Read author Mari McCarthy’s guest post on injecting spontaneity into your writing — journal or other variety — then let us know which one of Mari’s tips you’ll try this week with your writing. One commenter will win her or his choice of an e-workbook, a spiral bound workbook, or a t-shirt!

Spontaneity in Life and Journaling by Mari McCarthy

Are you the spontaneous type or do you prefer that everything go according to plan? The world’s probably divided half and half in terms of such flexibility. Some people love change and are willing to turn on a dime, while others are far more methodical and steady.

These personal preferences are certainly reflected in our journal writing practice as well. We may tend to the routine and repetitive or we may prefer the outrageous and unexpected, though most of us usually fall on the continuum between these extremes.

If you’re the more spontaneous sort, now and then you might benefit from imposing a bit of repetitive ritual or discipline. This might be somewhat difficult for someone used to constant action, but with patience you can do it.

However, forcing yourself to be spontaneous if you naturally tend the other way, toward habit and safe familiarity, may seem about as possible as flying to the moon. Nonetheless, it’s worthwhile to exercise your spontaneity, at least sometimes. You need to break up any routine now and then, in order to see how it can be improved upon and in order to stay appraised of all opportunities.

How can you cultivate your spontaneity, so it comes more naturally when you want it to?

If your journaling has become routine, stuck in a pattern or rut, or if you just want to balance your steadiness with a few sudden blinding insights, here are a few things to try.

1. Change up the time of day or the place that you journal, or the media – pen and notebook, or even penmanship style – that you use. Even a simple physical switch like this can kick up all kinds of new inspirations.
2. Write with your non-dominant hand. If, as a right-handed person, you write for a while with your left (or vice versa), you activate a different, generally unused part of your brain, which is sure to produce new perceptions.
3. Include doodles in your journal. These may be drawings of things, or just scribbles or random words. Letting your pen wander can lead you down many a path of discovery.
4. Have fun with exercises like writing about a single word, or about a single sensation. Choose a loaded word, like love or money; or choose an arbitrary one, like journey or agriculture. Write for a full journaling session on the one topic.
5. Say yes. Practice choosing to accept and see where that takes you. What does this mean? Many tiny choices:

• You have the impulse to erase. Deny it, accept what you deem a ‘mistake’ and incorporate it.
• You have no idea what a certain thought means, or where it leads, but write it out anyway and go from there.
• You think that some things are not proper material for your journal, for whatever reason, but they’re important to you nonetheless. Choose to write about them.

Being spontaneous means you’re taking a risk, a big one. But if the gamble pays off – and it most often does in journaling – you end up far richer.

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Book Review

Mari’s new e-workbook, Start Journaling and Change Your Life in 7 Days, is a great workbook for those of us who might need a side of structure with our spontaneity.  In seven short chapters, this workbook addresses common roadblocks that journalers experience. Personally, I’ve been in a journaling slump for all the common reasons – feel like I don’t have time or energy to journal, nothing to write about, too much to write about, and feel bored by and critical of my writing. Working through Mari’s suggested exercises is a great way to address one or all of these issues. I really like her prompt to cut out visual reminders of why you want to journal. Also, I found the examples, particularly of the inner critic exercise, helpful. Many times I read a prompt and think I can see why that would be helpful but don’t actually work through it by writing. The sample exercise answers made me realize, I may think the exercise will help me, but I don’t really know how it will help me unless I actually write down my own answers. I am not smarter than the thoughts I haven’t written!

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About the author

Mari L. McCarthy, journaling therapy specialist and author, owns Create Write Now, a website dedicated to all things journaling. The site includes hundreds of journaling prompts, personal journaling stories, interviews, a blog, and many other resources. Mari publishes many ebooks and e-workbooks to help journalers accomplish amazing things. Mari also conducts online Challenges, and you won’t want to miss her upcoming Start Journaling and Change Your Life in 7 Days Challenge, June 4-10.