View Full Version : Old School Journaling
Chaco Taco
12-11-2007, 20:17
With technology expanding so rapidly Im thinking of trying to do one thing out there on my thru that may be kinda old school, writing home. Instead of journaling the new way with pocketmail, Im thinking of just writing letters to various people on my list and giving them access to my journal and they can post my letters back to civilization if they want to. Of course Id tell them they have to if I write to them:D . Does anyone still do this???
Since I have not thru'd yet, no, I dont. But I intend to! Currently, I take along paper and pencil and write at night before I go to sleep. I type them all up on TJ once I get home...
Chaco Taco
12-11-2007, 20:27
Yea me too. I dont think I would like having that close contact to civilization. But maybe after a couple of months I would change my tune.
Since I have not thru'd yet, no, I dont. But I intend to! Currently, I take along paper and pencil and write at night before I go to sleep. I type them all up on TJ once I get home...
doggiebag
12-11-2007, 20:30
With technology expanding so rapidly Im thinking of trying to do one thing out there on my thru that may be kinda old school, writing home. Instead of journaling the new way with pocketmail, Im thinking of just writing letters to various people on my list and giving them access to my journal and they can post my letters back to civilization if they want to. Of course Id tell them they have to if I write to them:D . Does anyone still do this???
Old School is still cool :D . My Old school journal is one of the few things that I always took care in making sure was in a zip lock baggie. Though I never sent it or any of it's pages to anyone in the mail. I did my own TJ updates. I did enjoy sending postcards to the friends and family network from all the towns where I resupplied. That's another old school thing to do.
http://whiteblaze.net/forum/vbg/files/1/1/8/9/9/DSCN2501.JPG (http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/vbg/showimage.php?i=20562&original=1&c=newimages&cutoffdate=1)
Chaco Taco
12-11-2007, 20:33
doggiebag- thats awesome
That reminds me... I had a friend who spent several month in Europe (many years ago). He kept a journal (intact) and shared it with me years later... It was very neat to read the personal thoughts of their travels all those years later. TJ is obviousely net based, but a real journal is tangible... something to share and pass down...
Hammock Hanger
12-12-2007, 12:25
That reminds me... I had a friend who spent several month in Europe (many years ago). He kept a journal (intact) and shared it with me years later... It was very neat to read the personal thoughts of their travels all those years later. TJ is obviously net based, but a real journal is tangible... something to share and pass down...
Before I went to pocketmail all of my journals were handwritten. I still look at them today. Mostly of trips with the kids etc. Some days there were just a few thoughts noted. -- When your journal is not public, you feel free to write more personal feelings etc.
Years ago I use to teach a class in journaling. First thing I use to say is write as if NO ONE but you will ever read this. It can be factual as in date, time, place, etc. However, a journal that is more about thoughts and feelings will be more enjoyable to read at a later date and can be very therapeutic.
The online journal is a combination of fact and feeling, however, it is public and some are not comfortable baring all of the inner self with the world. Some journals are pretty close to fiction, written with some fact but a lot of creative writing thrown in as well to keep the "reader" happy. I have a problem with that but each person can write what they see fit.
I do print out my online journal and keep as a printed, tangible journal, it is however, not the same as those I use to hand write and doodle in. Unfortunately my penmanship has gone to hell in a hand basket and by the end of the day I can barely write a paragraph that is legible.
Whichever way you choose, private/online, pocketmail/handwritten, you will cherish the notes in years to come.
Mine are also of the 'old school' journals...but very old school:
http://www.renaissance-art.com/catg16/category.aspx
He now makes a special one just for me, with lighter leather cover and lighter hand-torn pages, and more of them, at the same price as the Medium Leather Journal.
i thought about pocket mail after I discovered there were no notebooks that would suffice on long distance walks but then decided against it. These journals are first of all for me. I may someday wish to relive some of my adventures after i no longer can and i continue to collect these leather-covered treasures..at least to me, anyway. I just wish I had started to do so much sooner than i did!
