I think I'm going to stick with paper.

So, the disadvantages to an electronic journal would be:
1) that I can't really take my laptop camping with me--at least not on the kind of camping that I enjoy, nor can I just take it out into nature anytime I want without worrying about the battery or about the laptop getting dirty.
2) If I am ever in a position where I am without electricity for an extended period of time a laptop is useless.
3) If my computer is not on at the moment I want to write in my journal my laziness factor could keep me from making an entry.
4) If my hard drive dies, explodes, etc. then I have to worry about having back ups, but there are some advantages to that as well, a paper journal can certainly burn in a fire.
5) There is something organic and particularly pleasing about writing with ink. I like the way that it bleeds onto the page. There is something artistic involved here. Certainly not high art, nor commercial art, as my handwriting is not something you would want the Declaration of Independence written in, but it has its own folksy stamp to it. Again though, the point is that I am doing it for myself, and possibly some really bored progeny; therefore, it falls into the doodling on scratch-paper category of art.
Yeah, I think that I am going to stick with paper.

Blogger Killed the Journal Writer?

For some reason today was the day that I suddenly had a moment of hand-written journal crisis. Meaning that I began to seriously consider making the switch to an electronic journal. Maybe just in a Word Document on my laptop, or something similar. I am currently on volume XI of my old-fashioned, pen-and-ink, love-affair with my own life, and I am starting to get a little frustrated with the medium. It is pretty much the only thing that I hand-write anymore, and I am becoming increasingly aware of how much slower things come out when using just one hand and a pen.

At work I occasionally do transcriptions of 19th century journals, and I am constantly frustrated by one journal writer in particular who is fairly esoteric (he himself being the only initiated) in his handwriting. I then look at my own journal and realize that I am not really one to be calling the kettle its proverbial dark color. Granted, it is likely that not even my children or grandchildren will read more than a page or two of my journal--if that. Still, on the off-chance that they do I would like it to be legible, but since it is the only thing I hand write these days my penmanship is going the way of certain 19th century journals writers that I complain about.

I can see some disadvantages as well though. I think I will have to come back to this dilemma.