Writer’s Tip: Invisible Journaling

Journaling helps me process.

But occasionally there’s something I need go write about that I just can’t let other people happen across. For a variety of reasons. 

Rather than burning the paper or shredding it or coming up with some creative (and potentially ineffective) way to destroy my writing after it’s been written, I use a habit that destroys the legibility in the beginning.

Here’s how to do “invisible journaling.”

​Start with a shape, approximately  the size of your fist: a square or triangle or blob or whatever… just make sure it’s relatively small and that you’re relatively wordy.
Begin by filling the shape with one row of text. You can write big or small, serious thoughts or song lyrics… just get that page covered in text.

Then turn the whole page a quarter turn, and fill the shape with text. By now the writing is decently obscured so you can write anything you like. 

By the third turn of the page, you’re home free. Keep writing and overwriting until you have a hot tangled mess of text that no one else can read. 

You can even be fancy and write heavier on the outside to give some shading, like I did. And presto, your secrets are sealed from the start! Plus, the end product creates a nice texture to work with.

What kinds of journaling techniques do you use? How do you process and write?