I’ve been keeping journals ever since I was 10 years old, when my dad gave me a five-year diary in a sandalwood box.

Every writer and artist I know keeps some kind of a journal, whether written or visual, online or between book covers.

“A journal is a great resource for a writer,” says Joe Schuster, who often writes for HOME COMPANION. “I ask all of my writing students to keep one. First of all, it’s good practice: the more a writer writes, the better he or she gets. Also, you never know when you’ll be able to use something you see or hear. Say you’re sitting in a café with your notebook and a little girl leans over to pour some cream into her mother’s coffee. The mother slaps her daughter’s hand away, sending the creamer clattering across the café, where it splashes a bearded man in a three-piece suit who’s doing a crossword puzzle. So you record the incident in your journal. Later, as a fiction writer, you can come back to that moment and say, ‘What if I write that random scene out to a conclusion? Where will that take me? Was the mother angry at her little girl before she poured the cream? How does the bearded man react? What happens to these people when they leave the café?’”

Artist and teacher Polly Saputo also keeps journals. “I’ve been doing it since my first year in art school, when keeping a sketchbook was part of my work for drawing class,” she says. “It’s fun and inspiring—I draw ideas for my artwork, tuck in bits of ephemera, and write down how I feel and what’s going on with me. It’s therapy. It keeps me even. I never miss a day.”

Every year, Polly gives me the same gift on my birthday: a blank book, its bare pages both a thrilling invitation and a challenging taunt.
                          
My friend Polly gave me this Donny Osmond notebook back in 1974. It’s filled with bad writing and good memories.

In addition to the wonderful journals and notebooks shown in Noteworthy, there are endless ways for artists and writers to keep track of ideas. Mary Engelbreit, of course, designs notebooks and journals for every occasion and purpose. Check out a few of them here.
 
Or you can create your own journal to suit your individual needs, either by embellishing a blank book or inexpensive notebook or by pulling together scrapbooking elements. You’ll find a few sources below.

http://www.annagriffin.com/project/index.html

http://www.simplescrapbooksmag.com/shop/item.ihtml?idx=253

http://www.moleskine.it/eng/_interni/catalogo/Cat_int/catalogo_diaries.htm

http://sfmoma.stores.yahoo.net/fiveyeardiary.html

http://www.paperstudio.com/catalog2.php?maincat=Journals