By Lynda Monk, MSW, RSW, CPCC

Every writer knows the feeling when you sit down to work on the novel, the essay, the memoir, and instead of words, you get static or feel stuck. The inner critic shows up first. The doubt shows up second. It can feel like the actual writing that matters seems to wait somewhere just out of reach.

Here’s what twenty-five plus years of working with writers, creatives, coaches, and helping professionals has taught me …the way through that static isn’t more discipline or a better outline. It’s a private, unpolished, judgment-free page. It’s your journal.

Journaling and “real” writing are often treated as separate activities as if one is for feelings and the other is for craft. I believe that separation sells journaling short. Used intentionally, your journal isn’t a warm-up act before the writing begins. It is part of the writing. It’s where your voice gets expressed freely and where your truest draft might actually live.

I have been an avid journal writer, and at times a sporadic journaler (which is also fine), all my adult life. Journaling has helped me write books, prevent burnout as a social worker, explore issues related to my identity as an adoptee, and so much more. The transformative power of journaling is also at the heart of my work as leader of the International Association for Journal Writing (IAJW.org).

Why Every Writer Needs a Private Page

Published writing is, by necessity, shaped for an audience. You’re thinking about structure, pacing, what the reader needs to know and when. That’s valuable work but it’s also work that happens under observation, even if the observer is only the version of you that imagines future readers.

A journal removes the audience. There’s no one to please, impress, or explain yourself to and that absence of an audience is exactly what makes it powerful. When you’re not performing on the page, you write differently. You write truer and freer. You stop reaching for the clever phrase and start reaching for the honest one and honest is almost always more interesting.

This is why so many working writers keep a journal alongside their "real" writing, not instead of it. It’s not a lesser cousin to the manuscript. It’s the foundation that both you as the writer, and the project you are working on, can grow out of. Journaling can be a powerful practice for both your personal and professional growth as a writer.

How Journaling Sharpens Your Writing Craft

The reality is journaling is writing. It is using the written word to express your thoughts, feelings and experiences in your life. It is a meaning making practice. The more we write the better we get at writing. This simple truth is part of the reason journaling can help you sharpen your writing craft and skills.

I believe, and have witnessed in my own writing and that of others, many concrete benefits of journaling for writers including the following:

Journaling builds fluency. Writing regularly, even badly, even in fragments, keeps your writing muscle warm. Writers who journal daily report far less friction when they sit down to their "real" work, because they haven't neglected the act of writing in their lives.

Journaling trains observation. A journal is a place to practice noticing. For example, you might notice the exact color of a sky, the specific thing someone said, the small detail that reveals character. That noticing transfers directly into scene-building, dialogue, and description in other writing projects. Journaling creates distance from perfectionism. Because a journal entry was never meant to be shown to anyone, it lowers the stakes. When the stakes are lower, our nervous system can calm and the internal editor quiets down. Many writers discover their strongest, most alive sentences not in a polished chapter but in a scrawled journal entry they never intended anyone to see. Journaling is about the process and not about the product or perfectionism!

Journaling helps you metabolize what happens to you. Writing is fed by lived experience, and unprocessed experience tends to stay stuck rather than becoming material. A journal gives you a place to move difficult or complicated experiences through you and, often, into your work. It is a place to write to know, grow, and care for yourself. This not only supports your other writing, it supports you as an individual.

How Journaling Helps You Know What You Want to Say

Many writers don’t struggle with how to write. They struggle with knowing what they want to say. This is where journaling does some of its most important work.

A journal is a discovery tool, not just a record-keeping one. When you write without an agenda, without trying to be right, consistent, or profound, you often surprise yourself. Themes you didn’t know you cared about start repeating. Questions you didn’t realize you were asking start showing up on the page, again and again, until they’re impossible to ignore and you start to see what they have to offer you.

This is how a journal becomes a compass. It won’t hand you a finished thesis or a tidy premise but it will show you, over time, what keeps pulling at you and that pull is usually the real material. The book, the essay, the story you’re actually meant to write is rarely the one you planned. It’s the one that keeps showing up in the private pages of your journal, insisting on your attention.

