New Diary and Journal Thoughts
I’ve tried a few times to just create a journal or diary on Day One. Each time I have this feeling that it simply will not work for me. Perhaps Day One is too structured and I have something else in mind for journaling. So I started outlining or working on what my solution would be. I would only use IAWriter for this although I could move to Obsidian if I wanted quite easily since these are just markdown files and links.
My solution or so
Here’s the idea of my system or lack of one.
- I want to just write without controls or dates or locations or weather. This should be random and freeform as possible so I can just write. The date or time or weather or location is not important. I know where I am at some point and the weather and time.
- I want to be able to easily create a file from the one I am working on. Enter wikilinks. If I am typing along on an idea, I want to easily create a file that I could perhaps want to add more details, a photo, a map, some thinking. IAWriter does wikilinks well for me. I just use double brackets and a name inside and hit CMD with the mouse and a new file is created.
- I want it all stored in iCloud so I don’t spend money on storage, encryption, subscriptions and I can access the notes the same way on my iPhone. This is important! I enjoy creating content on both and my iPhone 14 pro also does photography duty.
- I want to embed photos from smugmug which works a treat now. Now large disk space requirements and my library is my library.
- Finally I can easily move all this since it is all just markdown files. I will not use a library application like Drafts or Craft for this. I want the files to exist as files not hidden away in some database.
So what does this give me? Nothing at all. I get to just create how I want or not. No dates or times or requirements to write every day. In fact, no dates or times at all. My life is not governed for the most part by dates or times or schedules. My writing and creation should be too. I also should be able to use the same tool I write blogposts and perhaps other writing on.
Moving along!
Every so often, I will share how this works, how I have modified the system, and what the writing means to me this way. I have no real goals but to have free expression. Not a daily quota or a streak. Linked notes let me create quickly on all platforms. Most of all these are just markdown files on iCloud. It means the data is all you see in the folder. No hidden management or control.
I won’t be posting the contents since I view the thoughts folder as imminently private but I would share with my wife at any time. This is also important to me. She should be able to read this, see how I think and feel, not feel betrayed or uncomfortable, and most of all understand how I create it.
Since it is all markdown and private on iCloud, I can play with just how I link files, create the linkages, see if this system with no dates or times works for me.
What do you think? Are you linked to time and hours and minutes and seconds in your life? Need to have control? I don’t. I lost all that when I retired. Now I just want to create and not worry about control or time or dates.