Keeping a journal. It’s the self-help trend that’s been around since the written word — and it’s the technique most often turned into art. When country star Miranda Lambert realized there was no escaping the turmoil and sadness of her divorce from fellow star Blake Shelton, Lambert took the tried and true route to get her through. “I just said, I’m gonna journal it, and — good days and bad days — use it for my art,” Lambert told UPI. And that’s how she built — out of heartbreak and newness and healing — her new album. Fans get a taste of that journal’s contents with a new release this week, a song called “Vice” which will appear on the new album.
From the famous diaries of Samuel Pepys and Anne Frank to Defoe’s grim Journal of a Plague Year and the Louisa May Alcott diaries that produced Little Women — to modern bloggers and Snapchat story makers — keeping a journal has a long and rich history. Lambert’s journal helped her track her feelings and emotions and give them shape so she could mine them for her art.
[Amazon has an entire Journal Writing Self-Help section]
