One of the qualities of being a good writer, for example, is being able to imagine things.

I would say this has little to do with being good (vivid) at it. I mean, like writing is not about much about being inspired by the muse and much more about putting in the work, day after day.

Imagination is ideas, and ideas are plenty. I don’t know about you but I can have dozens ideas in a single days of which oftentimes none will survive the first attempt at using them. For me that’s how ideas work: a lot of waste that will get recycled, sometimes very slooowly (I recently used an idea I first wrote down in… 2003, there is little in common between the 2003 note and the actual text I’m writing but at its chore it’s the same idea).

What’s much rarer is an idea turned into something usable/actionable… sharable. The difference between a (great/bad) book one can buy and the best book ever written that no one can buy because its was actually never written is that one author put in the work, the other thought about it ;)

I think Journaling can help a lot in making writing an actual habit (it cna also help putting some order in our own thoughts, but that’s not the point). As for imagination, I don’t think it helps much, at least it doesn’t help me much as for me a journal is supposed to tell things that have happened in the day. Not things I imagine. Those would be put into stories.

I stumbled on this post in my all feed. I don’t journal and don’t think I can contribute meaningfully but still feel like contributing a deadpan:

No. I have aphantasia.

lol

I think there’s a difference between creativity and imagination. Creativity, an ability to produce unique solutions to problems, is important for writing. Without creativity, one could vividly imagine routine, common, mundane things, which might make for accurate writing, but not necessarily interesting writing. Like instructions for assembling a piece of furniture.

IMO - journaling helps you with your ability to express yourself. It doesn’t, IMO, help with imagination in all cases. Imagination means that you are able to picture something that isn’t present. If you’re writing about things from your past, say an incident you were part of, then no you are not using your imagination.

However, if you are writing about something that you want to create, then you are using your imagination.

I think the key here is that you are writing about something that doesn’t exist. Something that you either wish did exist, and are describing it in a fairly detailed manner (how it looks, feels, functions, etc.). That is where imagination comes into play.

But, even if you aren’t writing about something that doesn’t exist, you can still be accomplishing a lot with your journaling. For example, I’ve been going through a lot of memories from my past. As I’ve gone through those memories I’ve had some interesting thoughts about how I perceived things at the time, versus how I perceive them now.

You also can find new ways of expressing yourself. There are things that as I have written about them in my journal, I’ve writing about them in ways that I wouldn’t have written about them in a more public setting. However, now I find that some of those expressions are starting to come through in my public writing — and it’s for the better.

I typically associate “vivid” with intense visualizations, and I have a hard time visualizing things distinctly. I’m ok at imagining narratives and characterizations and “slice of life” analyses that become creative works, but I wouldn’t describe them as “vivid” imaginings.

Personally, I don’t think imagination or its vividness has much to do with the task of journaling. For me, journaling is more like a chronicle that (sometimes) becomes a source for creative work, rather than a creative outlet itself. I don’t think you have to be very imaginative to be a good chronicler. I think trying to be “good at writing” in my journals is what made it so hard to do for a long time. Once I just let myself be mundane and boring, journaling got a lot easier.