This week, for your reading and thinking pleasure, I’ve brought together some recent blog articles on the topics dear to this site (and my heart): journaling and memoir.
About Journaling
I’ve written in the past about the power of Journal Writing for catharsis and healing. And I’ve written about how to use your journal for memoir writing. QuinnCreative’s post, Forget it? Remember it! Journaling Does Both, presents a range of journaling benefits in clear and simple terms.
Mari McCarthy’s blog, CreateWriteNow, focuses on the therapeutic benefits of journaling. In this post, she gives great advice for how to write yourself out of a bad mood …
There truly is no end to the many ways journal writing can be used. Here is yet another, powerful idea: Keep a Career Journal.
And then, there’s just the simplicity of writing for writing’s sake—the joy in expressing on paper the thoughts and feelings, questions and revelations that life brings on a day to day basis.
About Writing Your Memoir
Many journal writers also write novels, articles, essays, and memoir. If you’ve ever written or considered writing your memoir, read Wendy Welch’s post, Me-me-me Memoirs, in which she asks—and answers—”So what makes a memoir good?”
Answering a related question—Is Writing Your Memoir a Good Idea?—Gayle Martin at the The Good Oak Press insists that if you’re just an ordinary person with an ordinary life, people won’t be interested in your story. I strongly disagree with her argument that unless you’re famous or have overcome some extraordinary obstacle your life is uninteresting. Everyone has overcome obstacles, and everyone has a story that will resonate with others. Whether people want to read your story or not has as much to do with how you tell it, as the story itself. Good writing can make the construction of a peanut butter sandwich interesting.
Think your story doesn’t matter to anyone but you? Read these inspiring mini-memoirs, 99 Tiny Stories, and think again.
If you’ve decided to begin or are already working on your memoir, you’ll want to check out this HuffPost Books article revealing 10 Secrets of Successful Memoir Writers.
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If you know come across articles and blogs relevant to journaling and memoir that you’d like me to review for a future BlogTalk, please email the links to me using my contact form.
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Image Credit: Marc Wathieu
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I read your blog regularly, and always enjoy it. And today, since I wrote about writing, I gave you a Bean’s Pat on my blog, which is usually about my travels with my dog, Maggie. I appreciate all the great effort you put into your blog.
Thanks, Pat, for your encouraging and complimentary comment 🙂