Suggestions for keeping a Writer's Journal.

Writers don't write in vacuums. They draw upon their experiences in producing their stories. Katherine Anne Porter describes how she saw a fat man singing to woman in Mexico and the idea for "Flowering Judas" came to her. Ernest Hemingway tells of hearing a man and a woman discussing an abortion and he uses this conversation as the basis for his short story "Hills like White Elephants." All of which means that writers keep some form of notes about things they can use to construct their stories. Your Writer's Journal is intended to serve this function. Think of it as a file cabinet where you keep ideas that might come in handy for future writing projects.

What form should your Writer's Journal take? Any form you might find useful. A three-ring binder in which you store newspaper clippings or loose-leaf pages on which you're written notes. A computer file in which you enter ideas, scan in newspaper articles, or download information you might find useful. A spiral-bound notebook in which you keep notes for stories you're working on. Your journal may be handwritten or typed. It could be a box of note cards (some people develop file boxes of 3x5 cards on which they store ideas.

What should you put in your Writer's Journal? Try these suggestions:

• Early drafts of stories you're trying to write.
• Plots you might develop into stories.
• Scenarios that might serve as scenes in stories.
• Practice characterizations (try to describe people you see).
• Describe people you see in pictures. Try to capture their personalities in words.
• Overheard conversations.
• Events that happen to you or problems you have that might appear in stories.
• Family events you could develop.
• Interviews with people you want to write about.
• Notes from research you're conducting for stories you want to write.
• Word descriptions of pictures you might want to include as settings in your stories.
• Descriptions of rooms or objects?
• Find a place to sit (the library, the mall) and describe what you see.
• Summarize reading you are doing that might be useable in a story.
• Summarize ideas you get about things you might try in a story.
• In short, anything at all that might help you develop a story.