publication) without knowing whom your publication appeals to. Accordingly, identify your readers’ gender, age, income/educational level, beliefs, etc.

3. Align your content and language with your readers
Once you’ve created a reader profile, you can create or fine-tune your editorial content. Make a list of all of the topics/issues your readers would be interested in. Choose articles that would appeal to the greatest number of subscribers. Write tight, light and bright, using the everyday language of your readers. Be inclusive, not exclusive. Choose words that all readers understand.

4. Be consistent
Newsletter consistency not only means distributing your publication when you say you will (e.g., the first Friday of the month; every Tuesday) but using words, formatting and content that’s consistent with the “founding mission” of your publication. It’s this mission that made your readers want to subscribe in the first place. Consistency gives a publication “staying power,” credibility and professionalism.

5. Choose the right length
Choose a newsletter length that truly meets the needs of your readers and is workable for you. Newsletters, after all, take a lot of time and energy to produce. A general rule: The longer a newsletter, the less frequently it should be published; the shorter, the more frequently.

Related article at WriteDirections.com:

“Become a Columnist: 10 Steps”

At WriteDirections.com, I recently posted the article “The Keys to Writing Great Emails” in which I give 12 tips for doing just that. Here are three of them:

Become a poet
Some define poetry as the best possible usage of the least possible words. Think then of your emails as poems. Don’t be dramatic or flowery, of course, but do use simple, easy-to-understand language; the fewer the syllables, the better.

To give your words the power they deserve, write in the active voice. For example: “Your order will be handled by Mr. Jones,” is passive. “Mr. Jones will handle your order,” is active. Another benefit of writing in the active voice is that active sentences tend to be shorter. Note how the active-voice sentence has six words, while the passive-voice sentence has eight.

Keep it to yourself
Sorry, but as great a writer as you are, not everyone is clamoring for your work. Therefore, resist the temptation to cc every life form on the planet. Your emails should be sent on an as-needed basis. Ditto for bcc’s.

Be circumspect
Each day we hear of private emails being made public, inadvertently or maliciously. To protect yoursel, as well as others, don’t put into writing anything you wouldn’t want circulated. 

(Note: sometimes you have to or want to include personal information in your emails, most especially when writing to a relative a friend. The key, I think, is to segregate personal and professional info by using separate accounts for each. Doing so doesn’t offer complete protection — we’re talking about the Internet here — but it can help.)

I found this list while cleaning out my files. Interesting how opposing words and concepts make sense when grouped together, even when they don’t make sense. (Does that make sense?)

• Act naturally
• Found missing
• Resident alien
• Advanced BASIC
• Genuine imitation
• Good grief
• Same difference
• Almost exactly
• Alone together
• Silent scream
• Living dead
• Small crowd
• Soft rock
• Butt Head
• New classic
• Sweet sorrow
• Childproof
• Synthetic natural gas
• Taped live
• Clearly misunderstood
• Peace force
• Extinct Life
• Plastic glasses
• Definite maybe
• Pretty ugly
• Twelve-ounce pound cake
• Diet ice cream
• Exact estimate

And, of course:

• Government organization