5 Simple Journaling Practices to Try

You don’t need a special approach to start or benefit from journaling. A few reliable practices can keep you going, for example:

• Mindful moments. Sometimes people don’t know where to start with journaling. My favorite place to start is in the present moment. You can use simple mindful prompts such as “Right now, I feel …” or “Right now, I notice …” and use these sentence starters to begin your journaling.
• The unsent letter. Write to someone, living, gone, real, or imagined, saying the thing you’d never actually send. This is a powerful way to practice self-expression and access new material that might be sitting just beneath the surface of your awareness.
• Follow the repetition. Re-read a few weeks of journal entries and circle any word, image, or worry that keeps reappearing. That repetition is often pointing you toward your real subject.
• Five-minute free writes. Set a timer, pick a single prompt or image, and write without stopping or editing until the timer ends. Momentum matters more than quality here.
• The “what I’m not writing about” entry. Ask yourself directly, what am I avoiding putting on the page? Or what is that I don’t want to write about? Then write towards it, even briefly, and see where the journaling takes you.

None of these writing activities needs to be elegant. The goal isn’t a good journal entry. The goal is an honest one. The purpose is to put pen to page as freely, openly and honestly as you can. The benefits of doing such will begin to appear.

Bring the Page with You

Journaling won’t replace the discipline of drafting, revising, and finishing a piece of work. As writers, we all know nothing replaces that. However, journaling does something very important that drafting alone can’t – it keeps you connected to your own voice while you do the harder, more public work of shaping something for readers

If you take one thing from this, let it be this … your journal isn’t separate from your writing life. It’s the root system underneath it. The more you tend it, the more it can support everything else you write. The more it can nourish you as a writer!

I’ll be exploring how journaling can help you unlock the writer within along with a set of practices you can start using immediately — in my upcoming workshop for WNBA on the power of journaling for authors. I hope you’ll join me there.

Visit the event page to register today!

About the Author

Lynda Monk, MSW, RSW, CPCC is an author, speaker, registered social worker, certified professional coach, and Director of the International Association for Journal Writing (IAJW.org). For more than 30 years, she has helped people harness the power of writing for self-discovery, healing, creativity, and personal growth. Lynda is a recognized leader in the field of journaling and co-editor of The Great Book of Journaling and Transformational Journaling for Coaches, Therapists, and Clients. She is also the author of The Adoptee’s Guide to Healing, Wholeness & Growth. Through her workshops, courses, and global journaling community, Lynda inspires people to connect more deeply with themselves, their stories, and their creative potential.

Many of us know that book marketing can be expensive and overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.

As a Women’s National Book Association member, you have access to affordable and professional-level promotional services — for less than the cost of a dinner out.

The WNBA Member Books program provides year-round visibility and support from the national community for only $30 per year. That’s less than ten cents a day.

Here’s what you’ll get when you join:

• A personalized ad with up to 3 of your book titles and an author photo to connect with readers
• Your Featured Book displayed on every major page of the WNBA national website
• A link to a website of your choice
• A full year of advertising

This program was created exclusively to help WNBA authors gain exposure without the high price tag of traditional marketing.

To participate, pay via check or PayPal on the WNBA website here, complete the enrollment form, and email the completed form, along with up to three book cover images, your website link, and your author photo, to promo@wnba-books.org.

If you’ve been looking for an easy, budget-friendly way to spread the word about your book, this is it.

Take advantage of this exclusive member opportunity and put your work in front of the readers, writers, and industry professionals who visit the national WNBA website every day!

Ready to showcase your book? Join the Member Books program here.

by B. Lynn Goodwin
lgood67334@comcast.net
www.writeradvice.com

Do you have a piece of writing that you want to share? One of the best ways to get noticed and to build your resume and reputation is to enter your work, including excerpts from a longer work, in writing contests.

Is your work ready to share?

Here’s a list of some of the things a judge might ask:

• Do you care about the main character?
• Are there conflicts?
• Could the plot go in more than one direction?
• Is a setting suggested?
• How is the description?
• How is the pace?
• Is the dialogue believable?
• Is the tone appropriate?
• Given the subject and situation, is there an appropriate balance of dialogue, action, narration, and reflection?
• Will a reader stop paying attention at any point?
• Does the story draw you in or do you feel like you’re outside watching it?
• Would you buy this book or story?
• Will you remember this story tomorrow?
• Is language used effectively?
• Does the author make exceptional use of word choice, imagery?
• Are right and wrong complex? Is there more than one way of looking at the issues?
• Are the characters likeable but flawed? Will readers identify?
• Was the writing clear and accessible, too dense to fathom, or somewhere in between?