Footslogger
12-12-2007, 12:56
With technology expanding so rapidly Im thinking of trying to do one thing out there on my thru that may be kinda old school, writing home. Instead of journaling the new way with pocketmail, Im thinking of just writing letters to various people on my list and giving them access to my journal and they can post my letters back to civilization if they want to. Of course Id tell them they have to if I write to them:D . Does anyone still do this???
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That's what I did. Carried a 4 x 6" notepad (just right size for a ziplock) and generally wrote in it every day. About every week and a half or two weeks I sent the pages home. My wife would transcribe them (and upload my photos - which I also sent home via media cards) to Trailjournals.com for me. Ocassionally I would log into Trailjournals myself when I had the time and read over the entries or create one myself just for fun.
Not sure what I'll do next time though. Probably a mix between hand written and self generated e-mail updates.
'Slogger
Chaco Taco
12-12-2007, 21:11
I am probably going to just start a regular journal for my trips. I like the idea of sitting under a tree or on a bald and writing what i see and am feeling. It will be cool on my thru to look back and go back to those moments when I was preparing for the hike to keep me motivated and know why I am really out there. Can see it really helping in those dark times, if they arise.
SGT Rock
12-12-2007, 21:43
I plan to do the mix between mode. What I would like to do when I get back is put together a scrap book with print outs of my on-line, handwriten notes, photos, and any other items from my hike. Something I can sit on the coffee table and re-vist for years to come. My grandmother did this sort of things for years with old hiking trips and camping trips - I love looking back at those things whenever I visit her.
Footslogger
12-12-2007, 23:16
I plan to do the mix between mode. What I would like to do when I get back is put together a scrap book with print outs of my on-line, handwriten notes, photos, and any other items from my hike. Something I can sit on the coffee table and re-vist for years to come. My grandmother did this sort of things for years with old hiking trips and camping trips - I love looking back at those things whenever I visit her.
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Sill have all my chicken scratch pages Rock. They are fun to read through. My wife used to try and figure out my handwriting and sometimes just had to make stuff up. I probably should try and bind them somehow and make some sort of a scrap book. I drew pictures/diagrams of things I saw and thought of ...and that type of stuff never made it into my on-line journal.
'Slogger
Sleepy the Arab
12-14-2007, 23:08
In both 2004 and 2006, I did some old school journaling, both times using a 5.5 x 8.5 in sketchbook. I wrote in it (almost) every night, typically for 30 to 45 minutes. Never sent the pages home.
I don't think I could do pocketmail. There's something about viewing The Words that were written during the journey...gives the journal almost a mystical feel.
I used a weatherproof journal and a space pen on the JMT this year.
http://www.trailjournals.com/photos.cfm?id=258531
Worked pretty well. Lacked the easy editing capability of keyboard composition, though.
Has anyone tried keeping a journal private lately? That is old school.
Sleepy the Arab
12-15-2007, 18:49
Has anyone tried keeping a journal private lately? That is old school.
Yo! Right here, dude.
doggiebag
12-15-2007, 18:58
Has anyone tried keeping a journal private lately? That is old school.
Like Peary, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Magellan, Krakauer?
bigboots
12-15-2007, 21:19
I am only going to keep an old school private TJ for myself. I will send postcards/letters to people but not journal entrys. I plan on using a waterproof geology field notebook (have to put a plug in since I'm a geologist). I don't have the money to get a pocketmail device and also don't want that kind of technology to interfere with my hike. I don't mind if others do it, I just want to hike simply; the only new documenting device I'm getting is a camera.:D
Bigboots
I still treasure the two hardbound, but relatively light weight journals I kept on my thru-hike. It was a chore this past fall, but a fun one, to transcribe them to my online trailjournal. I also spent a few bucks converting many of the slides I took to digital to add to the journal.
I still prefer paper journals. They make great memorablia. And heaven forbid, if TrailJournals.com should ever shut down, I'll still have my journals to pass on to my young ones.
old fashioned cheapo notebook journals for me.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com/journals.jpg
[QUOTE=_terrapin_;474670]old fashioned cheapo notebook journals for me.
