So, if I can’t get on with a hand written journal, I’m wondering if keeping an electronic journal might be a way into a daily writing session. Goodbye to the A4  page a day diary, with the narrow lines and intimidating pages.

Yes, I know the purists say make an hour for yourself every day, but that doesn’t work for me – there’s just so much else to do.

My first thought was to use my laptop. If I don’t like something on the laptop, I can delete it. If I’m using a book I can only delete it by cutting out the page, which always spoils an attractive book. Perhaps the attractive books need to be used for my other writing – if my poems are good, perhaps they deserve to be in a hand written book.

A bit of research pointed me towards specific journalling programs, or to using an on-line journal like WordPress. With an digital journal, there’s no intimidating blank page to fill, and for some reason, no sense of failure if I don’t write very much. Nor is there that sense of spoiling an attractive book with rambling scrawl.  

I  tried a couple of  different electronic journalling apps. I started with an app called Day 1, which had good reviews, but was a little preachy, giving me tips about things I might like to write about, as if I don’t have a brain of my own. Any programme that insists on giving me hints and tips is at a disadvantage. As it wanted me to pay to use its enhanced features, I looked elsewhere.

I had hoped to find an app that gave me a bit of colour, but they all seem to only offer black and white options. None of them offer me coloured backgrounds, which means it’s all rather dull.

I also tried using a WordPress on-line journal but it wants to give me tips and hints as well. Would I like to write about where I went yesterday, or what I had for lunch.  I suppose they think its helpful, but it annoys me. Fortunately, I discovered how to turn the hints off, which made me feel a whole lot better. It’s that combination of wanting to be in control and a lifetime of resisting being told what to do.

I decided to settle for the Apple Journal app built in to my phone and discovered the convenience of being able to dictate a journal entry and send the text to a document. I can do this whenever I want to, and wherever I might be. It saves all that scrabbling around typing badly and spending more time on corrections than on actual writing. If only the microphone was more accurate. Perhaps it will learn and adapt to my speech patterns and vocabulary.

What I like about doing it this way is that it doesn’t have to be some big thing. I don’t have to sit down for an hour with a cup of coffee and a notebook and stare at the wall or out of the window until inspiration strikes. Ten minutes with the laptop or phone open and the microphone on and I can chatter away and put the day’s events into perspective.

I wouldn’t want to be dictating my journal if there were other people about, but it’s easy to do when I’m in the house on my own, especially when everyone has gone to bed. It means I have a bit of time to myself to reflect on the day and where  I think I want to go with my writing and other  elements of my life. Why is it that journalling feels as if it has to be done in secret? It’s the confessional, I suppose.

I’m not sure the entries I’m making all the stuff of great literature but it’s a start and perhaps the great literature will come later.

And suddenly this seems to be coming together.