When I was in grade school at the Toronto French School, I had an English teacher named Mr. Hoad (spelt correctly, I hope) who used to make us all keep a journal. We were supposed to write something in it everyday. No exceptions. It could be on any topic. We just had to write. And we did this for years.
Well, it just dawned on me that two decades later, I’ve come back to daily writing. I hadn’t consciously drawn the parallel until a friend mentioned to me that she used to “keep a journal”, but now it seems obvious.
Of course this journal is much more public than the one I used to have (and I had volumes of them). This one is designed to provoke interaction and engagement. Journals are a great way to work through thoughts in your mind, but today technology has made them amazing forums for discussion.