If I believe that the event of my journey deserves to be recorded, mostly for me to save to read for myself, and I take the time to do it, then it deserves more than just some spiral-bound cheap Wal Mart booklet to record it in.
http://www.renaissance-art.com/Prod5/Product.aspx
67 bucks! you must be crazy thats more than i paid for my pack haha
67 bucks! you must be crazy thats more than i paid for my pack haha
Suggesting I am crazy might be just a tad callous. But, one's event is worth differing amounts to different folks, or, a little differently, "different strokes for different folks"!
Mine is just worth worth more to me than yours to you, I suppose:)
Suggesting I am crazy might be just a tad callous. But, one's event is worth differing amounts to different folks, or, a little differently, "different strokes for different folks"!
Mine is just worth worth more to me than yours to you, I suppose:)
Years from now, assuming i have them of course, when I pull out my trip journal to reminisce, I had much rather that journal be in the form of a well worn, well used, stained, leather covered treasure with mementos inserted between its inked pages rather than just some beat up 'ole flattened spiral bound notebook I picked up from Wal Mart that likely would be tossed out as trash after I was gone.
But, each to their own...
If I believe that the event of my journey deserves to be recorded, mostly for me to save to read for myself, and I take the time to do it, then it deserves more than just some spiral-bound cheap Wal Mart booklet to record it in.
Perish the thought. I don't shop at Walmart. :D
So, you're saying the memories are worth less because the notebook is from CVS? :rolleyes:
I think that I think better when I write by hand / Old school. Altho I do more writing by typing now, I still like pen to paper for the improtant stuff. On my section hike journals; on trail, I feel "bad" when I make a mistake & can't go back to fix it, but when I get home & read what I wrote a few months or years later, I get a better feel for what I was thinking, or doing & even my mental state from the hadwriting & mistakes that you just can't get from something typed. Of course, as my spelling naturally SUX, & since the computer fixes most of my mistakes for me my spelling is worse, sometimes my handwritten stuff is unreadable years later, but I still prefer doing it "Old Skool".
I've tried to keep a journal of my section hikes on paper. It hasn't worked for me. I absolutely know now what I would do if I thruhiked.
I would use a voice recording device (I have an old tape recorder, but that's old school and has too many moving parts). If I could store my voice recordings and send them to my pc during my town visits (at libraries, most likely), I would go that route. I forget too much by the end of the day, and often I'm too tired, or get to camp in the dark, etc. Not to conducive to writing.
taildragger
12-17-2007, 13:09
I've done a little bit of the older school journaling. I think that I would keep one strictly to myself and maybe very close friends. There are just some things that can happen out there that certain people will probably never want to hear about (like a husband or wife skinny dipping with college aged kids, no harm, but society might not see it that way).
On my hike next summer I'll take a journal and jot down with a pen. I might take some excerpts and mail them home to family and friends, but that would be about it. When I'm done I might put a censored version on the web, and I might share the real thing with my hiking partner when we're done.
Pen and paper is the way to go, it won't crash whenever Y2K finally gets around to getting us
I've tried to keep a journal of my section hikes on paper. It hasn't worked for me. I absolutely know now what I would do if I thruhiked.
I would use a voice recording device (I have an old tape recorder, but that's old school and has too many moving parts). If I could store my voice recordings and send them to my pc during my town visits (at libraries, most likely), I would go that route. I forget too much by the end of the day, and often I'm too tired, or get to camp in the dark, etc. Not to conducive to writing.
small mp3 recorder, mic lashed to pack to pick up your voice. talk to yourself whenever you want...! (just remember to turn it on / off!)
i went this way for awhile when i was cycling and thinking lots about life. bought a cheapo digital note recorder thing. i was usually too out of breath to understand anything i recored. ditched em all - but for walking it could work great. hmm. will have to put something like that on my xmas list my wife asked me to make.
find one with a SD card reader so you can swap out and mail em home.
my digicam allows for 'notes' via the microphone. never tried it...