The Journal Newsletter
Introduction
Happy Mothers Day! Welcome to Spring (or Autumn, or maybe the dry season, depending on where you are)!
It’s already May, and this is only the second newsletter of the year. Hard to believe, but the calendar in The Journal assures me this is the case.
For the near future, at least, I’ll be doing the monthly writing prompts. Susan wanted to take a break. Besides the writing prompts, we have a couple of new tips, and Tracye Gano describes how she uses The Journal.
Thank you for choosing DavidRM Software’s The Journal!
Tips & Tricks
TIP: Menu Options
By default, The Journal’s menus function much like those of Microsoft Office. That is, they “remember” the commands you use most, and move those to the front of the list, and hide the less often used commands.
If this isn’t something you consider a “feature” (and many don’t), you’ll be happy to hear that you can turn off that behavior.
1. Right-click on The Journal’s main menu bar, and choose “Customize…”
2. Bring up the “Options” tab.
3. Un-check the “Menus show recently used commands first” option.
If you want to keep the feature active, but want to reset the remembered commands, click on the “Reset Usage Data” button.
TIP: How to Use The Journal on a USB/Flash Drive
The Journal 4 can be installed and run on USB/flash drives. This provides a simple way for you to have The Journal available to you on just about any computer with Windows and a USB connector.
Here’s how:
1. Install The Journal to the USB drive. You will need to override the default installation path. Type in the path or browse to the folder on the USB drive that you want to use.
2. The first time you run The Journal on the USB drive, in the New User Wizard, specify that you are “Using The Journal on a USB/Flash drive”. This will create your “The Journal Volumes” folder as a sub-folder of The Journal’s installed folder.
(NOTE: You can change the defaults, but make sure that the path you enter uses the relative path format. If you’re not sure what that means…just accept the defaults. =) )
And that’s it, really. If you want to transfer an existing Journal Volume onto the USB drive, use The Journal’s backup and restore feature. Do the backup from the install of The Journal that you had before (the one on your computers main hard drive), and then do the restore from The Journal on the USB drive.
TIP: Blog Posting from TJ4 with Text Wrapping Around Images
Christian Gamrat has created a tip for getting the text of your blog posts to wrap around embedded images using the new HTML passthrough style feature and the HTML <style> tag. You can read about that here:http://cgamrat.free.fr/wordpress/?p=25
Writing Prompts
Free Writing Exercise – Write for 20 minutes using the following as your starter: “Yelling with meaning”
Journaling Exercise – Have you been more demanding on yourself lately? Or less? Why? And do you think it’s a good trend?
Memoir Prompt – Describe how you stayed in touch with your loved ones before you got a cellphone and/or email. Do you talk to them more now, or less?
How I Use The Journal
Editor’s Note: The Journal is used by people from all over the world, from many nations, representing a variety of personal, professional, and religious backgrounds. Journaling is by definition an intensely personal undertaking, so it should not be surprising that when someone writes about how or why they keep a journal that they will end up sharing personal information. The Journal Newsletter does not support any particular personal or religious lifestyle, but rather attempts to support anyone who keeps a journal, for whatever reason they do so. Thus, the views and opinions expressed in “How I Use The Journal” are solely those of the submitter and not necessarily the views of DavidRM Software. Whether you agree with the submitter’s views or not, I encourage you to read the article and glean from it the information and techniques that “ring true” for you.
by Tracye Gano
The road to journaling started when I was a young girl. I wrote many pages of journaling as a young girl. That was before the perfectionist in me took it’s strangle hold on a deep rooted desire and pretty much put the light out on writing.
In the past few years I have had a desire, a need to write. I have joined various online writing classes. I have tried to write with a pen and paper. Every time I sat to write I found a wall. Writers block is what I suppose you would call it. I have read books on writing, bought magazines; to get past the writers block.
I believe when you have deep down desire to do something, you will continually look for ways to make that a reality. I have read magazines about journaling as a way to put thoughts down in writing. I have tried as an adult to journal with pen and paper. I have always hit that wall but I have never been able to rid myself of the still small voice that has said I need to write. I decided to go on a search for something that was convenient to use and had a level of privacy that paper and pen did not afford me. I believe that I hit the wall because the ever present perfectionist is not ready to let others read what I have written. The solution for me was an electronic journal I could password protect. Through that online search I found The Journal program. I downloaded the trial version, and the rest as they say is history.
I have been using The Journal to write daily thoughts. It has been a great way to track moods, brainstorms, etc. Journaling has allowed me to put negative thoughts down and then let them go. There is something therapeutic about getting them out of your head and onto the paper. It is a great way to release something and move on.
I have begun to keep a log of sentences for future use in a book. I am using The Journal to put ideas down for future writing. I have found journaling to be the best way to organize my thoughts and writing. This particular program has a lot of things you can use to do that. The daily journal is where I write the thoughts and events of the day. The notes section is where I am organizing my book to be. I like the added templates that come with this program. The writing prompts are a huge help for me. The memory grabber is also a great way to prompt writing that has otherwise eluded me. The Journal program has so much to offer that I did not have with pen and paper.
I don’t care if another soul ever reads anything I write; I have finally found a way to let the words flow.
Journaling is changing the way I view my creativity. I am beginning to see so many ways a journal will be beneficial. I plan to start using my journal for my sewing projects and other creative things that I like to do. It is a wonderful way to keep track of ideas, jot down problems to be solved later. More than anything it is a way to be free of a wall I have hit more times than I care to number.
Whether you use an electronic journal like The Journal or pen and paper, keeping a journal is something I believe everyone needs to try. Everyone has a story to tell. It may be a life story it may be the next light bulb idea, whatever it is; writing daily will help draw that out. I am finding journaling to be a personal time of growth. I am looking forward to a long and creative road of ideas and thoughts.
Submission Information
If you would like to contribute to the “How I Use The Journal”, “Writing Exercises”, or “Tips & Tricks” sections, or would like to submit an article about journaling, writing, or another The Journal-related topic, we would love to hear from you.
Submissions for the newsletter should be sent to: support@davidrm.com
If you are submitting for a particular section, please indicate which one. Try to limit your submissions to 500-1000 words. Submissions may be edited for length and content.
If you prefer to remain anonymous, please state this in the email. Otherwise your name (but not your email) will be used in the article heading.
As always, if you have any suggestions for, or bug reports about, The Journal, please feel free to email them. Both are always welcome.