Journal writing as release, keepsake, communication tool

Henriette Anne Klauser puts a lot of stock in writing.

She's president of Writing Resources (www.henrietteklauser.com), a 28-year-old Edmonds seminar and consulting organization that has taken her around the globe with a mission of making writing easier for everyone from aspiring novelists to business leaders. She's shared lessons with college students and tips with journal writers as an advice columnist for Personal Journaling magazine.

In three of her four books, Klauser imbues the journal-writing process with almost magical powers. Writing, she says, can help make our dreams come true ("Write it Down, Make it Happen"), improve our relationships ("Put your Heart on Paper"), even heal what troubles our minds ("With Pen in Hand").

Journal writing isn't about putting pretty words on paper, and there's no wrong or right way to do it, she says. "This isn't about writing, this is about life. I realized that when you freed yourself to write, you freed yourself to live."

In addition to her own writing, Klauser kept two-person journals with each of her two sons and two daughters. These "interactive journals" cemented her relationship with her now grown children, she says. "They were mostly me writing to each of them saying how wonderful I think you are — over and over again."

The journals, started when each child was about 8 years old, created a forum to honestly discuss the typical parent-child conflicts.

"Children think you retire to the mountaintop of the bedroom and come down with the fiat like Moses," she says. "When I wrote to them, I let them in on the working of my mind — here's what I'm concerned about ... "

And her children could answer back in a way that was often more liberating for them than talking. "You can say things on paper that you can't say face to face — and that's the good stuff and the bad stuff," Klauser says.

Getting started

• Date everything. This is especially important when writing about goals, says Klauser. Otherwise, you might forget that you once thought the things you've accomplished weren't possible. Rereading dated writing might also serve as a wake-up call for those in abusive relationships.

• Write as little or as much as you need as often as you need.

Journals for two

• Pick a blank notebook with a theme that interests your child: dinosaurs, fairies, the Disney Channel movie "High School Musical," etc.

• Klauser suggests telling your children: "This is a chance for us to talk to each other, but everything we say here is private. Mostly it is to tell you how much I love you."

• Catch them doing good things and then write to them about it.

Not all about you

Not every journal is a personal history or a repository for our innermost feelings and desires.

Journals can also be a place to record our bright ideas, the progress of a weight-loss program or notes on our hobbies, such as cooking or gardening.

Deborah Busch, known to her Web followers as "Goddess of the Open Road," has journals for sightseers who might not be into "the digging in the soul kind of thing." Her online shop, Hello Traveler!, deals in travel diaries and other wares to help track life's literal journeys.

"I look for the unusual and amusing when I travel," says Busch. "I know I'd forget some of those funny stories if I didn't scribble them down."

Among options is the 200-page See-the-Sights journal. Hard-bound with a pocket for memorabilia it has an elastic band to keep everything in place (www.hellotraveler.com).

Cooks who love to try new spices and techniques can record successes in a recipe journal. This three-ring version has 250 removable pages with space for notes (www.uncommongoods.com).

"The New Three-Year Garden Journal" by Louise Carter and Joanne Seale Lawson has color photos, month-by-month advice on plants and regional planting conditions, and room for garden observations and photos (www.amazon.com).