Journals are unsung heroes, the working stiffs of the creative life. They live in the pockets and shoulder bags of all sorts of people. A birder on a morning walk, the scientist in the field, the film director delayed in a foreign airport, the fashion designer musing over next season’s collection, the teenager avoiding school work. All keep a journal as a trusted confidante or, less romantically, as a reliable workhorse.

What is a journal? When I asked people for definitions, the responses were varied and metaphorical: A habit. A map of consciousness. Internal maps. Memory banks. A one-stop shop. One man who keeps a variety of journals—large-sized ones for recording things of interest from the newspaper, tiny ones that operate as to-do lists, medium ones kept by the telephone for doodling—asked, “Doesn’t everyone keep a journal?”

Journals are kept for multiple purposes, but in most journals I found at least kernels of:

observation

reflection

exploration

creation

purchase Drawing from Life:
The Art of the Journal