20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Creative Writing Journal review, July 13, 2009
This review is from: Creative Journal Writing: The Art and Heart of Reflection (Paperback)
As an editor I get tired of asking my authors to practise their writing. Some like to play the victim, `But I don't have the talent. It just doesn't come easy.' And I have to remind them: even the writing of seasoned writers doesn't always come easy. As with any skill people have to practise. In my mind there's no such thing as a natural-born writer. Or if there is, it's only because they've written thousands of pages, and they now finally write with ease.
Many of my would-be writers purchase books about publishing. They favour titles such as How to Get Published or How to Get off the Slush Pile. As an editor and writing teacher I never suggest such books. For good reason.
This is because getting published to me is like coming to the end of a very long road. You have to get bindies in your feet and collect experience along the way, before you get to your destination. And to state the bleeding obvious, to be a writer you have to write. And you have to write a lot before your sentences sparkle.
But many authors have trouble getting past the first page. They often say to me, `But this is going to be my magnum opus, my Great Australian Novel.' No wonder they fail! From page 1 they place enormous pressure on themselves to write this great thing. If I had a dollar for every poem, short story or novel that I read starting with `The white page is mocking me' I'd be sporting diamond-encrusted flip-flops, sunning myself on the beaches of the Mediterranean.
This is why I often suggest to authors that they read and work through Stephanie Dowrick's Creative Journal Writing. Dowrick challenges people (not just writers) to reframe that blank page as an invitation. She calls it `a door or window opening or falling away'.
Once people see the page as a place to free emotions and thoughts, new adventures can arise. Then you no longer have to be the writer, the great composer, the brilliant anything. You can just be yourself. In a journal the writing is not for publication, competition, or public consumption.
Journal writing is the perfect place to start your journey.
But what do I write about? You may be crowded with a thousand thoughts. Or perhaps you put your pen down, and then your mind turns to mush. Dowrick's book is filled with ideas for writing, topics, tricks, ideas. Each chapter contains simple exercises that any person can do. So for example Dowrick includes a free-association exercise. She offers up the suggestions of catching a lift and focussing on a smell: perhaps someone walking in with a coffee, or someone is wearing your aunt's favourite perfume. What do these smells evoke in you? What memories do they bring up?
When you read Dowrick's book you realise that it's no longer just you and the blank page mocking you. She presents a whole host of ideas that would spark even the most unimaginative person to fill a book.
If you're going to write for others you first need to write for yourself. Throughout the book Dowrick entreats us to `retire the inner critic', which I think is sound advice indeed. Too many people I find, start to write novels then get bogged down in the first few chapters. They go back, edit them, go back again, edit them some more. Then they simply can't move on. (I have shelved two books in this way, so trust me, I know what I'm talking about.) When writing a journal, there's no need to go back and edit. It is what it is, how you were feeling at that time, in that place.
Dowrick writes, `Journal writing is all about process - not goals or outcome. It is freeing - not constraining ... how you write, what you write, matters only to you. You are writing to please no one but yourself. Celebrate!'
Sometimes I hear people say that if you want to learn about good journal writing you should read the greats like Anais Nin. I think this kind of argument is deeply faulted. Most ordinary people are not inspired by great writers to write. They simply fold up their laptop and think well, it has already been done, and how! They get trapped in that inner critic, the self-talk that says `you'll never be as good as her'.
But Dowrick's book is not like that. It's inspirational, easy-to-read and practical. It tells anyone who opens its pages, `You can do this.' It does at times touch on great writers and their examples, but it does not cower in their presence.
Dowrick uses the journal writings of everyday people to show that not only great writers keep journals. People keep them for very ordinary reasons, to get over a break up, to help them get through each day. In the hardest moments a diary or journal can be like a friend, listening without judgment, helping ideas evolve, helping heal the pain felt through life's injustices. Dowrick celebrates the ordinary, as well as extraordinary.
