THROUGH THE WORK I DO to support journaling and memoir writers, I often meet people who want to write about their lives, but who are not really interested in publishing or promoting what they write. They don’t want to write a memoir — a theme-based work about one aspect or […]
I RECENTLY RE-WATCHED Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s 2010 TED talk on “The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory,” which is about the difference between what he calls the “experiencing self” (that part of us that experiences life moment by moment) and the “memory self” (that part of us that remembers our […]
This is the second in a series on moving from memories to memoirs. Click here to read Memories to Memoirs, Part 1. One of the great challenges (and satisfactions) of writing memoir is dealing with fragmented memories. We may remember only a snippet of an event; we may be haunted […]
Our greatest desire, greater even than the desire for happiness, Is that our lives mean something. This desire for meaning is the originating impulse of story. ~Daniel Taylor I believe that everyone’s lives, however “ordinary,” are filled with experiences that speak to universal human experience and are therefore interesting to […]
When my mother left behind a lifetime of letters and journals, she thought it likely that no one would read or care about what she had written. I know because she wrote as much. But she was wrong: I cared, and have read most of what she left behind. Her […]
When you journal about the people in your life, do you take the time to describe their physical appearance and personality traits? Do you write down the gist of conversations? You might think it’s too time-consuming to record these kinds of details. Or, perhaps you feel you know the people […]
As I was in the process of developing my new workshop and soon-to-be course, Journaling for Memoir Writers, I spent time revisiting all the reasons for journaling that reach beyond the cathartic. Not that there’s anything wrong about writing for catharsis—it’s just that journaling often gets pigeonholed, as if it’s […]
Last week’s Brevity Nonfiction Blog article by Sarah Einstein, Weighing Disability and Writing—a blog post about a blog post, which is what I’m doing here—got me thinking about honesty in writing. The original post by Jason B. Dutton on the River Teeth Journal, is about how he worked through questions […]
A wonderful thing happened this week! Eight little ducklings, well hidden under a bush at the base of our house, hatched under the careful care of Momma Mallard. My partner and I had seen Momma around now and then, but until a few days ago, when I accidentally disturbed her […]
TODAY I stumbled upon a blog titled “Extraordinarily Ordinary: Finding happiness and inspiration in everyday things,” and I thought, “Here is a writer after my own heart. That first impression was confirmed when I read Shannon’s recent post, “Writing.” The post was about Shannon’s current struggle with time to write […]
Did you know that journal writing, in addition to helping you make meaning of life’s events, can help improve your communication with others? Whether we’re writing or speaking, our goal is to communicate our thoughts and feelings. When journal writing, you have the freedom to bring up vague ideas and give them definition and form, to surface buried feelings and examine and nurture them into a shape that makes sense.
THIS YEAR I began the habit, at the beginning of each month, of reading my journal entries for the same month of the previous year. It’s so interesting to recall where I was a year ago at this time, to read about my hopes and dreams and fears. I always want to know: Have I made any progress? What was I working on? What was going on for me emotionally? Are there any patterns related to time of year?
