Why Sue Grafton Uses a Process Journal and You Should Too
By: Michelle Renee Miller
Tags: Journaling, Writing, Journal, Writers Block, Imposter Syndrome

Why Sue Grafton Uses a Process Journal and You Should Too

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a place you could go to solve all your writer’s block problems? A place where all your questions of ‘what should happen next’ and ‘who should say what here’ are answered. A place where all your bad ideas get flushed out before they even land on the page. Boy, do I have some good news for you.

I recently learned of a not-so-new tool called the process journal. While reading The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity by Louise DeSalvo, I came across where DeSalvo describes a time she saw Sue Grafton speak of the process journal at USC in 2001, calling this technique a “record of the conversation [you can] have with [your]self about the work in progress.” This journal will easily become your new best friend if used right.

Below are 3 ways you can use your process journal to advance your writing.

Solving scenes with rewrites

While working on scenes in your narrative work, it is commonplace to find the scenes unrealistic, boring, or confusing to navigate. By keeping a process journal you have a place to discuss these ideas, even if just with yourself. Sometimes having a place to think outside of your latest draft can be helpful to work out some kinks. You won’t feel the need to make everything perfect if you aren’t working in your draft. Giving yourself a structureless place to free-think and explore will help you navigate your scenes better.

Unrealistic scene?

Write about a conversation or something you saw on the street in as much detail as possible to get back in touch with what the real world feels like.

Boring scene?

Write something overly dramatic just to see how it goes! Then discuss with yourself what you like or don’t like, and find that middle ground.

Confusing scene?

Maybe you’re having a hard time grounding your characters. If so, write the scene again and mention each specific movement you see your character doing. Maybe the issue is the setting of your scene. Relocate it and see how it feels.

Now, none of these rewrites are likely to be what goes into your final draft, but now you have more to work with, more to play with, and an opportunity to see sides of your story you might not have before.

Making dialogue decisions

Dialogue is hard. There’s a lot that goes into making good dialogue happen. Sometimes it takes a lot of tweaking to create realistic dialogue that works for your piece. With a process journal, you’re able to explore new ideas for dialogue, much in the same way as with scenes.

According to DeSalvo, Grafton likes to keep “lines she’s imagined but doesn’t know how to use” in her process journal to keep for later. It happens to all of us; the perfect line of dialogue pops into our heads and we get so excited about it, but it is not the perfect line for the scene we’re working now.

With the process journal you can jot down the line, get it out of your head, and begin to craft something better for what’s on the page in front of you.

The imposter syndrome antidote

My favorite use of a process journal is to free myself of mental worries before I begin to work on my piece. A process journal is a great place to get all of your ‘am I good enough to be working on this piece?’ or ‘is anybody going to actually read this?’ anxieties on paper and out of your head.

By writing down all your worries, you’re freeing up space in your brain to work on what actually matters — your writing. Who can get anything done if the whole time they try to work, they’re concerned about what other people will think of their work? We all have these imposter syndrome voices in our heads, but now you have a place to let them be heard, and to move on from them.

I like to write down my worry, much like “This story is not worth being told.” From there, I’ll write underneath it all the reasons it is worth being told:

“There is a good moral lesson here.”

“This is topical and resonates with a lot of people.”

“If I don’t tell this story, nobody will.”

Success and gratitude

Another important use of a process journal is to lean in to your success. I like to take time at the end of my writing sessions to jot down what I did well, what I got accomplished, what I’m looking forward to next, and why I’m so grateful to be writing what I’m writing. This helps me end my session on a positive note, not worrying about all the new frustrations that came up this time about scenes, dialogue, publication, the list goes on. And, when I get back to my process journal the next time, the first thing I’ll see is this gratitude and what I’ve accomplished so far, which is a very motivating tactic.

A tip for the process journal

When I first started process journals, I was tempted to keep them in a notebook by hand. But I quickly followed the advice DeSalvo passes on from Grafton of keeping the journal on my computer. DeSalvo says, “Grafton keeps her process journal on her computer so she can transfer material into the draft of her manuscript when appropriate. She can also quickly search the journal to find all the entries about a given topic.”

I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like trying to search through scribbles of illegible handwritten notes to pull up an old thought or transfer a new draft of a scene into my work. Thank god for the search and find function.

So, what will you start using a process journal for first?