When keeping a regular (even daily) journal, some people feel a release of energy they don't have in other writing forms. Because of that, journal keeping can be an important developmental experience for you both as a person and as a writer. Because the journal is private by definition, you can write in it without fear of how an audience might react. No one will ever see it. Not ever-unless you want them to! There are several ways in which keeping a journal can benefit your writing.
1) Your journal will help you to be fluent in your writing. As in anything, the more you do it, the better you are likely to become at it. Swim every day and, after a month, you'll find yourself having become much better--and, after six months, a whole lot better. Writing in your journal regularly, you will get practice time that will serve you well. Your writing will grow to be a more familiar and comfortable experience and you will be more fluent and accomplished with it.
2) Writing in your journal before starting your life writing sessions can be an effective warm-up. Athletes don't start their sport immediately without warming up. Why shouldn't a writer warm up, too? Limber up your writing muscles with a page or two of journal writing.
3) Journal writing will provide you with memories and perceptions that will inform your life stories. If you assure yourself of the journal's absolute inviolability, the inner censor who insists "You can't write that!" will grow less demanding. You will feel freer to write your own feelings and thoughts. Later many of your entries or parts of them can be transcribed into your lifestories as you give yourself permission to tell a different version of your life. In the privacy of the journal, you will grow comfortable with your new "heretical" versions.
Remember: there are few rules in journal-writing (honesty, however, is one of them). You can include journal entries in your life stories (where there are some rules).
Good luck writing your memoir!
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