Anna, I have a writer's journal. It's more like a file, since that helps puts in scraps of paper and such, but I do keep it to write. I find myself writing on scrap paper more than I do in the book, but I use the book to write writing tips and quotes to keep me going.
Lately, and unusually for me, writing on the computer has been more productive than writing on paper.
I think I've grown as a writer in these past couple months. I took a Composition course, and I was able to write after experiencing writer's block after a long, long time. I learned a lot about style and voice, and I'm looking forward to developing that. Though I'm disappointed by how long I went without writing, in some ways, I think it was good, because I was able to stop writing in the voice that I was previously using and put it under scrutiny to make it more concise and more like what I actually want to write like. But now I have to force myself to practice.
I also expanded my writing goals to more than just novel writing, screenwriting, and poetry; I would like to be a scholarly/academic writer, as well as a non-fiction writer for history, writing, science, and other things that interest me.
However, I'm having a serious Mary Sue problem.
I think it will be a passing phase, given my age, but man, it's irritating. I am trying to create character profiles and write them out in order to avoid fragments of characters. As much as I want to be a writer, I'm currently trying to evaluate my goals in writing--do I have something to write, or do I simply want to "have written"? Prose comes a lot easier than plot for me. I've never written a novel, but I am working on changing that.