A writer has one thing in common with a bookworm: we love paper. If there is a pretty notebook, I have a hard time resisting. Recently, I’m trying a book called The Hero’s Journal. It has been a nice ride, and I absolutely cannot wait to reach the end of it. For now, I’m enjoying filling it out.
For the record, I didn’t receive a free copy of the book for an honest review. A YouTube channel recommended the book for organization and finding a way to gamify different tasks. You get to be the hero of your story, in a magical adventure.
What is my overall impression? I think..this is a decent tool, and adds some fun. There is also less pressure to update every day, though I try to do that anyway.
The Book Itself
In the book, your character is a wizard student with a cat familiar, on a quest for a North Star. You set the task; I’m using Post-Its for that. Your goal is to do well enough and perhaps earn the Victor’s wand. Unknown to you, a mysterious shadow follows, determined to sabotage your progress every step of the way. It can take forms, drop spiders into potions whimsically, and cackle. No spell, lunch, or spate of mushroom gathering is safe.
Each page is black and white, so you can color to your heart’s content. I’ve added splashes of pen tints using a felt pen I received as a gift last year. You get some illustrations that depict the overall story, along with a list of time slots for the day, a daily quest, and some bullet points to list allies and threats. The pages print daily quotes from fantasy characters, that are a word to the wise.
I’m not perfect with updating it. Nor are you supposed to be; if you miss a day, you can add the dates to your convenience. There are days when the quest is not happening.
For the story, I do nitpick that the shadow that keeps following you and making you screw up doesn’t look evil. In fact, it’s quite adorable. I want to pick it up and reassure it that things will be okay. Even when it explodes potions and cackles, I just think about how cute it is.
The gratitude bit also does seem typical for journals. One day I will write a blog on the term that I would prefer in place of “gratitude” for reasons, but for now, I fill it out with a bit of skepticism.
Overall, though? I’m not going to buy the bundle that the marketing tries to convince me to purchase because I want to finish book one first. That means getting to the end, and then waiting for the remainder of the journals when they are available for purchase. I am not going to drop a hundred dollars on a bundle that I won’t use for a year, given that I’ve only filled a quarter of the pages. There is some magic that doesn’t work on people during the holiday season.