In the end we feel that writing is not just the province of the great novelist or the story teller. You and I can go there, and we can potentially create something wonderful. But at the same time if we just produce something ordinary, but it helps us in other ways, this can be beneficial too. It doesn't really matter in the end. Journal writing can be a means and an end within itself. No more trying, no more striving. Just you and the page and Dowrick's exercises.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Creative Journal Writing, March 30, 2009
This review is from: Creative Journal Writing: The Art and Heart of Reflection (Paperback)
I will have to admit that I am a much better reader than I am a writer. Reading has always been my love. I have tried to keep a journal, but have never been very good at following through with it. This book may be my turning point.
Stephanie Dowrick has put together a book that will help even the most reluctant journaler, like me. She divides the book into 5 parts: Getting Started, Free to be Creative, Writing the Facts, Your Life in Your Journal, and Putting it all Together. Throughout the book are excerpts from other journals, so that you can really see what it is she is talking about. It's one thing to read about it, but another to see a real-life example. Also scattered throughout the book are timely writing quotes.
At the very beginning of the book is a half page note from Stephanie titled, How to use this book. I think it's pertinent to share with you.
"One of the essential ingredients of creative journal writing is freedom: freedom from judgments, freedom to write as you wish and only about what interests you. How you will use this book is, necessarily, entirely up to you. But my humble suggestion is that you first read it through like a conventional book, stopping only if an exercise here or there grabs you by the ankle and pulls you to the ground. Stop here. If that doesn't happen, experience the ideas and the many wonderful stories as a whole, and only then go back to work your way through it far more personally, engaging with all the exercises that you want, at the pace you want, and in the way you want.
Pleasure is the other essential ingredient of journal writing . So use this book in the way that will give you the most pleasure: reading, writing, pausing, setting aside, returning, all at a pace and in a rhythm entirely of your own making.
The way she suggests is exactly the way I approached this book. I simply read for pleasure, taking in all the stories, key principles, suggestions, instructions, etc. My goal now, is to go back, a little at a time, and take it all in as I put the suggestions, hints, and ideas into practice in my own journal. Included with the review copy of this book was my very own Creative Writing Journal, but any journal you choose could be used.
My favorite part of this book were the 125 possible topics to write about. Stephanie suggests instinctively choosing a number between 1 and 125 and just writing about it, whether you like it or not. I will definitely be going to the list more than once as I embark on my journaling expedition.
Creative Journal Writing is a great way to get started with journaling, or a way to dig deeper into your journaling experience. Whether or not you're a writer, I encourage you to give it a try. You never know, you might like it!
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Creativity=freedom in these pages, May 18, 2009
This review is from: Creative Journal Writing: The Art and Heart of Reflection (Paperback)
Writing should be at least as pleasurable as reading and yet for so many people it isn't. This is a book that seems set to bring back some of the joy in writing that many would-be everyday writers have lost. It is filled with stories, exercises, writing games, humor and insight across all the many areas of journal writing. It is particularly strong on how to write "freely" in ways that I know would help other kinds of writing - creative and "workplace". The author has taught writing and worked in publishing for many years and is a successful writer herself. She is confident that virtually everyone can learn to write more expressively. Given how stuck, forced or dried up many would-be writers feel out here in the real world, these liberating writing techniques are essential to what most us seem to want to discover. This book is about finding "your own voice"- and trusting it.
Creativity = freedom in these pages. More important to my mind is that it is journal writing in particular
that more than any other kind of writing will let you discover your own voice and your own way to write and express without fear of any outer or inner critic telling you how you should be writing. I loved the variety of experiences shared here. The many quotes are mostly from ordinary journal writers whose snapshot views of the world and of the place of journal writing within it vary from Dieter who sees his life through numerical correspondences (amazing number sequences), to Jessica, who uses her journal as a way out of the prison of panic attacks, Michele, an artist with Crohn's disease whose journal writing helps in managing chronic illness and Helen who writes of the solace that journal writing has given her following a marriage breakdown. There are also many examples of using your journal to help you make decisions and review options and generally for "left-brain" strategies, planning etc. I particularly appreciated this! Others may love the sections on
learning to record and "see" your own spiritual story.
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