If you’re not sure how to answer, check with a trusted writing partner or peer.

How do you find contests that are right for you?

Google, reliable referrals, and news from writer’s organizations are all great places to start. Check the requirements carefully. Then, read one or two winners to see if your writing is something they’re likely to choose.

For example, if you write flash or micro fiction or memoir, WriterAdvice.com hosts a competition here. You can also go to Writeradvice.com and click on the Latest Contest header to find contest information. I host a list of other contests and markets in a variety of genres here.

What do you need to do before you submit to a contest that’s right for your writing?

Make a list of the contest’s requirements – all of them. Even the technical ones about whether to include your name and what font to use.

Change the color, or strike through each one, after you’ve made the necessary changes so that you won’t be automatically eliminated.

I’ve had people submit 2,000 words to a Writer Advice contest where the word limit is 750. I e-mail them about their glitch and encourage them to fix the problem. Most contests just eliminate those who don’t follow directions. If your work doesn’t fit, do not submit.

What should you know about contest judges?

Tastes vary. So do opinions.

Get a feel for what each contest wants by reading their submission requests and looking at their website. There are plenty of contests out there.

(Side Note: Contest judges don’t want you to explain your work or ask why you weren’t a winner. If they respond to questions, they might tell you your purpose should have been clearer in the piece.)

Should you ask for feedback if it is available?

Maybe. It depends on who’s giving the feedback, what she’s written, and what his editing background is. Visit the judge’s website and read the opening of her latest publications on Amazon. There’s no charge to read a sample.

When you ask for feedback, keep what’s useful and disregard the rest. Better still, save it because it might make sense later as your skills grow.

I’ve given feedback to more than one author who used it and won elsewhere.

What if no feedback is available?

Submit if you think you meet the criteria. Keep a list of where you’ve submitted for future reference. Then move on. Some contests only respond to winners.

Should you pay to enter a contest?

Opinions vary. I believe that skilled judges and administrators should be compensated for their knowledge and their time.

Some contests have sponsors and don’t need to charge. Some contests are simply looking for material to publish. There’s nothing wrong with paying a professional for her time and her feedback. It’s a service – not a scam.

Be as professional as you can when you submit your work. Be aware that tastes vary. Be willing to put your work out in the world when it feels right.

I’ve been a contest judge for many years at several places, and I speak from experience when I say that, although not every piece is right for every contest, excellence rises to the top.

Author Bio
B. Lynn Goodwin wrote three award-winning books, a YA called Talent, a sequel called Disrupted, plus a memoir titled Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62. She writes author interviews, book reviews and articles for WriterAdvice, www.writeradvice.com, which she owns, and for Story Circle Network, where she teaches. She is on the boards of Story Circle Network and the Women’s National Book Association—NorCal and is a writing contest judge. She edits every genre except poetry and loves helping writers improve.

The Women’s National Book Association is now inviting members to participate as volunteer readers for the 2026 Great Group Reads (GGR) program!

As a volunteer, you’ll help the WNBA curate a list of outstanding books for book clubs, libraries, classrooms, and readers nationwide. The final list is shared with booksellers, librarians, reading groups, and literary organizations across the country. As a volunteer reader, you’ll help shape community discussions in the year to come.

Why Participate?

Serving as a Great Group Reads is a rewarding opportunity to:

• Contribute your insight and perspective to a nationally recognized WNBA program
• Help shape a list that reaches readers and book groups across the country
• Enjoy books provided free of charge and shipped directly to your home

What’s Involved?

WNBA members selected as GGR readers are expected to:

• Read approximately 20–25 books between February and July 2026
• Read some titles in e-book format, as not all titles are available in print
• Share thoughtful feedback via a private committee blog

Participants must be WNBA members in good standing, with dues paid by March 2026.

Interested?

If you’d like to participate, or want more details about the process and time commitment, please email ggr@wnba-books.org for more information.

Let’s build a strong, engaged Great Group Reads committee for 2026 and continue WNBA’s tradition of championing excellent books by women authors!