thoughts on journaling

I was just curious when you do journaling on a page about yourself do you do it as if you were talking like using we or me or do you do it in the third person like using your name or they? I think i tend to start in the third person then switch sometimes to the first person. I wonder what is better for people in the future to read.

Great question! I've thought about this many times. I think it depends on how personal your writing is. Do what works for you. I've used a diary format when the journaling is intimate.

Yes. I use first person writing. My scrapbook is personal.

It's telling "our story" so I keep it in 1st person.

Unless I'm attempting to scrap about someone else, I use 1st person. It's my page and my point of view, so I tend to write my thoughts.

If it's something I did alone, I typically use "I". Sometimes I sign my name at the end, if I have my husband write journaling from his perspective for a page, I always have him sign his name to it (or attribute him at the end if I end up typing and printing it). Most of what I scrap is things we've done as a couple, so then I use "we", the first person plural, and refer to us individually by name when our experiences differ ("We stopped at Tower Grove Creamery on our way through town; Aaron had an Oreo pie and Andrea had tiger tracks ice cream.").

Not sure what I'll do with journaling as I start scrapping about my baby daughter.

I also do mine as if I'm writing in a journal. I refer to myself as "I" and my husband as "Bill" and together it is "We" or "Us".

Everyone knows that I am the one doing the writing and making the scrapbooks. Whenever I say we went somewhere - "Bill and I went out to dinner. He had fried clams and I had coconut shrimp."

It is consistent in all of my books.

• Vivian Lake Said:

THIS!

I use both 1st person and 3rd person. Just depends on what/who the lo is about. 2nd person is a bit strange but I could see how it could be useful in some circumstances.

I generally do LOs in the first person. If it's one about me and DH, the I refers to me. However, for my daughters baby book I've been writing it as if the "I" is her, and I refer to me and DH as "mommy and daddy".

I did the very same thing on our first granddaugther's baby book. Wrote it as if she were writing it.

I have a beautiful nursery that mommy and daddy painted teal with mermaids and sea creatures on my wall. So bright and colorful. I know I will be happy in this room....

Mommy calls me her Honey Bear and daddy calls me the Governess. He says that is because a governess is a teacher and I'm already teaching him things even though I was just born last week...

Other wise, I write the books so I am "I" and "me".

I do most of my journaling on the computer. When making the page I leave space or include a pocket for the words.
When I've completed the album I go thru it a page at a time and imagine explaining each page to an imaginary person, making notes in order to develop the text.
It seems my left brain determines the structure of the page, and my right brain deals with the look, feel and descriptions. The two sides don't always get along, so there are issues in the development of an album sometimes.
It may be a little weird, but as long as I stay on my meds and don't cause a scene I am allowed to wander about.

Don, you never fail to make me smile!

I imagine that my audience is a yet-to-be-born grandchild, and tell the story accordingly. If I'm writing about something I was involved in, I use I/we. If I'm writing about something I wasn't involved in/didn't do, I use third person. I don't think I've ever written in second person, come to think of it.

I've noticed at times i've switched in the middle of a paragraph from 1st to 3rd. i need to work on that :}

1st person. I treat it like I am talking to someone or telling a story.

I also write it as 1st person. I have done a few camping trips when I have stepped back and wrote it as I was an abserver of what was going on useing names.

I write in 1st person when it is about me, in the books of my children or dh I switch.

• don1 Said:

Oh gosh Don you just described my brain so well. I am so glad to know I am not alone. :). This is exactly how I approach things.

1st person always. like others have said, i'm really scrapbooking for me, so i wrote like i would a journal. it's the only journal i keep now that i think about it.

On front of layouts I give some details but if I have something to say I do it on computer and tape it to the back of the layout. Might be a fun surprise to my kids after they inherit albums.