Photo by Julie Jordan Scott Journaling is one of the most intensely personal activities you can indulge in and one of the most powerful self-care ones, plus it's a gold mine of material for memoirists. Because it is so personal, there is no right way to do it, but many beginners still have questions. Below are a few of the most common. Do I have to write by hand? No. There is some evidence that writing by hand slows your thinking to an orderly pace, giving meditative-like benefits, but the edge is slight. If you are able to catch the ...

 My muse, SarabelleMost of us have good friends. Some people have best friends. A fortunate few of us have super friends. I’m one of the fortunate ones. A couple of days ago I wrote a blog entry on A Los Alamos Girlhood about a discussion with a super friend. She has the amazing ability to pick up on things, and lay her observations on the table. She doesn’t back off either, until she’s satisfied her curiosity. Or unless I tell her I’d rather not discuss something, which has been known to happen. In the case I wrote about, she picked up on ...

 My muse, SarabelleMost of us have good friends. Some people have best friends. A fortunate few of us have super friends. I’m one of the fortunate ones. A couple of days ago I wrote a blog entry on A Los Alamos Girlhood about a discussion with a super friend. She has the amazing ability to pick up on things, and lay her observations on the table. She doesn’t back off either, until she’s satisfied her curiosity. Or unless I tell her I’d rather not discuss something, which has been known to happen. In the case I wrote about, she picked up on ...

Neuroscience is now validating what journal writers have known for ages: writing makes you feel better. Brain researcher Matthew Lieberman does cutting-edge research in the UCLA Social-Cognitive Neurosciences lab, and although his primary focus is on language in thinking, much of it has fascinating implications about the possibility of using various forms of writing to reframe the way we view the world. Here’s a thumbnail summary of his overall findings: When our brain is running on auto-pilot, the amygdala and basal ganglia (X system, for refleXive) sort input with ...

"Writing without shadow has no depth." I wish I had written down the source of that quote. It reminds me of the importance of including dark notes in my memoir along with the bright ones. It's so tempting to leave out those times when we didn't get the prize, when we were the last one chosen, didn't have a date for Homecoming, or felt despair of every finding love. Those are not fun stories to remember, much less to write, and not ones we generally care to share. The graphic above says it all. Simple facts make a bland story. Adding some detail may brighten it up and ...

I know the rules about using quotation marks. Capital Community College’s grammar website pulls no punches: In the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic. They go on to explain: There are peculiar typographical reasons why the period and comma go inside the quotation mark in the United States. The following explanation comes from the "Frequently Asked Questions" file of alt.english.usage: "In the days when printing used raised bits of metal, "." and "," were the most delicate, and were in danger of damage (the face of the ...

Who doesn't love to get an award? It's even more fun when you didn't know you were in the running. So I was delighted to check my inbox yesterday and discover that The Heart and Craft of Life Writing has been honored by being selected as one of the top 50 creative writing blogs by Awarding the Web.com.  I especially appreciate this award because I don't have to nominate five or seven other people. Unless you are among the first to receive an award, it's often a challenge to find others who have not already received it.  Thank you to them, and to their generous ...

In an idle moment I sit staring at my finger. Wasn't there a scar on that one? Where a slipping putty knife I'll spare you the details. The point is that I had to look long and hard to find a trace of that ugly scar from not all that many years ago. I turn my attention to my knees. One puckery scar from early girlhood is still there, much smaller now than it was fifty some years ago, and the other is gone entirely. Once upon a time I recalled the occasions on which I skinned those knees, even to the perverse pleasure of picking at the scabs until they eventually flaked off to reveal ...

Last week a friend sent me a link to Belief-O-Matic, a fun quiz on Beliefnet that features twenty multiple choice questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature and related beliefs. It’s programmed to compare your pattern of responses to beliefs of 27 different religions. It generates a report showing how closely your beliefs align with each faith. The e-mail included a report of her top ten matches. To my amazement, her top one was Neo-Pagan. Wow! I thought. She publicly admits to being pagan? Then I stopped to examine my response. It was ...

I woke up this morning thinking I wrote a lot yesterday and the day before. I don’t have anything to say today. I can skip it. I don’t have to write everyday. I want to get back to my manuscript. I need to make nametags for the new class today.    In short, I itched to do anything but write in my journal. I’ve been lax about journaling lately. It’s so easy when I’m on fire with a new idea or picking at a knot of understanding. Other days it feels in the way. How easy it would be to fall away from the practice, and I don't want that ...

The line between fiction and lifestory or memoir is finely drawn and permeable. The main difference is that our characters  and events come ready-made. and we have an obligation to portray them truly. That truth is shaped by the way we transfer them from memory to page, and that involves both heart and craft. Our heart shapes the slant of our stories. Craft fleshes them out for the benefit of readers. In general, fiction writers have taken the lead in the area of craft.   In my most recent post I mentioned K.D. Weiland’s blog, WORDplay. Aside from her rich array of ...

A friend forwarded me a link to a post on K.M. Wieland’s most awesome blog, WORDplay. The post, titled Should Stories Be Soapboxes, addresses the possible pitfalls of writing stories for the purpose of converting others to your line of thinking, whether that be religious, political, or philosphical. K.M.’s work is primarily addressed to writers of fiction, but it applies equally well to life story and memoir writing, and I urge you to enjoy the richness of her offerings. Lots of people may read this post and wonder, “Am I guilty of this?” or “How ...

My extended break from this blog lasted longer than anticipated, but I'm back at the keyboard. I am working on the new WordPress version, but that’s turning into a more complex project that I’d envisioned. I like WordPress so much that I want to use it for my whole website, and I have not yet discovered how to set everything up “behind a curtain” and then flip a switch to swap the old for the new. Meanwhile, dozens of juicy blog topics have come and gone so we’ll continue here for now and I’ll make the switch very soon. This experience of ...

After four hundred posts on this blog, I need a break. I'm "going to the beach," figuratively if not literally, until mid-June. While I'm away, I invite you to browse through the archives. There is something here for anyone. Use the search field at the very top left corner to find a collection of posts on nearly any aspect of life writing.  I will be checking email and welcome questions. And who knows Sarabelle whispers insistently, I may even pop in a post or two. But mostly I'll be working on some urgent projects that require my current attention. Keep those fingers ...

In my last post, I mentioned best-selling author Tawni O’Dell’s observation that reading is the best way to improve your writing. In line with that advice, I read piles of memoirs. I recently read two memoirs written by authors three decades younger than I, and at first I found them disconcerting. In general and compared to my own, the younger generation has a rather cavalier attitude toward sex, living together out of wedlock, and unwed parenthood, so it’s no surprise that such topics are openly covered in memoir in ways sometimes approaching reality television. I was ...