Journaler's Routine No. 2: Melissa Febos
"There are few moments in a day more peaceful and satisfying than these."
Welcome to the second installment of a new summer series, the Journaler’s Routine, where I’m asking writers and artists from The Book of Alchemy about their private creative rituals.
I loved reading your responses to the first installment and hearing about your own routines. I equally loved hearing from those of you who are searching—as I have been—for a new one.
I keep thinking about these lines from a community member named Noreen: “Sometimes, when I’m weary of my words, I reach out and place a hand on my journal. Yes, acknowledging its vital place in my daily life. Yes, inviting grace of ease. Yes, to the next time pencil meets paper!”
With that, I’d like to introduce you to today’s featured guest: my friend and generous mentor, the award-winning author
. As it happens, Melissa will also be joining me at our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers this Sunday, July 13, from 1 to 2pm ET—I hope you can join us! Paid subscribers will receive the Zoom link the day before. We’ll read and write together, we’ll talk about the journal as a site of personal transformation, and we’ll answer all your questions—so if you have any, please drop them in the comments!And now, Melissa’s routine—
What does your journaling routine look like at its most gratifying? Do you have a favorite place, time of day, or ritual that helps you journal?
I journal all over the place, but my favorite setup is first thing in the morning, at sunrise. If it’s a clear morning, I grab my coffee and take it up to a little room on the second floor of our home in Iowa City, whose window faces due east. I love to write my morning journal entry as the sun rises, coffee in hand, followed by my 20-minute meditation. If it’s an overcast day, I take my coffee into my home office, where I sit on a little sofa facing my bookshelves. There are few moments in a day more peaceful and satisfying to me than these ones.
When did you start keeping a journal? What inspired you to begin?
I have been journaling daily since childhood, and since then it has been an integral part of my creative practice, my mental health hygiene, and my spiritual life. Like many artists, I was a very sensitive and self-aware child, who had lots of thoughts and feelings. The privacy of my journals felt like a sacred and safe space for me to express and explore things that didn’t feel appropriate anywhere else. Because I so firmly established that intimate and honest relationship with my notebooks as a young person, it has really held, across publishing five books of personal nonfiction. It feels so lucky and somewhat miraculous to have retained that sense of privacy. Most of the most meaningful changes and revelations in my life have begun as conversations with myself in my journals. I think best when I externalize my thoughts and it’s difficult for me to integrate experience without writing about it, which is one reason why I am a serial memoirist.
What’s your favorite journal and writing utensil?
Oh I love talking notebooks and pens! I have been through many devotions, but across them all I like a strong binding and flexible cover. Right now, I use Decomposition Notebooks with spiral binding and lined or graph pages for my morning pages, and a slim bendable lined Moleskine for my daily use. I love so many pens, but have an abiding affection for journaling with a good felt-tip pen. I enjoy the classic Le Pen, in purple and green especially. The Pilot G2 is my everyday standby (there are G2s at the bottom of all my tote-bags), but a thicker nib, at least a 5, preferably a 7. Also the Pentel Energel, the Gelly Roll, and the Sarasa Gel Rollerball are favorites.
What role does journaling play in your more public writing? Do you use your journals as source material? Was it a part of your process for The Dry Season?
I always keep multiple notebooks—at minimum, three: one for my morning pages, one for my daily notes and thoughts, and one for whatever book I’m currently writing. The main events of The Dry Season—which describe a year that I spent celibate to do some deep reflecting on my sexual/romantic/spiritual life—took place 7 or 8 years before I wrote the book, so I had to do some considerable research to pin down the details necessary to ground the narrative. My old notebooks were invaluable for this purpose! While I keep my morning pages practice for spiritual and mental health reasons, it does also serve as a handy archive of my daily thoughts and feelings going back almost twenty years; I have a whole cabinet of full composition notebooks.
The notebooks I kept during my celibate year were rich with concrete detail and careful descriptions of my preoccupations during that time: the many pleasures and also conflicts—inner and outer. I also kept a specific journal during that year to record my thoughts and efforts to change my ideals and patterns (both in thought and behavior). I wasn’t planning to write about the experience for publication (the idea would have repelled me, then—it was too vulnerable at the time), but taking notes has always been a crucial part of my learning process, and I was trying to learn how to live differently.
Two things in Melissa’s routine resonated with me. The description of how journaling plays providing a space for externalizing, something in your description clarified for me the value of wring rather than verbalizing. (I’m an explainer - maybe mire to understand myself?)
Loved learning you have multiple journals going at once. I’ve started and stopped so many journals , in part because they served different purposes or times. Having multiples simultaneously for different uses was a wonderful “aha”. Thank you Melissa!
Although journaling has been a part of my life since childhood, currently I have two I’m consistently devoted to: “The Book of Alchemy” (round 2 reading/responding, and my Mom-Son journal (explained last week): During my teacher years, I always put “journals” on my lists of what I like/Wish Lists. So, I was graciously gifted quite a collection of all sorts of journals. I selected two from that collection (still have a box of many). As long as I have a pen (usually a free one from bank, dr. office…), I’m good to go. I love writing in my “Book of Alchemy” journal early morning on my front porch, looking out at the lake. Then late evenings with dim lighting and background music (has truly been Jon’s, five of his CD’s in the CD player) for my Mother-Son journal. Since this is a shared journal with my now 30 yr old son, I respond to his prompt, then add one for him. We usually hand off the journal on weekends when he and his rescue Golden, Tala, come to spend the weekend here at the lake. My writing is for personal purpose only. I suppose journaling for me is to feel connected, and a dose of therapy to stay grounded.